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

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 wintertime?” 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 heartstrings. 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 doorsteps,” 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 halfway 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 doorsteps 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