"TO GET YOUR OWN LIVING"
"NO," said Mr. Beale, "we ain't a-goin' to crack no more cribs. It's
low--that's what it is. I quite grant you it's low. So I s'pose we'll
'ave to take the road again."
Dickie and he were sitting in the sunshine on a sloping field. They had
been sitting there all the morning, and Dickie had told Mr. Beale all
his earthly adventures from the moment the redheaded man had lifted him
up to the window of Talbot Court to the time when he had come in by the
open door of the common lodging-house.
"What a nipper it is, though!" said Mr. Beale regretfully. "For the
burgling, I mean--sharp--clever--no one to touch him. But I don't cotton
to it myself," he added quickly, "not the burgling, I don't. You're
always liable to get yourself into trouble over it, one way or the
other--that's the worst of it. I don't know how it is," he ended
pensively, "but somehow it _always_ leads to trouble."
Dickie picked up seven straws from among the stubble and idly plaited
them together; the nurse had taught him this in the dream when he was
still weak from the fever.
"That's very flash, that what you're doing," said Beale; "who learned
you that?"
"I learned it in a dream," said Dickie slowly. "I dreamed I 'ad a
fever--and--I'll tell you if you like: it's a good yarn--good as Here
Ward, very near."
Beale lay back on the dry stubble, his pipe between his teeth.
"Fire away," he said, and Dickie fired away.
When the long tale ended, the sun was beginning to go down towards its
bed in the west. There was a pause.
"You'd make a tidy bit on the 'alls," said Beale, quite awestruck. "The
things you think of! When did you make all that up?"
"I dreamed it, I tell you," said Dickie.
"You always could stick it on," said Mr. Beale admiringly.
"I ain't goin' to stick it on never no more," said Dickie. "They called
it lying and cheating, where I was--in my dream, I mean."
"Once let a nipper out of yer sight," said Mr. Beale sadly, "and see
what comes of it! 'No. 2' a-goin' to stick it on no more! Then how's us
to get a honest living? Answer me that, young chap."
"I don't know," said Dickie, "but we got to do it som'ow."
"It ain't to be done--not with all the unemployed there is about," said
Mr. Beale. "Besides, you've got a regular gift for sticking it on--a
talent I call it. And now you want to throw it away. But you can't. We
_got_ to live."
"In the dream," said Dickie, "there didn't seem to be no unemployed.
Every one was 'prenticed to a trade. I wish it was like that here."
"Well, it ain't," said Mr. Beale shortly. "I wasn't never 'prenticed to
no trade, no more'n what you'll be."
"Worse luck," said Dickie. "But I started learning a lot of
things--games mostly, in the dream, I did--and I started making a
boat--a galleon they called it. All the names is different there. And I
carved a little box--a fair treat it was--with my father's arms on it."
"Yer father's _what_?"
"Coat of arms. Gentlemen there all has different things--patterns like;
they calls 'em coats of arms, and they put it on their silver and on
their carriages and their furniture."
"Put _what_?" Beale asked again.
"The blazon. All gentlepeople have it."
"Don't you come the blazing toff over me," said Beale with sudden
fierceness, "'cause I won't 'ave it. See? It's them bloomin' Talbots put
all this rot into your head."
"The Talbots?" said Dickie. "Oh! the Talbots ain't been gentry more
than a couple of hundred years. Our family's as old as King Alfred."
"Stow it, I say!" said Beale, more fiercely still. "I see what you're
after; you want us to part company, that's what you want. Well, go. Go
back to yer old Talbots and be the nice lady's little boy with velvet
kicksies and a clean anky once a week. That's what you do."
Dickie looked forlornly out over the river.
"I can't 'elp what I dreams, can I?" he said. "In the dream I'd got lots
of things. Uncles and aunts an' a little brother. I never seen him
though. An' a farver and muvver an' all. It's different 'ere. I ain't
got nobody but you 'ere--farver."
"Well, then," said Beale more gently, "what do you go settin' of
yourself up agin me for?"
"I ain't," said Dickie. "I thought you liked me to tell you everythink."
