Sharpman bowed himself gracefully out, and walked briskly down the
street, with a smile on his face. The execution of his scheme had met,
thus far, with a success which he had hardly anticipated.

* * * * *

Every one about Burnham Breaker knew Bachelor Billy. No one ever knew
any ill of him. He was simple and unlearned, but his heart was very
large, and he was honest and manly to the marrow of his bones. He
had no ties of family or of kin, but every one who knew him was his
friend; every child who saw him smiled up instinctively into his face;
he was a brother to all men. Gray spots were coming in his hair, his
shoulders were bowed with toil, and his limbs were bent with disease,
but the kind look never vanished from his rugged face, and the kind
word never faltered on his lips. He went to his task at Burnham
Breaker in the early morning, he toiled all day, and came home at
night, happy and contented with his lot.

His work was at the head of the shaft, at the very topmost part of the
towering breaker. When a mine car came up, loaded with coal, it was
his duty to push it to the dump, some forty feet away, to tip it till
the load ran out, and then to push it back to the waiting carriage.
Michael Maloney had been Billy's assistant here, in other years; but,
one day, Michael stepped back, inadvertently, into the open mouth of
the shaft, and, three minutes later, his mangled remains were gathered
up at the foot. Billy knew that Michael's widow was poor, with a
family of small children to care for, so he came and hired from her
a part of her cottage to live in, and took his meals with her, and
paid her generously. To this house he had taken Ralph. It was not an
elegant home, to be sure, but it was a home where no harsh word was