Paddy screwed up his eyes and recognised Mr Dumas, the owner of the blacking factory. Straightening up he tipped his cap to the man.

‘How old is the girl?’

Paddy wasn’t sure how old she was. That was women’s knowledge. Women remembered everything and passed it on to other women. How the Mary Magdalene was he to know something like that?

‘Tell the gentleman your age, Eileen.’

She bit her lip. Her large blue eyes were filling with unshed tears, and Mr Henry Dumas felt a stirring in him.

Patrick cuffed her ear. ‘Answer the man, you eejit. You’ve a tongue in your head long enough to talk the legs off a donkey any other time.’

‘I’m eleven, sir.’

‘Old enough to be working, then. Where do you work, child?’

‘She doesn’t work, sir.’ This was said bitterly. Paddy had wanted them all out working, but Molly had been adamant. Schooling for them all, even if it meant no food on the table.

‘You don’t go to work, a big strapping girl like you?’

Eileen looked down at the shiny ground, afraid to look into the big red face with the large moustaches.

‘I need a strong girl myself, Cavanagh. A strong young girl. I’ll pay you a pound a week for her.’

Patrick’s jaw dropped in shock. ‘A pound a week, sir? What for?’

He looked into Dumas’ face and it was written there, in his eyes and on the fat moist lips, and for a few seconds Paddy felt the bile rise in him.

Seeing the look on Cavanagh’s face, Dumas added: ‘Two pounds a week then.’

Paddy shook his head, not in denial but in wonderment. He looked at Eileen: at her shoeless feet, blue with the cold, at her scrawny legs and lice-ridden hair and suddenly he felt an overpowering sense of futility. Two pounds a week was a lot of money and Mr Dumas was a very wealthy man. He could make sure that Paddy stayed employed, no matter what. As for Eileen, she would be broken soon enough, the boys around about would see to that, and then there would be more mouths to feed. Dumas was offering her warmth and comfort, and she could be the means of helping her family.

Dumas watched the man battling it out with himself. Then opening his leather purse, he took out two sovereigns and laid them in the palm of his hand. The streetlight played over them, the gold glittering in Paddy’s eyes.

‘I’ll take her with me now then.’

‘As you like, sir.’

‘What about the coal, Da? I have to take the coal home to me ma. She’s waiting on it, the baby’s coming...’

‘Now shut your mouth, our Eileen, and go with Mr Dumas. You’re to do whatever he tells you, do you hear me? Anything he tells you at all.’

‘Yes, Da.’