The coal dust around one door shows that the fires are there; a cavernous place, suddenly letting a lurid glow out upon the night, and then black again. It is only a narrow alley through the building, making sure of a good draft; on one side are the piles of coal, and on the other a row of furnace doors. The stoker is sitting on a heap of cinder. He is only an old man, a little stooping, with a head that is turning ashes color; his eye is faded, and his face nearly expressionless, while he sits perfectly still on the heap, as if he were a part of the engine which turns slowly in a shed adjoining and pants through its vent in the roof. He has been sitting there so long that he has a vague notion that his mind has somehow gone out of him into the iron doors and the rough coal, and he only goes round and round like the engine. Yet he never considered the matter at all, any more than the engine wanted to use its own wheel, which it turned month after month in the same place, to propel itself through the world; just so often he opened and shut each door in its turn, fed the fires, and then sat down and sat still. He was looking at a boy of six, asleep at his feet on a pile of ashes and cinder, which was not so bad a bed, for the gentle heat left in it was as good as a lullaby, and Shakspeare long ago told us that sleep has a preference for sitting by hard pillows. The child was an odd bit of humanity. An accident at an early age had given it a hump, though otherwise it was fair enough; and now perhaps society would have seen there only an animal watching its sleeping cub. Presently the boy woke and got on his feet, and began to walk toward the cold air with short, uncertain steps, almost falling against a furnace door. The old man jumped and caught him. 'Ta, ta, Nobby,' he said, 'what's thou doin'? Them's hotter nor cender. Burnt child dreads fire--did knowst 'twas fire?' He had a sort of language of his own, and his voice was singularly harsh, as if breathing in that grimy place so long had roughened his throat. 'There, go, Nobby, look thee out an' see howst black she is. Ta, but it's hawt,' and he rubbed his forehead with his sleeve; 'it's a deal pity this hot can nawt go out where's cold, an' people needin' it. Here's hot, there's cold, but 'twill stay here, as it loved the place 'twas born--home, like. Why, Net, that thee?' There was no door to the place to knock at or open, but the craunch of a foot was heard on the coal outside, and a girl came in, moist and shivering. The stoker set her down in a warm corner, and looked at her now. 'Is thee, my little Net?' he repeated. 'Yes, and I've brought your breakfast, father; 'twas striking six before I come in.' 'Too early, my girl, sleep her sleep out. Here's hot an' cosey like, an' time goes, an' I could wait for breakfast, till I'm home. I'll nawt let my little girl's sleep.'