Harding's Luck Part 19

Beale, on all fours, retrieved the boxes.

"Two," he said, in awestruck tones; "there never was such a nipper!"

"It doesn't matter," said d.i.c.kie 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 d.i.c.kie 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 d.i.c.kie.

"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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'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 d.i.c.kie, "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 d.i.c.kie, 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 sc.r.a.pped and grunted round him as he worked. No squirrels or birds came that day to lighten d.i.c.kie'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 Suss.e.x," she told them, looking with bleared eyes across the fields.

d.i.c.kie 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 d.i.c.kie 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 d.i.n.ky 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. d.i.c.kie 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 d.i.c.kie 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 d.i.c.kie.

"But in the winter-time?" Beale urged.

"Well, town then," said d.i.c.kie, 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 d.i.c.kie.

"Go back to yer Talbots," said Beale.

"No--but look 'ere," said d.i.c.kie, "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 d.i.c.kie 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 d.i.c.kie 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 n.o.body 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 d.i.c.kie when he had got up in the morning after the night when he had had The Dream.

The sight pulled at d.i.c.kie'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 sh.o.r.es 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. n.o.body 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 d.i.c.kie; "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 b.a.l.l.s, 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 b.u.t.ter." 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 part.i.tions like the stalls in a stable, and over the top of this part.i.tion there suddenly appeared a head.