Silence. Dickie could not help noticing the dirty shirt, the dirty face,
the three days' beard, the filthy clothes of his friend, and he thought
of his other friend, Sebastian of the Docks. He saw the pale blue
reproachful eyes of Beale looking out of that dirty face, and he spoke
aloud, quite without meaning to.
"All that don't make no difference," he said.
"Eh?" said Beale with miserable, angry eyes.
"Look 'ere," said Dickie desperately. "I'm a-goin' to show you. This
'ere's my Tinkler, what I told you about, what pawns for a bob. I
wouldn't show it to no one but you, swelp me, I wouldn't."
He held the rattle out.
Beale took it. "It's a fancy bit, I will say," he owned.
"Look 'ere," said Dickie, "what I mean to say----"
He stopped. What was the use of telling Beale that he had come back out
of the dream just for _his_ sake? Beale who did not believe in the
dream--did not understand it--hated it?
"Don't you go turning agin me," he said; "whether I dream or not, you
and me'll stand together. I'm not goin' to do things wot's wrong--low,
dirty tricks--so I ain't. But I knows we can get on without that. What
would you _like_ to do for your living if you could choose?"
"I warn't never put to no trade," said Beale, "'cept being 'andy with a
'orse. I was a wagoner's mate when I was a boy. I likes a 'orse. Or a
dawg," he added. "I ain't no good wiv me 'ands--not at working, you
know--not to say working."
Dickie suppressed a wild notion he had had of getting into that dream
again, learning some useful trade there, waking up and teaching it to
Mr. Beale.
"Ain't there _nothing_ else you'd like to do?" he asked.
"I don't know as there is," said Mr. Beale drearily; "without it was
pigeons."
Then Dickie wondered whether things that you learned in dreams would
"_stay_ learned." Things you learned to do with your hands. The Greek
and the Latin "stayed learned" right enough and sang in his brain
encouragingly.
"Don't you get shirty if I talks about that dream," he said. "You dunno
what a dream it was. I wasn't kidding you. I did dream it, honor bright.
I dreamed I could carve wood--make boxes and things. I wish I 'ad a bit
of fine-grained wood. I'd like to try. I've got the knife they give me
to cut the string of the basket in the train. It's jolly sharp."
"What sort o' wood?" Beale asked.
"It was mahogany I dreamed I made my box with," said Dickie. "I would
like to try."
"Off 'is poor chump," Beale murmured with bitter self-reproach; "my
doin' too--puttin' 'im on to a job like Talbot Court, the nipper is."
He stretched himself and got up.
"I'll get yer a bit of mahogany from somewheres," he said very gently.
"I didn't mean nothing, old chap. You keep all on about yer dreams. I
don't mind. I likes it. Let's get a brace o' kippers and make a night of
it."
So they went back to the Gravesend lodging-house.
Next day Mr. Beale produced the lonely leg of a sofa--mahogany, a fat
round turned leg, old and seasoned.
"This what you want?" he asked.
Dickie took it eagerly. "I do wonder if I can," he said. "I feel just
exactly like as if I could. I say, farver, let's get out in the woods
somewheres quiet and take our grub along. Somewheres where nobody can't
say, 'What you up to?' and make a mock of me."
They found a place such as Dickie desired, a warm, sunny nest in the
heart of a green wood, and all through the long, warm hours of the
autumn day Mr. Beale lay lazy in the sunshine while Dickie, very pale
and determined, sliced, chipped, and picked at the sofa leg with the
knife the gardener had given him.
It was hard to make him lay the work down even for dinner, which was of
a delicious and extravagant kind--new bread, German sausage, and beer in
a flat bottle. For from the moment when the knife touched the wood
Dickie knew that he had not forgotten, and that what he had done in the
Deptford dockyard under the eyes of Sebastian, the shipwright who had
helped to sink the Armada, he could do now alone in the woods beyond
Gravesend.
It was after dinner that Mr. Beale began to be interested.
"Swelp me!" he said; "but you've got the hang of it somehow. A box,
ain't it?"
