Harding's luck Read online

  CHAPTER I

  TINKLER AND THE MOONFLOWER

  DICKIE lived at New Cross. At least the address was New Cross, butreally the house where he lived was one of a row of horrid little housesbuilt on the slope where once green fields ran down the hill to theriver, and the old houses of the Deptford merchants stood stately intheir pleasant gardens and fruitful orchards. All those good fields andhappy gardens are built over now. It is as though some wicked giant hadtaken a big brush full of yellow ochre paint, and another full of mudcolor, and had painted out the green in streaks of dull yellow andfilthy brown; and the brown is the roads and the yellow is the houses.Miles and miles and miles of them, and not a green thing to be seenexcept the cabbages in the greengrocers' shops, and here and there somepoor trails of creeping-jenny drooping from a dirty window-sill. Thereis a little yard at the back of each house; this is called "the garden,"and some of these show green--but they only show it to the houses' backwindows. You cannot see it from the street. These gardens are green,because green is the color that most pleases and soothes men's eyes; andhowever you may shut people up between bars of yellow and mud color, andhowever hard you may make them work, and however little wage you may paythem for working, there will always be found among those people some menwho are willing to work a little longer, and for no wages at all, sothat they may have green things growing near them.

  But there were no green things growing in the garden at the back of thehouse where Dickie lived with his aunt. There were stones and bones, andbits of brick, and dirty old dish-cloths matted together with grease andmud, worn-out broom-heads and broken shovels, a bottomless pail, and themouldy remains of a hutch where once rabbits had lived. But that was avery long time ago, and Dickie had never seen the rabbits. A boy hadbrought a brown rabbit to school once, buttoned up inside his jacket,and he had let Dickie hold it in his hands for several minutes beforethe teacher detected its presence and shut it up in a locker till schoolshould be over. So Dickie knew what rabbits were like. And he was fondof the hutch for the sake of what had once lived there.

  And when his aunt sold the poor remains of the hutch to a man with abarrow who was ready to buy anything, and who took also the pails andthe shovels, giving threepence for the lot, Dickie was almost as unhappyas though the hutch had really held a furry friend. And he hated the manwho took the hutch away, all the more because there were emptyrabbit-skins hanging sadly from the back of the barrow.

  It is really with the going of that rabbit-hutch that this story begins.Because it was then that Dickie, having called his aunt a Beast, and hitat her with his little dirty fist, was well slapped and put out into thebereaved yard to "come to himself," as his aunt said. He threw himselfdown on the ground and cried and wriggled with misery and pain, andwished--ah, many things.

  "Wot's the bloomin' row now?" the Man Next Door suddenly asked; "beenhittin' of you?"

  "They've took away the 'utch," said Dickie.

  "Well, there warn't nothin' in it."

  "I diden want it took away," wailed Dickie.

  "Leaves more room," said the Man Next Door, leaning on his spade. It wasSaturday afternoon and the next-door garden was one of the green ones.There were small grubby daffodils in it, and dirty-faced littleprimroses, and an arbor beside the water-butt, bare at this time of theyear, but still a real arbor. And an elder-tree that in the hot weatherhad flat, white flowers on it big as tea-plates. And a lilac-tree withbrown buds on it. Beautiful. "Say, matey, just you chuck it! Chuck it, Isay! How in thunder can I get on with my digging with you 'owlin' yer'ead off?" inquired the Man Next Door. "You get up and peg along in an'arst your aunt if she'd be agreeable for me to do up her garden a bit. Icould do it odd times. You'd like that."

  "Not 'arf!" said Dickie, getting up.

  "Come to yourself, eh?" sneered the aunt. "You mind, and let it be thelast time you come your games with me, my beauty. You and yourtantrums!"

  Dickie said what it was necessary to say, and got back to the "garden."

  "She says she ain't got no time to waste, an' if you 'ave she don't carewhat you does with it."

  "There's a dirty mug you've got on you," said the Man Next Door, leaningover to give Dickie's face a rub with a handkerchief hardly cleaner."Now I'll come over and make a start." He threw his leg over the fence."You just peg about an' be busy pickin' up all them fancy articles, andnex' time your aunt goes to Buckingham Palace for the day we'll have abonfire."

