Harding's Luck Part 10

"You're too sharp to live," Markham declared; and next moment he was through the window, and Joe was laying him in a long hamper half-filled with straw that stood waiting.

"I'll put you in the van along with the other hampers," whispered Joe as he shut the lid. "Then when you're in the train you just cut the string with this 'ere little knife I'll make you a present of and out you gets.

I'll make it all right with the guard. He knows me. And he'll put you down at whatever station you say."

"Here, don't forget 'is breakfast," said Markham, reaching her arm through the window. It was a wonderful breakfast. Five cold rissoles, a lot of bread and b.u.t.ter, two slices of cake, and a bottle of milk. And it was fun eating agreeable and unusual things, lying down in the roomy hamper among the smooth straw. The jolting of the cart did not worry d.i.c.kie at all. He was used to the perambulator; and he ate as much as he wanted to eat, and when that was done he put the rest in his pocket and curled up comfortably in the straw, for there was still quite a lot left of what ordinary people consider night, and also there was quite a lot left of the sleepiness with which he had gone to bed at the end of the wonderful day. It was not only just body-sleepiness: the kind you get after a long walk or a long play day. It was mind-sleepiness--d.i.c.kie had gone through so much in the last thirty-six hours that his poor little brain felt quite worn out. He fell asleep among the straw, fingering the clasp-knife in his pocket, and thinking how smartly he would cut the string when the time came.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THREE OR FOUR FACES LOOKED DOWN AT d.i.c.kIE"

[_Page 70_]

And he slept for a very long time. Such a long time that when he did wake up there was no longer any need to cut the string of the hamper.

Some one else had done that, and the lid of the basket was open, and three or four faces looked down at d.i.c.kie, and a girl's voice said--

"Why, it's a little boy! And a crutch--oh, dear!" d.i.c.kie sat up. The little crutch, which was lying corner-wise above him in the hamper, jerked out and rattled on the floor.

"Well, I never did--never!" said another voice. "Come out, dearie; don't be frightened."

"How kind people are!" d.i.c.kie thought, and reached his hands to slender white hands that were held out to him. A lady in black--her figure was as slender as her hands--drew him up, put her arms round him, and lifted him on to a black bentwood chair.

His eyes, turning swiftly here and there, showed him that he was in a shop--a shop full of flowers and fruit.

"Mr. Rosenberg," said the slender lady--"oh, do come here, please! This extra hamper----"

A dark, handsome, big-nosed man came towards them.

"It's a dear little boy," said the slender lady, who had a pale, kind face, dark eyes, and very red lips.

"It'th a practical joke, I shuppothe," said the dark man. "Our gardening friend wanth a liththon: and I'll thee he getth it."

"It wasn't his fault," said d.i.c.kie, wriggling earnestly in his high chair; "it was my fault. I fell asleep."

The girls crowded round him with questions and caresses.

"I ought to have cut the string in the train and told the guard--he's a friend of the gardener's," he said, "but I was asleep. I don't know as ever I slep' so sound afore. Like as if I'd had sleepy-stuff--you know.

Like they give me at the orspittle."

I should not like to think that Markham had gone so far as to put "sleepy-stuff" in that bottle of milk; but I am afraid she was not very particular, and she may have thought it best to send d.i.c.kie to sleep so that he could not betray her or her gardener friend until he was very far away from both of them.

"But why," asked the long-nosed gentleman--"why put boyth in bathketth?

Upthetting everybody like thith," he added crossly.

"It was," said d.i.c.kie slowly, "a sort of joke. I don't want to go upsetting of people. If you'll lift me down and give me me crutch I'll 'ook it."

But the young ladies would not hear of his hooking it.

"We may keep him, mayn't we, Mr. Rosenberg?" they said; and he judged that Mr. Rosenberg was a kind man or they would not have dared to speak so to him; "let's keep him till closing-time, and then one of us will see him home. He lives in London. He says so."

d.i.c.kie had indeed murmured "words to this effect," as policemen call it when they are not quite sure what people really _have_ said.

"Ath you like," said Mr. Rosenberg, "only you muthn't let him interfere with bithneth; thath all."

They took him away to the back of the shop. They were dear girls, and they were very nice to d.i.c.kie. They gave him grapes, and a banana, and some Marie biscuits, and they folded sacks for him to lie on.

And d.i.c.kie liked them and was grateful to them--and watched his opportunity. Because, however kind people were, there was one thing he had to do--to get back to the Gravesend lodging-house, as his "father"

had told him to do.

The opportunity did not come till late in the afternoon, when one of the girls was boiling a kettle on a spirit-lamp, and one had gone out to get cakes in d.i.c.kie's honor, which made him uncomfortable, but duty is duty, and over the Gravesend lodging-house the star of duty shone and beckoned. The third young lady and Mr. Rosenberg were engaged in animated explanations with a fair young gentleman about a basket of roses that had been ordered, and had not been sent.

"Cath," Mr. Rosenberg was saying--"cath down enthureth thpeedy delivery."

And the young lady was saying, "I am extremely sorry, sir; it was a misunderstanding."

And to the music of their two voices d.i.c.kie edged along close to the grapes and melons, holding on to the shelf on which they lay so as not to attract attention by the tap-tapping of his crutch.

He pa.s.sed silently and slowly between the rose-filled window and the heap of bananas that adorned the other side of the doorway, turned the corner, threw his arm over his crutch, and legged away for dear life down a sort of covered Arcade; turned its corner and found himself in a wilderness of baskets and carts and vegetables, threaded his way through them, in and out among the baskets, over fallen cabbage-leaves, under horses' noses, found a quiet street, a still quieter archway, pulled out the knife--however his adventure ended he was that knife to the good--and prepared to cut the money out of the belt Mr. Beale had buckled round him.

And the belt was not there! Had he dropped it somewhere? Or had he and Markham, in the hurry of that twilight dressing, forgotten to put it on?

He did not know. All he knew was that the belt was not on him, and that he was alone in London, without money, and that at Gravesend his father was waiting for him--waiting, waiting. d.i.c.kie knew what it meant to wait.

He went out into the street, and asked the first good-natured-looking loafer he saw the way to Gravesend.

"Way to your grandmother," said the loafer; "don't you come saucing of me."

"But which is the way?" said d.i.c.kie.

The man looked hard at him and then pointed with a grimy thumb over his shoulder.

"It's thirty mile if it's a yard," he said. "Got any c.h.i.n.k?"

"I lost it," said d.i.c.kie. "My farver's there awaitin' for me."

"Garn!" said the man; "you don't kid me so easy."

"I ain't arstin' you for anything except the way," said d.i.c.kie.

"More you ain't," said the man, hesitated, and pulled his hand out of his pocket. "Ain't kiddin'? Sure? Father at Gravesend? Take your Bible?"

"Yuss," said d.i.c.kie.

"Then you take the first to the right and the first to the left, and you'll get a blue 'bus as'll take you to the 'Elephant.' That's a bit of the way. Then you arst again. And 'ere--this'll pay for the 'bus." He held out coppers.

This practical kindness went to d.i.c.kie's heart more than all the kisses of the young ladies in the flower-shop. The tears came into his eyes.

"Well, you _are_ a pal, and no error," he said. "Do the same for you some day," he added.

The lounging man laughed.

"I'll hold you to that, matey," he said; "when you're a-ridin' in yer carriage an' pair p'raps you'll take me on ter be yer footman."