"A box," said Dickie, smoothing a rough corner; "a box with a lid that
fits. And I'll carve our arms on the top--see, I've left that bit
stickin' up a purpose."
It was the hardest day's work Dickie had ever done. He stuck to it and
stuck to it and stuck to it till there was hardly light left to see it
by. But before the light was wholly gone the box had wholly come--with
the carved coat of arms and the lid that fitted.
"Well," said Mr. Beale, striking a match to look at it; "if that ain't a
fair treat! There's many a swell bloke 'ud give 'arf a dollar for that
to put 'is baccy in. You've got a trade, my son, that's sure. Why didn't
you let on before as you could? Blow the beastly match! It's burned me
finger."
The match went out and Beale and Dickie went back to supper in the
crowded, gas-lit room. When supper was over--it was tripe and onions and
fried potatoes, very luxurious--Beale got up and stood before the fire.
"I'm a-goin' to 'ave a hauction, I am," he said to the company at large.
"Here's a thing and a very pretty thing, a baccy-box, or a snuff-box,
or a box to shut yer gold money in, or yer diamonds. What offers?"
"'And it round," said a black-browed woman, with a basket covered in
American cloth no blacker than her eyes.
"That I will," said Beale readily. "I'll 'and it round _in_ me 'and. And
I'll do the 'andin' meself."
He took it round from one to another, showed the neat corners, the neat
carving, the neat fit of the square lid.
"Where'd yer nick that?" asked a man with a red handkerchief.
"The nipper made it."
"Pinched it more likely," some one said.
"I see 'im make it," said Beale, frowning a little.
"Let me 'ave a squint," said a dingy gray old man sitting apart. For
some reason of his own Beale let the old man take the box into his hand.
But he kept very close to him and he kept his eyes on the box.
"All outer one piece," said the old man. "I dunno oo made it an' I don't
care, but that was made by a workman as know'd his trade. I was a
cabinet-maker once, though you wouldn't think it to look at me. There
ain't nobody here to pay what that little hobjec's worth. Hoil it up
with a drop of cold linseed and leave it all night, and then in the
morning you rub it on yer trouser leg to shine it, and then rub it in
the mud to dirty it, and then hoil it again and dirty it again, and
you'll get 'arf a thick 'un for it as a genuwine hold antique. That's
wot you do."
"Thankee, daddy," said Beale, "an' so I will."
He slipped the box in his pocket. When Dickie next saw the box it looked
as old as any box need look.
"Now we'll look out for a shop where they sells these 'ere hold antics,"
said Beale. They were on the road and their faces were set towards
London. Dickie's face looked pinched and white. Beale noticed it.
"You don't look up to much," he said; "warn't your bed to your liking?"
"The bed was all right," said Dickie, thinking of the bed in the dream.
"I diden sleep much, though."
"Any more dreams?" Beale asked kindly enough.
"No," said Dickie. "I think p'raps it was me wanting so to dream it
again kep' me awake."
"I dessey," said Beale, picking up a straw to chew.
Dickie limped along in the dust, the world seemed very big and hard. It
was a long way to London and he had not been able to dream that dream
again. Perhaps he would never be able to dream it. He stumbled on a big
stone and would have fallen but that Beale caught him by the arm, and as
he swung round by that arm Beale saw that the boy's eyes were thick with
tears.
"Ain't 'urt yerself, 'ave yer?" he said--for in all their wanderings
these were the first tears Dickie had shed.
"No," said Dickie, and hid his face against Beale's coat sleeve. "It's
only----"
"What is it, then?" said Beale, in the accents of long-disused
tenderness; "tell your old farver, then----"
"It's silly," sobbed Dickie.
"Never you mind whether it's silly or not," said Beale. "You out with
it."
"In that dream," said Dickie, "I wasn't lame."
"Think of that now," said Beale admiringly. "You best dream that every
night. Then you won't mind so much of a daytime."
"But I mind more," said Dickie, sniffing hard; "much, much more."
Beale, without more words, made room for him in the crowded
perambulator, and they went on. Dickie's sniffs subsided. Silence.