  "Fifth o' November?" said Dickie, sitting down and beginning to draw tohimself the rubbish that covered the ground.

  "Fifth of anything you like, so long as _she_ ain't about," said he,driving in the spade. "'Ard as any old door-step it is. Never mind,we'll turn it over, and we'll get some little seedses and some littleplantses and we shan't know ourselves."

  "I got a 'apenny," said Dickie.

  "Well, I'll put one to it, and you leg 'long and buy seedses. That's wotyou do."

  Dickie went. He went slowly, because he was lame. And he was lamebecause his "aunt" had dropped him when he was a baby. She was not anice woman, and I am glad to say that she goes out of this story almostat once. But she did keep Dickie when his father died, and she mighthave sent him to the work-house. For she was not really his aunt, butjust the woman of the house where his father had lodged. It was good ofher to keep Dickie, even if she wasn't very kind to him. And as that isall the good I can find to say about her, I will say no more. With hislittle crutch, made out of a worn-out broom cut down to his littleheight, he could manage quite well in spite of his lameness.

  "'GIMME,' SAID DICKIE--'GIMME A PENN'ORTH O' THATTHERE.'"]

  He found the corn-chandler's--a really charming shop that smelled likestables and had deep dusty bins where he would have liked to play. Abovethe bins were delightful little square-fronted drawers, labelled Rape,Hemp, Canary, Millet, Mustard, and so on; and above the drawers picturesof the kind of animals that were fed on the kind of things that the shopsold. Fat, oblong cows that had eaten Burley's Cattle Food, stoutpillows of wool that Ovis's Sheep Spice had fed, and, brightest and bestof all, an incredibly smooth-plumaged parrot, rainbow-colored, cocking ablack eye bright with the intoxicating qualities of Perrokett's ArtisticBird Seed.

  "Gimme," said Dickie, leaning against the counter and pointing a grimythumb at the wonder--"gimme a penn'orth o' that there!"

  "Got the penny?" the shopman asked carefully.

  Dickie displayed it, parted with it, and came home nursing a paper bagfull of rustling promises.

  "Why," said the Man Next Door, "that ain't seeds. It's parrot food, thatis."

  "It said the Ar-something Bird Seed," said Dickie, downcast; "I thoughtit 'ud come into flowers like birds--same colors as wot the poll parrotwas, dontcherknow?"

  "And so it will like as not," said the Man Next Door comfortably. "I'llset it along this end soon's I've got it turned over. I lay it'll comeup something pretty."

  So the seed was sown. And the Man Next Door promised two more pennieslater for _real_ seed. Also he transplanted two of the primroses whosefaces wanted washing.

  It was a grand day for Dickie. He told the whole story of it that nightwhen he went to bed to his only confidant, from whom he hid nothing. Theconfidant made no reply, but Dickie was sure this was not because theconfidant didn't care about the story. The confidant was a blackenedstick about five inches long, with little blackened bells to it like thebells on dogs' collars. Also a rather crooked bit of something whitishand very hard, good to suck, or to stroke with your fingers, or to digholes in the soap with. Dickie had no idea what it was. His father hadgiven it to him in the hospital where Dickie was taken to say good-byeto him. Good-bye had to be said because of father having fallen off thescaffolding where he was at work and not getting better. "You stick tothat," father had said, looking dreadfully clean in the strange bedamong all those other clean beds; "it's yourn, your very own. My dadgive it to me, and it belonged to his dad. Don't you let any one takeit away. Some old lady told the old man it 'ud bring us l
uck. So long,old chap."

  Dickie remembered every word of that speech, and he kept the treasure.There had been another thing with it, tied on with string. But Aunt Maudhad found that, and taken it away "to take care of," and he had neverseen it again. It was brassy, with a white stone and some sort ofpattern on it. He had the treasure, and he had not the least idea whatit was, with its bells that jangled such pretty music, and its whitespike so hard and smooth. He did not know--but I know. It was arattle--a baby's old-fashioned rattle--or, if you would rather call itthat, a "coral and bells."

