Page:Hardings luck - nesbit.djvu/191

Rh broken bit of a plate to mark the spot, got up and crept on hands and knees to the house, climbed in and found the room where Beale lay asleep.

"Father," said Dickie, next morning, as Mr. Beale stretched and grunted and rubbed sleepy eyes with his unwashed fists in the cold daylight that filled the front room of 15, Lavender Terrace, Rosemary Lane. "You got to take this house—that's what you got to do: you remember."

"Can't say I do," said Beale, scratching his head; "but if the nipper says so, it is so. Let's go and get a mug and a doorstep, and then we'll see."

"You get it—if you're hungry," said Dickie. "I'd rather wait here in case anybody else was to take the house. You go and see 'im now. 'E'll think you're a man in reglar work by your being up so early." "P'raps," said Beale thoughtfully, running his hand over the rustling stubble of his two-days' beard—"p'raps I'd best get a wash and brush-up first, eh? It might be worth it in the end. I'll 'ave to go to the doss to get our pram and things, any'ow."

The landlord of the desired house really thought Mr. Beale a quite respectable working man, and Mr. Beale accounted for their lack of furniture by saying, quite truthfully, that he and his nipper had come up from Gravesend, doing a bit of work on the way.