Presently--
"I say, farver, I'm sorry I acted so silly. You never see me blub afore
and you won't again," he said; and Beale said awkwardly, "That's all
right, mate."
"You pretty flush?" the boy asked later on.
"Not so dusty," said the man.
"'Cause I wanter give that there little box to a chap I know wot lent me
the money for the train to come to you at Gravesend."
"Pay 'im some other day when we're flusher."
"I'd rather pay 'im now," said Dickie. "I could make another box.
There's a bit of the sofer leg left, ain't there?"
There was, and Dickie worked away at it in the odd moments that cluster
round meal times, the half-hours before bed and before the morning
start. Mr. Beale begged of all likely foot-passengers, but he noted that
the "nipper" no longer "stuck it on." For the most part he was quite
silent. Only when Beale appealed to him he would say, "Farver's very
good to me. I don't know what I should do without farver."
And so at last they came to New Cross again, and Mr. Beale stepped in
for half a pint at the Railway Hotel, while Dickie went clickety-clack
along the pavement to his friend the pawnbroker.
"Here we are again," said that tradesman; "come to pawn the rattle?"
Dickie laughed. Pawning the rattle seemed suddenly to have become a
very old and good joke between them.
"Look 'ere, mister," he said; "that chink wot you lent me to get to
Gravesend with." He paused, and added in his other voice, "It was very
good of you, sir."
"I'm not going to lend you any more, if that's what you're after," said
the Jew, who had already reproached himself for his confiding
generosity.
"It's not that I'm after," said Dickie, with dignity. "I wish to repay
you."
"Got the money?" said the Jew, laughing not unkindly.
"No," said Dickie; "but I've got this." He handed the little box across
the counter.
"Where'd you get it?"
"I made it."
The pawnbroker laughed again. "Well, well, I'll ask no questions and
you'll tell me no lies, eh?"
"I shall certainly tell you no lies," said Dickie, with the dignity of
the dream boy who was not a cripple and was heir to a great and gentle
name; "will you take it instead of the money?"
The pawnbroker turned the box over in his hands, while kindness and
honesty struggled fiercely within him against the habits of a business
life. Dickie eyed the china vases and concertinas and teaspoons tied
together in fan shape, and waited silently.
"It's worth more than what I lent you," the man said at last with an
effort; "and it isn't every one who would own that, mind you."
"I know it isn't," said Dickie; "will you please take it to pay my debt
to you, and if it is worth more, accept it as a grateful gift from one
who is still gratefully your debtor."
"You'd make your fortune on the halls," said the man, as Beale had said;
"the way you talk beats everything. All serene. I'll take the box in
full discharge of your debt. But you might as well tell me where you got
it."
"I made it," said Dickie, and put his lips together very tightly.
"You did--did you? Then I'll tell you what. I'll give you four bob for
every one of them you make and bring to me. You might do different coats
of arms--see?"
"I was only taught to do one," said Dickie.
Just then a customer came in--a woman with her Sunday dress and a pair
of sheets to pawn because her man was out of work and the children were
hungry.
"Run along, now," said the Jew, "I've nothing more for you to-day."
Dickie flushed and went.
Three days later the crutch clattered in at the pawnbroker's door, and
Dickie laid two more little boxes on the counter.
"Here you are," he said. The pawnbroker looked and exclaimed and
questioned and wondered, and Dickie went away with eight silver
shillings in his pocket, the first coins he had ever carried in his
life. They seemed to have been coined in some fairy mint; they were so
different from any other money he had ever handled.
Mr. Beale, waiting for him by New Cross Station, put his empty pipe in
his pocket and strolled down to meet him. Dickie drew him down a side
street and held out the silver. "Two days' work," he said. "We ain't no
call to take the road 'cept for a pleasure trip. I got a trade, I 'ave.
'Ow much a week's four bob a day? Twenty-four bob I make it."
"Lor!" said Mr. Beale, with his mouth open.
"Now I tell you what, you get 'old of some more old sofy legs and a
stone and a strap to sharpen my knife with. And there we are.