  "And we shall 'ave the fairest flowers of hill and dale," said Dickie,whispering comfortably in his dirty sheets, "and greensward. Oh! Tinklerdear, 'twill indeed be a fair scene. The gayest colors of the rainbowamid the Ague Able green of fresh leaves. I do love the Man Next Door.He has indeed a 'art of gold."

  That was how Dickie talked to his friend Tinkler. You know how he talkedto his aunt and the Man Next Door. I wonder whether you know that mostchildren can speak at least two languages, even if they have never had aforeign nurse or been to foreign climes--or whether you think that youare the only child who can do this.

  Believe me, you are not. Parents and guardians would be surprised tolearn that dear little Charlie has a language quite different from theone he uses to them--a language in which he talks to the cook and thehousemaid. And yet another language--spoken with the real accent too--inwhich he converses with the boot-boy and the grooms.

  Dickie, however, had learned his second language from books. The teacherat his school had given him six--"Children of the New Forest," "QuentinDurward," "Hereward the Wake," and three others--all paper-backed. Theymade a new world for Dickie. And since the people in books talked inthis nice, if odd, way, he saw no reason why he should not--to a friendwhom he could trust.

  I hope you're not getting bored with all this.

  You see, I must tell you a little about the kind of boy Dickie was andthe kind of way he lived, or you won't understand his adventures. And hehad adventures--no end of adventures--as you will see presently.

  Dickie woke, gay as the spring sun that was trying to look in at himthrough his grimy windows.

  "Perhaps he'll do some more to the garden to-day!" he said, and got upvery quickly.

  He got up in the dirty, comfortless room and dressed himself. But inthe evening he was undressed by kind, clean hands, and washed in a bigbath half-full of hot, silvery water, with soap that smelled like thetimber-yard at the end of the street. Because, going along to school,with his silly little head full of Artistic Bird Seeds and flowersrainbow-colored, he had let his crutch slip on a banana-skin and hadtumbled down, and a butcher's cart had gone over his poor lame foot. Sothey took the hurt foot to the hospital, and of course he had to go withit, and the hospital was much more like the heaven he read of in hisbooks than anything he had ever come across before.

  He noticed that the nurses and the doctors spoke in the kind of wordsthat he had found in his books, and in a voice that he had not foundanywhere; so when on the second day a round-faced, smiling lady in awhite cap said, "Well, Tommy, and how are we to-day?" he replied--

  "My name is far from being Tommy, and I am in Lux Ury and Af Fluence, Ithank you, gracious lady."

  At which the lady laughed and pinched his cheek.

  When she grew to know him better, and found out where he had learned totalk like that, she produced more books. And from them he learned morenew words. They were very nice to him at the hospital, but when theysent him home they put his lame foot into a thick boot with a horrid,clumpy sole and iron things that went up his leg.

  His aunt and her friends said, "How kind!" but Dickie hated it. The boysat school made game of it--they had got used to the crutch--and that wasworse than being called "Old Dot-and-go-one," which was what Dickie hadgot used to--so used that it seemed almost like a pet name.

  And on that first night of his return he found that he had been robbed.They had taken his Tinkler from the safe corner in his bed where theticking was broken, and there was a soft flock nest for a boy's bestfriend.

  He knew better than to ask what had become of it. Instead he searchedand searched the house in all its five rooms. But he never foundTinkler.

  Instead he found next day, when his aunt had gone out shopping, a littlesquare of cardboard at the back of the dresser drawer, among the dirtydusters and clothes pegs and string and corks and novelettes.

  It was a pawn-ticket--"Rattle. One shilling."

  Dickie knew all about pawn-tickets. You, of course, don't. Well, asksome grown-up person to explain; I haven't time. I want to get on withthe story.

  "'IT _IS_ A MOONFLOWER, OF COURSE,' HE SAID"

  [_Page 13_]

  Until he had found that ticket he had not been able to think of anythingelse. He had not even cared to think about his garden and wonder whetherthe Artistic Bird Seeds had come up parrot-colored. He had been a verylong time in the hospital, and it was August now. And the nurses hadassured him that the seeds must be up long ago--he would find everythingflowering, you see if he didn't.

