Page:Hardings luck - nesbit.djvu/237

Rh thought o' that. No need to, as you say. The cleverness of it!"

This admiration of the cleverness by which he himself had been cheated set Dickie thinking. He said, very gently and quietly, after a little pause— "This 'ere walking tower of ours. We pays our own way? No cadging?"

"I should 'ope you know me better than that," said Beale virtuously; "not a patter have I done since I done the Bally and started in the dog line."

"Nor yet no dealings with that red-headed chap what I never see?"

"Now, is it likely?" Beale asked reproachfully. "I should 'ope we're a cut above a low chap like wot 'e is. The pram's dry as a bone and shiny as yer 'at, and we'll start the first thing in the morning."

And in the early morning, which is fresh and sweet even in Deptford, they bade farewell to Amelia and the dogs and set out.

Amelia watched them down the street and waved a farewell as they turned the corner.

"It'll be a bit lonesome," she said. "One thing, I shan't be burgled, with all them dogs in the house."

The voices of the dogs, as she went in and shut the door, seemed to assure her that she would not even be so very lonely.

And now they were really on the road. And they were going to Arden—to that place by the sea where Dickie's uncle, in the other life, had a