Twenty-four shillings a week for a chap an' 'is nipper ain't so dusty,
farver, is it? I've thought it all up and settled it all out. So long as
the weather holds we'll sleep in the bed with the green curtains, and
I'll 'ave a green wood for my workshop, and when the nights get cold
we'll rent a room of our very own and live like toffs, won't us?"
The child's eyes were shining with excitement.
"'Pon my sam, I believe you _like_ work," said Mr. Beale in tones of
intense astonishment.
"I like it better'n cadgin'," said Dickie.
They did as Dickie had said, and for two days Mr. Beale was content to
eat and doze and wake and watch Dickie's busy fingers and eat and doze
again. But on the third day he announced that he was getting the fidgets
in his legs.
"I must do a prowl," he said; "I'll be back afore sundown. Don't you
forget to eat your dinner when the sun comes level the top of that high
tree. So long, matey."
Mr. Beale slouched off in the sunshine in his filthy old clothes, and
Dickie was left to work alone in the green and golden wood. It was very
still. Dickie hardly moved at all, and the chips that fell from his work
fell more softly than the twigs and acorns that dropped now and then
from some high bough. A goldfinch swung on a swaying hazel branch and
looked at him with bright eyes, unafraid; a grass snake slid swiftly
by--it was out on particular business of its own, so it was not afraid
of Dickie nor he of it. A wood-pigeon swept rustling wings across the
glade where he sat, and once a squirrel ran right along a bough to look
down at him and chatter, thickening its tail as a cat does hers when she
is angry.
It was a long and very beautiful day, the first that Dickie had ever
spent alone. He worked harder than ever, and when by the lessening light
it was impossible to work any longer, he lay back against a tree root to
rest his tired back and to gloat over the thought that he had made two
boxes in one day--eight shillings--in one single day, eight splendid
shillings.
The sun was quite down before Mr. Beale returned. He looked unnaturally
fat, and as he sat down on the moss something inside the front of his
jacket moved and whined.
"Oh! what is it?" Dickie asked, sitting up, alert in a moment; "not a
dawg? Oh! farver, you don't know how I've always wanted a dawg."
"Well, you've a-got yer want now, three times over, you 'ave," said
Beale, and, unbuttoning his jacket, took out a double handful of soft,
fluffy sprawling arms and legs and heads and tails--three little fat,
white puppies.
"Oh, the jolly little beasts!" said Dickie; "ain't they fine? Where did
you get them?"
"They was give me," said Mr. Beale, re-knotting his handkerchief, "by a
lady in the country."
He fixed his eyes on the soft blue of the darkening sky.
"Try another," said Dickie calmly.
"Ah! it ain't no use trying to deceive the nipper--that sharp he is,"
said Beale, with a mixture of pride and confusion. "Well, then, not to
deceive you, mate, I bought 'em."
"What with?" said Dickie, lightning quick.
"With--with money, mate--with money, of course."
"How'd you get it?"
No answer.
"You didn't pinch it?"
"No--on my sacred sam, I didn't," said Beale eagerly; "pinching leads to
trouble. I've 'ad my lesson."
"You cadged it, then?" said Dickie.
"Well," said Beale sheepishly, "what if I did?"
"You've spoiled everything," said Dickie, furious, and he flung the two
newly finished boxes violently to the ground, and sat frowning with eyes
downcast.
Beale, on all fours, retrieved the boxes.
"Two," he said, in awestruck tones; "there never was such a nipper!"
"It doesn't matter," said Dickie in a heartbroken voice, "you've spoiled
everything, and you lie to me, too. It's all spoiled. I wish I'd never
come back outer the dream, so I do."
"Now lookee here," said Beale sternly, "don't you come this over us,
'cause I won't stand it, d'y 'ear? Am I the master or is it you? D'ye
think I'm going to put up with being bullied and druv by a little nipper
like as I could lay out with one 'and as easy as what I could one of
them pups?" He moved his foot among the soft, strong little things that
were uttering baby-growls and biting at his broken boot with their
little white teeth.