  And now he went out to look. There was a tangle of green growth at theend of the garden, and the next garden was full of weeds. For the ManNext Door had gone off to look for work down Ashford way, where thehop-gardens are, and the house was to let.

  A few poor little pink and yellow flowers showed stunted among the greenwhere he had sowed the Artistic Bird Seed. And, towering high aboveeverything else--oh, three times as high as Dickie himself--there was aflower--a great flower like a sunflower, only white.

  "Why," said Dickie, "it's as big as a dinner-plate."

  It was.

  It stood up, beautiful and stately, and turned its cream-white facetowards the sun.

  "The stalk's like a little tree," said Dickie; and so it was.

  It had great drooping leaves, and a dozen smaller white flowers stoodout below it on long stalks, thinner than that needed to support themoonflower itself.

  "It _is_ a moonflower, of course," he said, "if the other kind'ssunflowers. I love it! I love it! I love it!"

  He did not allow himself much time for loving it, however; for he hadbusiness in hand. He had, somehow or other, to get a shilling. Becausewithout a shilling he could not exchange that square of cardboard with"Rattle" on it for his one friend, Tinkler. And with the shilling hecould. (This is part of the dismal magic of pawn-tickets which somegrown-up will kindly explain to you.)

  "I can't get money by the sweat of my brow," said Dickie to himself;"nobody would let me run their errands when they could get a boy withboth legs to do them. Not likely. I wish I'd got something I couldsell."

  He looked round the yard--dirtier and nastier than ever now in the partsthat the Man Next Door had not had time to dig. There was certainlynothing there that any one would want to buy, especially now therabbit-hutch was gone. Except ... why, of course--the moonflowers!

  He got the old worn-down knife out of the bowl on the back kitchen sink,where it nestled among potato peelings like a flower among foliage, andcarefully cut half a dozen of the smaller flowers. Then he limped up toNew Cross Station, and stood outside, leaning on his crutch, and holdingout the flowers to the people who came crowding out of the station afterthe arrival of each train--thick, black crowds of tired people, in toogreat a hurry to get home to their teas to care much about him or hisflowers. Everybody glanced at them, for they were wonderful flowers, aswhite as water-lilies, only flat--the real sunflower shape--and theircentres were of the purest yellow gold color.

  "Pretty, ain't they?" one black-coated person would say to another. Andthe other would reply--

  "No. Yes. I dunno! Hurry up, can't you?"

  It was no good. Dickie was tired, and the flowers were beginning todroop. He turned to go home, when a sudden thought brought the blood tohis face. He turned again quickly and went straight to the pawnbroker's.You may be quite sure he had learned the address on the card by heart.

  He went boldly into the shop, which had three h
andsome gold ballshanging out above its door, and in its window all sorts of prettythings--rings, and chains, and brooches, and watches, and china, andsilk handkerchiefs, and concertinas.

  "Well, young man," said the stout gentleman behind the counter, "whatcan we do for you?"

  "I want to pawn my moonflowers," said Dickie.

  The stout gentleman roared with laughter, and slapped a stout leg with astout hand.

  "Well, that's a good 'un!" he said, "as good a one as ever I heard. Why,you little duffer, they'd be dead long before you came back to redeemthem, that's certain."

  "You'd have them while they were alive, you know," said Dickie gently.

  "What are they? Don't seem up to much. Though I don't know that I eversaw a flower just like them, come to think of it," said the pawnbroker,who lived in a neat villa at Brockley and went in for gardening in agentlemanly, you-needn't-suppose-I-can't-afford-a-real-gardener-if-I-likesort of way.

  "They're moonflowers," said Dickie, "and I want to pawn them and thenget something else out with the money."

  "Got the ticket?" said the gentleman, cleverly seeing that he meant "getout of pawn."

  "Yes," said Dickie; "and it's my own Tinkler that my daddy gave mebefore he died, and my aunt Missa propagated it when I was in hospital."

  The man looked carefully at the card.

  "All right," he said at last; "hand over the flowers. They are not sobad," he added, more willing to prize them now that they were his(things do look different when they are your own, don't they?). "Here,Humphreys, put these in a jug of water till I go home. And get thisout."

