"I cannot repay your kindness," he said, "though some day I will repay your silver. But these seeds--the moon-seeds," he pulled out a handful. "You liked the flowers?" He handed a generous score across the red-brown polished wood. "Thank you, my lad," said the pawnbroker. "I'll raise them in gentle heat." "I think they grow best by moonlight," said Dickie. * * * * * So he came to Gravesend and the common lodging-house, and a weary, sad, and very anxious man rose up from his place by the fire when the clickety-clack of the crutch sounded on the threshold. "It's the nipper!" he said; and came very quickly to the door and got his arm round Dickie's shoulders. "The little nipper, so it ain't! I thought you'd got pinched. No, I didn't, I knew your clever ways--I knew you was bound to turn up." "Yes," said Dickie, looking round the tramps' kitchen, and remembering the long, clean tapestry-hung dining-hall of his dream. "Yes, I was bound to turn up. You wanted me to, didn't you?" he added. "Wanted you to?" Beale answered, holding him close, and looking at him as men look at some rare treasure gained with much cost and after long seeking. "Wanted you? Not 'arf! I _don't_ think," and drew him in and shut the door. "Then I'm glad I came," said Dickie. But in his heart he was not glad. In his heart he longed for that pleasant house where he was the young master, and was not lame any more. But in his soul he was glad, because the soul is greater than the heart, and knows greater things. And now Dickie loved Beale more than ever, because for him he had sacrificed his dream. So he had gained something. Because loving people is the best thing in the world--better even than being loved. Just think this out, will you, and see if I am not right. There were herrings for tea. And in the hard bed, with his clothes and his boots under the pillows, Dickie slept soundly. But he did not dream. Yet when he woke in the morning, remembering many things, he said to himself-- "Is this the dream? Or was the other the dream?" And it seemed a foolish question--with the feel of the coarse sheets and the smell of the close room, and Mr. Beale's voice saying, "Rouse up, nipper, there's sossingers for breakfast." CHAPTER V "TO GET YOUR OWN LIVING" "NO," said Mr. Beale, "we ain't a-goin' to crack no more cribs. It's low--that's what it is. I quite grant you it's low. So I s'pose we'll 'ave to take the road again." Dickie and he were sitting in the sunshine on a sloping field. They had been sitting there all the morning, and Dickie had told Mr. Beale all his earthly adventures from the moment the redheaded man had lifted him up to the window of Talbot Court to the time when he had come in by the open door of the common lodging-house.