"Do," said Dickie bitterly, "lay me out if you want to. I don't care."
"Now, now, matey"--Beale's tone changed suddenly to affectionate
remonstrance--"I was only kiddin'. Don't take it like that. You know I
wouldn't 'urt a 'air of yer 'ed, so I wouldn't."
"I wanted us to live honest by our work--we was doing it. And you've
lowered us to the cadgin' again. That's what I can't stick," said
Dickie.
"It wasn't. I didn't have to do a single bit of patter for it anyhow. It
was a wedding, and I stopped to 'ave a squint, and there'd been a
water-cart as 'ad stopped to 'ave a squint too, and made a puddle as big
as a tea-tray, and all the path wet. An' the lady in her white, she
looks at the path and the gent 'e looks at 'er white boots--an' I off's
with me coat like that there Rally gent you yarned me about, and flops
it down in the middle of the puddle, right in front of the gal. And she
tips me a smile like a hangel and 'olds out 'er hand--in 'er white
glove and all--and yer know what my 'ands is like, matey."
[Illustration: "'AN' I OFF'S WITH ME COAT, AND FLOPS IT DOWN IN THE
MIDDLE OF THE PUDDLE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE GAL'"
[_Page 133_]
"Yes," said Dickie, "go on."
"And she just touched me 'and and walks across me coat. And the people
laughed and clapped--silly apes! And the gent 'e tipped me a thick 'un,
and I spotted the pups a month ago, and I knew I could have 'em for five
bob, so I got 'em. And I'll sell em for thribble the money, you see if I
don't. An' I thought you'd be as pleased as pleased--me actin' so silly,
like as if I was one of them yarns o' yourn an' all. And then first
minute I gets 'ere, you sets on to me. But that's always the way."
"Please, please forgive me, father," said Dickie, very much ashamed of
himself; "I am so sorry. And it _was_ nice of you and I am pleased--and
I do love the pups--and we won't sell all three, will us? I would so
like to have one. I'd call it 'True.' One of the dogs in my dream was
called that. You do forgive me, don't you, father?"
"Oh! that's all right," said Beale.
Next day again a little boy worked alone in a wood, and yet not alone,
for a small pup sprawled and yapped and scrapped and grunted round him
as he worked. No squirrels or birds came that day to lighten Dickie's
solitude, but True was more to him than many birds or squirrels. A woman
they had overtaken on the road had given him a bit of blue ribbon for
the puppy's neck, in return for the lift which Mr. Beale had given her
basket on the perambulator. She was selling ribbons and cottons and
needles from door to door, and made a poor thing of it, she told them.
"An' my grandfather 'e farmed 'is own land in Sussex," she told them,
looking with bleared eyes across the fields.
Dickie only made a box and a part of a box that day. And while he sat
making it, far away in London a respectable-looking man was walking up
and down Regent Street among the shoppers and the motors and carriages,
with a fluffy little white dog under each arm. And he sold both the
dogs.
"One was a lady in a carriage," he told Dickie later on. "Arst 'er two
thick 'uns, I did. Never turned a hair, no more I didn't. She didn't
care what its price was, bless you. Said it was a dinky darling and she
wanted it. Gent said he'd get her plenty better. No--she wanted that.
An' she got it too. A fool and his money's soon parted's what I say. And
t'other one I let 'im go cheap, for fourteen bob, to a black
clergyman--black as your hat he was, from foreign parts. So now we're
bloomin' toffs, an' I'll get a pair of reach-me-downs this very bloomin'
night. And what price that there room you was talkin' about?"
It was the beginning of a new life. Dickie wrote out their accounts on a
large flagstone near the horse trough by the "Chequers," with a bit of
billiard chalk that a man gave him.
It was like this:--
Got Box 4
Box 4
Box 4
Box 4
Dog 40
Dog 14
----
70
Spent Dogs 4
Grub 19
Tram 4
Leg 2
----
29
and he made out before he rubbed the chalk off the stone that the
difference between twenty-nine shillings and seventy was about two
pounds--and that was more than Dickie had ever had, or Beale either, for
many a long year.