  "'HERE, HUMPHREYS, PUT THESE IN A JUG OF WATER TILL I GOHOME'"

  [_Page 16_]

  A pale young man in spectacles appeared from a sort of dark cave at theback of the shop, took flowers and ticket, and was swallowed up again inthe darkness of the cave.

  "Oh, thank you!" said Dickie fervently. "I shall live but to repay yourbounteous gen'rosity."

  "None of your cheek," said the pawnbroker, reddening, and there was anawkward pause.

  "It's not cheek; I meant it," said Dickie at last, speaking veryearnestly. "You'll see, some of these days. I read an interesting NarRataive about a Lion the King of Beasts and a Mouse, that small and TyMorous animal, which if you have not heard it I will now Pur seed torelite."

  "You're a rum little kid, I don't think," said the man. "Where do youlearn such talk?"

  "It's the wye they talk in books," said Dickie, suddenly returning tothe language of his aunt. "You bein' a toff I thought you'd unnerstand.My mistike. No 'fense."

  "Mean to say you can talk like a book when you like, and cut it offshort like that?"

  "I can Con-vers like Lords and Lydies," said Dickie, in the accentsof the gutter, "and your noble benefacteriness made me seek to expressmy feelinks with the best words at me Command."

  "Fond of books?"

  "I believe you," said Dickie, and there were no more awkward pauses.

  When the pale young man came back with something wrapped in a bit ofclean rag, he said a whispered word or two to the pawnbroker, whounrolled the rag and looked closely at the rattle.

  "So it is," he said, "and it's a beauty too, let alone anything else."

  "Isn't he?" said Dickie, touched by this praise of his treasuredTinkler.

  "I've got something else here that's got the same crest as your rattle."

  "Crest?" said Dickie; "isn't that what you wear on your helmet in theheat and press of the Tower Nament?"

  The pawnbroker explained that crests no longer live exclusively onhelmets, but on all sorts of odd things. And the queer little animal,drawn in fine scratches on the side of the rattle, was, it seemed, acrest.

  "Here, Humphreys," he added, "give it a rub up and bring that sealhere."

  The pale young man did something to Tinkler with some pinky powder and abrush and a wash-leather, while his master fitted together the twohalves of a broken white cornelian.

  "It came out of a seal," he said, "and I don't mind making you a presentof it."

  "Oh!" said Dickie, "you are a real rightern." And he rested his crutchagainst the counter expressly to clasp his hands in ecstasy as boys inbooks did.

  "My young man shall stick it together with cement," the pawnbroker wenton, "and put it in a little box. Don't you take it out till to-morrowand it'll be stuck fast. Only don't go trying to seal with it, or thesealing-wax will melt the cement. It'll bring you luck, I shouldn'twonder."

  (It did; and such luck as the kind pawnbroker never dreamed of. But thatcomes further on in the story.)

  Dickie left the shop without his moonflowers, indeed, but with hisTinkler now whitely shining, and declared to be "real silver, and mindyou take care of it, my lad," his white cornelian seal carefully packedin a strong little cardboard box with metal corners. Also abroken-backed copy of "Ingoldsby Legends" and one of "Mrs. Markham'sEnglish History," which had no back at all. "You must go on trying toimprove your mind," said the pawnbroker fussily. He was very pleasedwith himself for having been so kind. "And come back and see me--saynext month."

  "I will," said Dickie. "A thousand blessings from a grateful heart. Iwill come back. I say, you are good! Thank you, thank you--I will comeback next month, and tell you everything I have learned from the PerruSal of your books."

  "Perusal," said the pawnbroker--"that's the way to pernounce it.Good-bye, my man, and next month."

  But next month found Dickie in a very different place from thepawnbroker's shop, and with a very different person from the pawnbrokerwho in his rural retirement at Brockley gardened in such a gentlemanlyway.

  Dickie went home--his aunt was still out. His books told him thattreasure is best hidden under loose boards, unless of course your househas a secret panel, which his had not. There was a loose board in hisroom, where the man "saw to" the gas. He got it up, and pushed histreasures as far in as he could--along the rough, crumbly surface of thelath and plaster.

