It is really with the going of that rabbit-hutch that this story begins. Because it was then that Dickie, having called his aunt a Beast, and hit at her with his little dirty fist, was well slapped and put out into the bereaved yard to "come to himself," as his aunt said. He threw himself down on the ground and cried and wriggled with misery and pain, and wished--ah, many things. "Wot's the bloomin' row now?" the Man Next Door suddenly asked; "been hittin' of you?" "They've took away the 'utch," said Dickie. "Well, there warn't nothin' in it." "I diden want it took away," wailed Dickie. "Leaves more room," said the Man Next Door, leaning on his spade. It was Saturday afternoon and the next-door garden was one of the green ones. There were small grubby daffodils in it, and dirty-faced little primroses, and an arbor beside the water-butt, bare at this time of the year, but still a real arbor. And an elder-tree that in the hot weather had flat, white flowers on it big as tea-plates. And a lilac-tree with brown buds on it. Beautiful. "Say, matey, just you chuck it! Chuck it, I say! How in thunder can I get on with my digging with you 'owlin' yer 'ead off?" inquired the Man Next Door. "You get up and peg along in an' arst your aunt if she'd be agreeable for me to do up her garden a bit. I could do it odd times. You'd like that." "Not 'arf!" said Dickie, getting up. "Come to yourself, eh?" sneered the aunt. "You mind, and let it be the last time you come your games with me, my beauty. You and your tantrums!" Dickie said what it was necessary to say, and got back to the "garden." "She says she ain't got no time to waste, an' if you 'ave she don't care what you does with it." "There's a dirty mug you've got on you," said the Man Next Door, leaning over to give Dickie's face a rub with a handkerchief hardly cleaner. "Now I'll come over and make a start." He threw his leg over the fence. "You just peg about an' be busy pickin' up all them fancy articles, and nex' time your aunt goes to Buckingham Palace for the day we'll have a bonfire." "Fifth o' November?" said Dickie, sitting down and beginning to draw to himself the rubbish that covered the ground. "Fifth of anything you like, so long as _she_ ain't about," said he, driving in the spade. "'Ard as any old door-step it is. Never mind, we'll turn it over, and we'll get some little seedses and some little plantses and we shan't know ourselves." "I got a 'apenny," said Dickie. "Well, I'll put one to it, and you leg 'long and buy seedses. That's wot you do."