After breakfast Dickie was measured for a crutch--that is to say, a broom was held up beside him and a piece cut off its handle. Then the lady wrapped flannel around the hairy part of the broom and sewed black velvet over that. It was a beautiful crutch, and Dickie said so. Also he showed his gratitude by inviting the lady to look "'ow spry 'e was on 'is pins," but she only looked a very little while, and then turned and gazed out of the window. So Dickie had a good look at the room and the furniture--it was all different from anything he ever remembered seeing, and yet he couldn't help thinking he had seen them before, these high-backed chairs covered with flowers, like on carpets; the carved bookcases with rows on rows of golden-beaded books; the bow-fronted, shining sideboard, with handles that shone like gold, and the corner cupboard with glass doors and china inside, red and blue and goldy. It was a very odd feeling. I don't think that I can describe it better than by saying that he looked at all these things with a double pleasure--the pleasure of looking at new and beautiful things, and the pleasure of seeing again things old and beautiful which he had not seen for a very long time. His limping survey of the room ended at the windows, when the lady turned suddenly, knelt down, put her hand under his chin and looked into his eyes. "Dickie," she said, "how would you like to stay here and be _my_ little boy?" "I'd like it right enough," said he, "only I got to go back to father." "But if father says you may?" "'E won't," said Dickie, with certainty, "an' besides, there's Tinkler." "Well, you're to stay here and be my little boy till we find out where father is. We shall let the police know. They're sure to find him." "The pleece!" Dickie cried in horror. "Why, father, 'e ain't done nothing." "No, no, of course not," said the lady in a hurry; "but the police know all sorts of things--about where people are, I know, and what they're doing--even when they haven't _done_ anything." "The pleece knows a jolly sight too much," said Dickie, in gloom. And now all Dickie's little soul was filled with one longing; all his little brain awake to one only thought: the police were to be set on the track of Beale, the man whom he called father; the man who had been kind to him, had wheeled him in a perambulator for miles and miles through enchanted country; the man who had bought him a little coat "to put on o' nights if it was cold or wet"; the man who had shown him the wonderful world to which he awakens who has slept in the bed with the green curtains. The lady's house was more beautiful than anything he had ever imagined--yet not more beautiful than certain things that he almost imagined that he remembered. The lady was better than beautiful, she was dear. Her eyes were the eyes to which it is good to laugh--her arms were the arms in which it is good to cry. The tree-dotted parkland was to Dickie the Land of Heart's Desire.