"Lie straight and still," she said, "and wish thyself where thou wast when thou leftest that dream." He did so. A thick, sweet smoke rose from the little fire in the silver plate, and the nurse was chanting something in a very low voice. "Men die, Man dies not. Times fly, Time flies not." That was all he heard, though he heard confusedly that there was more. He seemed to sink deep into a soft sea of sleep, to be rocked on its tide, and then to be flung by its waves, roughly, suddenly, on some hard shore of awakening. He opened his eyes. He was in the little bare front room in New Cross. Tinkler and the white seal lay on the floor among white moonflower seeds confusedly scattered, and the gas lamp from the street shone through the dirty panes on the newspapers and sacking. "What a dream!" said Dickie, shivering, and very sleepy. "Oh, what a dream!" He put Tinkler and the seal in one pocket, gathered up the moon-seeds and put them in the other, drew the old newspapers over him and went to sleep. * * * * * The morning sun woke him. "How odd," said he, "to dream all that--weeks and weeks, in just a little bit of one little night! If it had only been true!" He jumped up, eager to start for Gravesend. Since he had wakened out of that wonderful dream on purpose to go to Gravesend, he might as well start at once. But his jump ended in a sickening sideways fall, and his head knocked against the wainscot. "I had forgotten," he said slowly. "I shouldn't have thought any dream could have made me forget about my foot." For he had indeed forgotten it, had leaped up, eagerly, confidently, as a sound child leaps, and the lame foot had betrayed him, thrown him down. He crawled across to where the crutch lay--the old broom, cut down, that Lady Talbot had covered with black velvet for him. "And now," he said, "I must get to Gravesend." He looked out of the window at the dismal, sordid street. "I wonder," he said, "if Deptford was ever really like it was in my dream--the gardens and the clean river and the fields?" He got out of the house when no one was looking, and went off down the street. "Clickety-clack" went the crutch on the dusty pavement. His back ached; his lame foot hurt; his "good" leg was tired and stiff, and his heart, too, was very tired. About this time, in the dream he had chosen to awaken from, for the sake of Beale, a bowl of porridge would be smoking at the end of a long oak table, and a great carved chair be set for a little boy who was not there. Dickie strode on manfully, but the pain in his back made him feel sick. "I don't know as I can do it," he said. Then he saw the three gold balls above the door of the friendly pawnbroker. He looked, hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, and went in. "Hullo!" said the pawnbroker, "here we are again. Want to pawn the rattle, eh?" "No," said Dickie, "but what'll you give me on the seal you gave me?"