Harding’s Luck, E. Nesbit [summer reads .TXT] 📗

“Garn!” said the man; “you don’t kid me so easy.”

“I ain’t arstin’ you for anything except the way,” said Dickie.

“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 Dickie.

“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 Dickie’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.”

“When I am, I will,” said Dickie, quite seriously. And then they both laughed.

The Elephant and Castle marks but a very short stage of the weary way between London and Gravesend. When he got out of the tram Dickie asked the way again, this time of a woman who was selling matches in the gutter. She pointed with the blue box she held in her hand.

“It’s a long way,” she said, in a tired voice; “nigh on thirty mile.”

“Thank you, missis,” said Dickie, and set out, quite simply, to walk those miles⁠—nearly thirty. The way lay down the Old Kent Road, and presently Dickie was in familiar surroundings. For the Old Kent Road leads into the New Cross Road, and that runs right through the yellow brick wilderness where Dickie’s aunt lived. He dared not follow the road through those well-known scenes. At any moment he might meet his aunt. And if he met his aunt⁠ ⁠… he preferred not to think of it.

Outside the Marquis of Granby stood a van, and the horses’ heads were turned away from London. If one could get a lift? Dickie looked anxiously to right and left, in front and behind. There were wooden boxes in the van, a lot of them, and on the canvas of the tilt was painted in fat, white letters⁠—

Fry’s Tonic

The Only Cure

There would be room on the top of the boxes⁠—they did not reach within two feet of the tilt.

Should he ask for a lift, when the carter came out of the Marquis? Or should he, if he could, climb up and hide on the boxes and take his chance of discovery on the lift? He laid a hand on the tailboard.

“Hi, Dickie!” said a voice surprisingly in his ear; “that you?”

Dickie owned that it was, with the feeling of a trapped wild animal, and turned and faced a boy of his own age, a schoolfellow⁠—the one, in fact, who had christened him “Dot-and-go-one.”

“Oh, what a turn you give me!” he said; “thought you was my aunt. Don’t you let on you seen me.”

“Where you been?” asked the boy curiously.

“Oh, all about,” Dickie answered vaguely. “Don’t you tell me aunt.”

“Yer aunt? Don’t you know?” The boy was quite contemptuous with him for not knowing.

“Know? No. Know what?”

“She shot the moon⁠—old Hurle moved her; says he don’t remember where to. She give him a pint to forget’s what I say.”

“Who’s livin’ there now?” Dickie asked, interest in his aunt’s address swallowed up in a sudden desperate anxiety.

“No one don’t live there. It’s shut up to let apply Roberts 796 Broadway,” said the boy. “I say, what’ll you do?”

“I don’t know,” said Dickie, turning away from the van, which had abruptly become unimportant. “Which way you goin’?”

“Down home⁠—go past your old shop. Coming?”

“No,” said Dickie. “So long⁠—see you again some day. I got to go this way.” And he went it.

All the same the twilight saw him creeping down the old road to the house whose backyard had held the rabbit-hutch, the garden where he had sowed the parrot food, and where the moonflowers had come up so white and beautiful. What a long time ago! It was only a month really, but all the same, what a long time!

The news of his aunt’s departure had changed everything. The steadfast desire to get to Gravesend, to find his father, had given way, at any rate for the moment, to a burning anxiety about Tinkler and the white stone. Had his aunt found them and taken them away? If she hadn’t and they were still there, would it not be wise to get them at once? Because of course someone else might take the house and find the treasures. Yes, it would certainly be wise to go tonight, to get in by the front window⁠—the catch had always been broken⁠—to find his treasures, or at any rate to make quite sure whether he had lost them or not.

No one noticed him as he came down the street, very close to the railings. There are so many boys in the streets in that part of the world. And the front window went up easily. He climbed in, dragging his crutch after him.

He got upstairs very quickly, on hands and knees, went straight to the loose board, dislodged it, felt in the hollow below. Oh, joy! His hands found the soft bundle of rags that he knew held Tinkler and the seal. He put them inside the front of his shirt and shuffled down. It was not too late to do a mile or two of the Gravesend road. But the moonflower⁠—he would like to have one more look at that.

He got out into the garden⁠—there stood the stalk of the flower very tall in the deepening dusk. He touched the stalk. It was dry and hard⁠—three or four little dry things fell from above and rattled on his head.

“Seeds, o’ course,” said Dickie, who knew more about seeds now than he had done when he saved the parrot seeds. One does