Then Beale came, wiping his mouth, and they walked idly up the road.
Lodgings. Or rather _a_ lodging. A room. But when you have had what is
called the key of the street for years enough, you hardly know where to
look for the key of a room.
"Where'd you like to be?" Beale asked anxiously. "You like country
best, don't yer?"
"Yes," said Dickie.
"But in the winter-time?" Beale urged.
"Well, town then," said Dickie, who was trying to invent a box of a new
and different shape to be carved next day.
"I could keep a lookout for likely pups," said Beale; "there's a plenty
here and there all about--and you with your boxes. We might go to three
bob a week for the room."
"I'd like a 'ouse with a garden," said Dickie.
"Go back to yer Talbots," said Beale.
"No--but look 'ere," said Dickie, "if we was to take a 'ouse--just a
little 'ouse, and let half of it."
"We ain't got no sticks to put in it."
"Ain't there some way you get furniture without payin' for it?"
"'Ire systim. But that's for toffs on three quid a week, reg'lar wages.
They wouldn't look at us."
"We'll get three quid right enough afore we done," said Dickie firmly;
"and if you want London, I'd like our old house because of the seeds I
sowed in the garden; I lay they'll keep on a-coming up, forever and
ever. That's what annuals means. The chap next door told me. It means
flowers as comes up fresh every year. Let's tramp up, and I'll show it
to you--where we used to live."
And when they had tramped up and Dickie had shown Mr. Beale the
sad-faced little house, Mr. Beale owned that it would do 'em a fair
treat.
"But we must 'ave some bits of sticks or else nobody won't let us have
no 'ouses."
They flattened their noses against the front window. The newspapers and
dirty sackings still lay scattered on the floor as they had fallen from
Dickie when he had got up in the morning after the night when he had had
The Dream.
The sight pulled at Dickie's heart-strings. He felt as a man might feel
who beheld once more the seaport from which in old and beautiful days he
had set sail for the shores of romance, the golden splendor of The
Fortunate Islands.
"I could doss 'ere again," he said wistfully; "it 'ud save fourpence.
Both 'ouses both sides is empty. Nobody wouldn't know."
"We don't need to look to our fourpences so sharp's all that," said
Beale.
"I'd like to."
"Wonder you ain't afeared."
"I'm used to it," said Dickie; "it was our own 'ouse, you see."
"You come along to yer supper," said Beale; "don't be so flash with yer
own 'ouses."
They had supper at a coffee-shop in the Broadway.
"Two mugs, four billiard balls, and 'arf a dozen door-steps," was Mr.
Beale's order. You or I, more polite if less picturesque, would perhaps
have said, "Two cups of tea, four eggs, and some thick bread and
butter." It was a pleasant meal. Only just at the end it turned into
something quite different. The shop was one of those old-fashioned ones,
divided by partitions like the stalls in a stable, and over the top of
this partition there suddenly appeared a head.
Dickie's mug paused in air half-way to his mouth, which remained open.
"What's up?" Beale asked, trying to turn on the narrow seat and look up,
which he couldn't do.
"It's 'im," whispered Dickie, setting down the mug. "That red'eaded chap
wot I never see."
And then the redheaded man came round the partition and sat down beside
Beale and talked to him, and Dickie wished he wouldn't. He heard little
of the conversation; only "better luck next time" from the redheaded
man, and "I don't know as I'm taking any" from Beale, and at the parting
the redheaded man saying, "I'll doss same shop as wot you do," and Beale
giving the name of the lodging-house where, on the way to the
coffee-shop, Beale had left the perambulator and engaged their beds.
"Tell you all about it in the morning" were the last words of the
redheaded one as he slouched out, and Dickie and Beale were left to
finish the door-steps and drink the cold tea that had slopped into their
saucers.
When they went out Dickie said--
"What did he want, farver--that redheaded chap?"
Beale did not at once answer.
"I wouldn't if I was you," said Dickie, looking straight in front of him
as they walked.