  Not a moment too soon. For before the board was coaxed quite back intoits place the voice of the aunt screamed up.

  "Come along down, can't you? I can hear you pounding about up there.Come along down and fetch me a ha'porth o' wood--I can't get the kettleto boil without a fire, can I?"

  When Dickie came down his aunt slightly slapped him, and he took thehalfpenny and limped off obediently.

  It was a very long time indeed before he came back. Because before hegot to the shop with no window to it, but only shutters that were put upat night, where the wood and coal were sold, he saw a Punch and Judyshow. He had never seen one before, and it interested him extremely. Helonged to see it unpack itself and display its wonders, and he followedit through more streets than he knew; and when he found that it was notgoing to unpack at all, but was just going home to its bed in an oldcoach-house, he remembered the fire-wood; and the halfpenny clutchedtight and close in his hand seemed to reproach him warmly.

  He looked about him, and knew that he did not at all know where he was.There was a tall, thin, ragged man lounging against a stable door in theyard where the Punch and Judy show lived. He took his clay pipe out ofhis mouth to say--

  "What's up, matey? Lost your way?"

  Dickie explained.

  "It's Lavender Terrace where I live," he ended--"Lavender Terrace,Rosemary Street, Deptford."

  "I'm going that way myself," said the man, getting away from the wall."We'll go back by the boat if you like. Ever been on the boat?"

  "No," said Dickie.

  "Like to?"

  "Don't mind if I do," said Dickie.

  It was very pleasant with the steamboat going along in such a hurry,pushing the water out of the way, and puffing and blowing, and somethingbeating inside it like a giant's heart. The wind blew freshly, and theragged man found a sheltered corner behind the funnel. It was sosheltered, and the wind had been so strong that Dickie felt sleepy. Whenhe said, "'Ave I bin asleep?" the steamer was stopping at a pier at astrange place with trees.

  "Here we are!" sa
id the man. "'Ave you been asleep? Not 'alf! Stiryourself, my man; we get off here."

  "Is this Deptford?" Dickie asked. And the people shoving and crushing toget off the steamer laughed when he said it.

  "Not exackly," said the man, "but it's all right. This 'ere's where weget off. You ain't had yer tea yet, my boy."

  It was the most glorious tea Dickie had ever imagined. Fried eggs andbacon--he had one egg and the man had three--bread and butter--and ifthe bread was thick, so was the butter--and as many cups of tea as youliked to say thank you for. When it was over the man asked Dickie if hecould walk a little way, and when Dickie said he could they set out inthe most friendly way side by side.

  "I like it very much, and thank you kindly," said Dickie presently. "Andthe tea and all. An' the egg. And this is the prettiest place ever Isee. But I ought to be getting 'ome. I shall catch it a fair treat as itis. She was waitin' for the wood to boil the kettle when I come out."

  "Mother?"

  "Aunt. Not me real aunt. Only I calls her that."

  "She any good?"

  "Ain't bad when she's in a good temper."

  "That ain't what she'll be in when you gets back. Seems to me you'vegone and done it, mate. Why, it's hours and hours since you and me gotacquainted. Look! the sun's just going."

  It was, over trees more beautiful than anything Dickie had ever seen,for they were now in a country road, with green hedges and green grassgrowing beside it, in which little round-faced flowers grew--daisiesthey were--even Dickie knew that.

  "I got to stick it," said Dickie sadly. "I'd best be getting home."

  "I wouldn't go 'ome, not if I was you," said the man. "I'd go out andsee the world a bit, I would."

  "What--me?" said Dickie.

  "Why not? Come, I'll make you a fair offer. Ye come alonger me an' seelife! I'm a-goin' to tramp as far as Brighton and back, all alongsidethe sea. Ever seed the sea?"

  "No," said Dickie. "Oh, no--no, I never."

  "Well, you come alonger me. I ain't 'it yer, have I, like what yer auntdo? I give yer a ride in a pleasure boat, only you went to sleep, and Igive you a tea fit for a hemperor. Ain't I?"

  "You 'ave that," said Dickie.

  "Well, that'll show you the sort of man I am. So now I make you a fairoffer. You come longer me, and be my little 'un, and I'll be your daddy,and a better dad, I lay, nor if I'd been born so. What do you say,matey?"

