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200 "Well, then?" said Dickie.

"Well, if you must 'ave it," said Beale, "we're a-gettin' very near my ole dad's place, and I can't make me mind up."

"I thought we was settled we'd go to see 'im."

"I dunno. If 'e's under the daisies I shan't like it—I tell you straight I shan't like it. But we're a long-lived stock—p'raps 'e's all right. I dunno."

"Shall I go up by myself to where he lives and see if he's all right?"

"Not much," said Mr. Beale; "if I goes I goes, and if I stays away I stays away. It's just the not being able to make me mind up."

"If he's there," said Dickie, "don't you think you ought to go, just on the chance of him being there and wanting you?"

"If you come to oughts," said Beale, "I oughter gone 'ome any time this twenty year. Only I ain't. See?"

"Well," said Dickie, "it's your look out. I know what I should do if it was me."

Remembrance showed him the father who had leaned on his shoulder as they walked about the winding walks of the pleasant garden in old Deptford—the father who had given him the little horse, and insisted that his twenty gold pieces should be spent as he chose.

"I dunno," said Beale. "What you think? Eh, matey?"

"I think let's," said Dickie. "I lay if he's alive it 'ud be as good as three Sundays in the