"Wouldn't what?"
"Whatever he wants to."
"Why, I ain't told you yet what he _does_ want."
"'E ain't up to no good--I know that."
"'E's full of notions, that's wot 'e is," said Beale. "If some of 'is
notions come out right 'e'll be a-ridin' in 'is own cart and 'orse afore
we know where we are--and us a-tramping in 'is dust."
"Ridin' in Black Maria, more like," said Dickie.
"Well, I ain't askin' _you_ to do anything, am I?" said Beale.
"No!--you ain't. But whatever you're in, I'm a-goin' to be in, that's
all."
"Don't you take on," said Beale comfortably; "I ain't said I'll be in
anything yet, 'ave I? Let's 'ear what 'e says in the morning. If 'is lay
ain't a safe lay old Beale won't be in it--you may lay to that."
"Don't let's," said Dickie earnestly. "Look 'ere, father, let us go,
both two of us, and sleep in that there old 'ouse of ours. I don't want
that red'eaded chap. He'll spoil everything--I know 'e will, just as
we're a-gettin' along so straight and gay. Don't let's go to that there
doss; let's lay in the old 'ouse."
"Ain't I never to 'ave never a word with nobody without it's you?" said
Beale, but not angrily.
"Not with 'im; 'e ain't no class," said Dickie firmly; "and oh! farver,
I do so wanter sleep in that 'ouse, that was where I 'ad The Dream, you
know."
"Oh, well--come on, then," said Beale; "lucky we've got our thick coats
on."
It was quite easy for Dickie to get into the house, just as he had done
before, and to go along the passage and open the front door for Mr.
Beale, who walked in as bold as brass. They made themselves comfortable
with the sacking and old papers--but one at least of the two missed the
luxury of clean air and soft moss and a bed canopy strewn with stars.
Mr. Beale was soon asleep and Dickie lay still, his heart beating to the
tune of the hope that now at last, in this place where it had once
come, his dream would come again. But it did not come--even sleep,
plain, restful, dreamless sleep, would not come to him. At last he could
lie still no longer. He slipped from under the paper, whose rustling did
not disturb Mr. Beale's slumbers, and moved into the square of light
thrown through the window by the street lamp. He felt in his pockets,
pulled out Tinkler and the white seal, set them on the floor, and, moved
by memories of the great night when his dream had come to him, arranged
the moon-seeds round them in the same pattern that they had lain in on
that night of nights. And the moment that he had lain the last seed,
completing the crossed triangles, the magic began again. All was as it
had been before. The tired eyes that must close, the feeling that
through his closed eyelids he could yet see something moving in the
centre of the star that the two triangles made.
"Where do you want to go to?" said the same soft small voice that had
spoken before. But this time Dickie did not reply that he was "not
particular." Instead, he said, "Oh, _there!_ I want to go there!"
feeling quite sure that whoever owned that voice would know as well as
he, or even better, where "there" was, and how to get to it.
And as on that other night everything grew very quiet, and sleep wrapped
Dickie round like a soft garment. When he awoke he lay in the big
four-post bed with the green and white curtains; about him were the
tapestry walls and the heavy furniture of The Dream.
"Oh!" he cried aloud, "I've found it again!--I've found it!--I've found
it!"
And then the old nurse with the hooped petticoats and the queer cap and
the white ruff was bending over him; her wrinkled face was alight with
love and tenderness.
"So thou'rt awake at last," she said. "Did'st thou find thy friend in
thy dreams?"
Dickie hugged her.
"I've found the way back," he said; "I don't know which is the dream and
which is real--but _you_ know."
"Yes," said the old nurse, "I know. The one is as real as the other."
He sprang out of bed and went leaping round the room, jumping on to
chairs and off them, running and dancing.
"What ails the child?" the nurse grumbled; "get thy hose on, for shame,
taking a chill as like as not. What ails thee to act so?"
"It's the not being lame," Dickie explained, coming to a standstill by
the window that looked out on the good green garden. "You don't know how
wonderful it seems, just at first, you know, _not_ to be lame."