  The man's manner was so kind and hearty, the whole adventure was sowonderful and new....

  "Is it country where you going?" said Dickie, looking at the greenhedge.

  "All the way, pretty near," said the man. "We'll tramp it, taking iteasy, all round the coast, where gents go for their outings. They'vealways got a bit to spare then. I lay you'll get some color in themcheeks o' yours. They're like putty now. Come, now. What you say? Is ita bargain?"

  "HE LAY FACE DOWNWARD ON THE ROAD AND TURNED UP HIS BOOT"

  [_Page 25_]

  "It's very kind of you," said Dickie, "but what call you got to do it?It'll cost a lot--my victuals, I mean. What call you got to do it?"

  The man scratched his head and hesitated. Then he looked up at the skyand then down at the road--they were resting on a heap of stones.

  At last he said, "You're a sharp lad, you are--bloomin' sharp. Well, Iwon't deceive you, matey. I want company. Tramping alone ain't no beanoto me. An' as I gets my living by the sweat of charitable ladies an'gents it don't do no harm to 'ave a little nipper alongside. They comesdown 'andsomer if there's a nipper. An' I like nippers. Some blokesdon't, but I do."

  Dickie felt that this was true. But--"We'll be beggars, you mean?" hesaid doubtfully.

  "Oh, don't call names," said the man; "we'll take the road, and if kindpeople gives us a helping hand, well, so much the better for allparties, if wot they learned me at Sunday-school's any good. Well, thereit is. Take it or leave it."

  The sun shot long golden beams through the gaps in the hedge. A birdpaused in its flight on a branch quite close and clung there swaying. Areal live bird. Dickie thought of the kitchen at home, the lamp thatsmoked, the dirty table, the fender full of ashes and dirty paper, thedry bread that tasted of mice, and the water out of the brokenearthenware cup. That would be his breakfast, when he had gone to bedcrying after his aunt had slapped him.

  "I'll come," said he, "and thank you kindly."

  "Mind you," said the man carefully, "this ain't no kidnapping. I ain't'ticed you away. You come on your own free wish, eh?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "Can you write?"

  "Yes," said Dickie, "if I got a pen."

  "I got a pencil--hold on a bit." He took out of his pocket a newenvelope, a new sheet of paper, and a new pencil ready sharpened bymachinery. It almost looked, Dickie thought, as though he had broughtthem out for some special purpose. Perhaps he had.

  "Now," said the man, "you take an' write--make it flat agin the sole ofme boot." He lay face downward on the road and turned up his boot, asthough boots were the most natural writing-desks in the world.

  "Now write what I say: 'Mr. Beale. Dear Sir. Will you please take me ontramp with you? I 'ave no father nor yet mother to be uneasy' (Can youspell 'uneasy'? That's right--you _are_ a scholar!), 'an' I asks you letme come alonger you.' (Got that? All right, I'll stop a bit till youcatch up. Then you say) 'If you take me along I promise to give you allwhat I earns or gets anyhow, and be a good boy, and do what you say. AndI shall be very glad if you will. Your obedient servant----' What's yourname, eh?"

  "Dickie Harding."

  "Get it wrote down, then. Done? I'm glad I wasn't born a table to bewrote on. Don't it make yer legs stiff, neither!"

  He rolled over, took the paper and read it slowly and with difficulty.Then he folded it and put it in his pocket.

  "Now we're square," he said. "That'll stand true and legal in anypolice-court in England, that will. And don't you forget it."

  To the people who live in Rosemary Terrace the words "police-court" arevery alarming indeed. Dickie turned a little paler and said, "Whypolice? I ain't done nothing wrong writin' what you telled me?"

  "No, my boy," said the man, "you ain't done no wrong; you done right.But there's bad people in the world--police and such--as might lay it upto me as I took you away against your will. They could put a man awayfor less than that."

  "But it ain't agin my will," said Dickie; "I want to!"

  "That's what _I_ say," said the man cheerfully. "So now we're agreedupon it, if you'll step it we'll see about a doss for to-night; andto-morrow we'll sleep in the bed with the green curtains."

  "I see that there in a book," said Dickie, charmed. "He Reward the Wake,the last of the English, and I wunnered what it stood for."

  "It stands for laying out," said the man (and so it does, though that'snot at all what the author of "Hereward" meant it to mean)--"laying outunder a 'edge or a 'aystack or such and lookin' up at the stars till yougoes by-by. An' jolly good business, too, fine weather. An' then you'oofs it a bit and resties a bit, and some one gives you something to'elp you along the road, and in the evening you 'as a glass of ale atthe Publy Kows, and finds another set o' green bed curtains. An' onSaturday you gets in a extra lot of prog, and a Sunday you stays whereyou be and washes of your shirt."

  "Do you have adventures?" asked Dick, recognizing in this description arough sketch of the life of a modern knight-errant.

  "'Ventures? I believe you!" said the man. "Why, only last month a bruteof a dog bit me in the leg, at a back door Sutton way. An' once I see aelephant."

  "Wild?" asked Dickie, thrilling.

  "Not azackly wild--with a circus 'e was. But big! Wild ones ain't 'alfthe size, I lay! And you meets soldiers, and parties in red coatsridin' on horses, with spotted dawgs, and motors as run you down andtake your 'ead off afore you know you're dead if you don't look alive.Adventures? I should think so!"

  "Ah!" said Dickie, and a full silence fell between them.

  "Tired?" asked Mr. Beale presently.

  "Just a
tiddy bit, p'raps," said Dickie bravely, "but I can stick it."

  "We'll get summat with wheels for you to-morrow," said the man, "if it'sonly a sugar-box; an' I can tie that leg of yours up to make it looklike as if it was cut off."

  "It's this 'ere nasty boot as makes me tired," said Dickie.

  "Hoff with it," said the man obligingly; "down you sets on them stonesand hoff with it! T'other too if you like. You can keep to the grass."

  The dewy grass felt pleasantly cool and clean to Dickie's tired littlefoot, and when they crossed the road where a water-cart had dripped itwas delicious to feel the cool mud squeeze up between your toes. Thatwas charming; but it was pleasant, too, to wash the mud off on the wetgrass. Dickie always remembered that moment. It was the first time inhis life that he really enjoyed being clean. In the hospital you werealmost too clean; and you didn't do it yourself. That made all thedifference. Yet it was the memory of the hospital that made him say, "Iwish I could 'ave a bath."

  "So you shall," said Mr. Beale; "a reg'ler wash all over--this verynight. I always like a wash meself. Some blokes think it pays to bedirty. But it don't. If you're clean they say 'Honest Poverty,' an' ifyou're dirty they say 'Serve you right.' We'll get a pail or somethingthis very night."

  "You _are_ good," said Dickie. "I do like you."

  Mr. Beale looked at him through the deepening twilight--rather queerly,Dickie thought. Also he sighed heavily.

  "Oh, well--all's well as has no turning; and things don't always----What I mean to say, you be a good boy and I'll do the right thing byyou."

  "I know you will," said Dickie, with enthusiasm. "_I_ know 'ow good youare!"

  "Bless me!" said Mr. Beale uncomfortably. "Well, there. Step out, sonny,or we'll never get there this side Christmas."

  * * * * *

  Now you see that Mr. Beale may be a cruel, wicked man who only wanted toget hold of Dickie so as to make money out of him; and he may be goingto be very unkind indeed to Dickie when once he gets him away into thecountry, and is all alone with him--and his having that paper andenvelope and pencil all ready looks odd, doesn't it? Or he may be areally benevolent person. Well, you'll know all about it presently.

  * * * * *

  "And--here we are," said Mr. Beale, stopping in a side-street at an opendoor from which yellow light streamed welcomingly. "Now mind you don'tcontradict anything wot I say to people. And don't you forget you're mynipper, and you got to call me daddy."

  "I'll call you farver," said Dickie. "I got a daddy of my own, youknow."

  "Why," said Mr. Beale, stopping suddenly, "you said he was dead."

  "So he is," said Dickie; "but 'e's my daddy all the same."

  "Oh, come on," said Mr. Beale impatiently. And they went in.