"What is it, then?" said Beale, in the accents of long-disused tenderness; "tell your old farver, then----" "It's silly," sobbed Dickie. "Never you mind whether it's silly or not," said Beale. "You out with it." "In that dream," said Dickie, "I wasn't lame." "Think of that now," said Beale admiringly. "You best dream that every night. Then you won't mind so much of a daytime." "But I mind more," said Dickie, sniffing hard; "much, much more." Beale, without more words, made room for him in the crowded perambulator, and they went on. Dickie's sniffs subsided. Silence. Presently-- "I say, farver, I'm sorry I acted so silly. You never see me blub afore and you won't again," he said; and Beale said awkwardly, "That's all right, mate." "You pretty flush?" the boy asked later on. "Not so dusty," said the man. "'Cause I wanter give that there little box to a chap I know wot lent me the money for the train to come to you at Gravesend." "Pay 'im some other day when we're flusher." "I'd rather pay 'im now," said Dickie. "I could make another box. There's a bit of the sofer leg left, ain't there?" There was, and Dickie worked away at it in the odd moments that cluster round meal times, the half-hours before bed and before the morning start. Mr. Beale begged of all likely foot-passengers, but he noted that the "nipper" no longer "stuck it on." For the most part he was quite silent. Only when Beale appealed to him he would say, "Farver's very good to me. I don't know what I should do without farver." And so at last they came to New Cross again, and Mr. Beale stepped in for half a pint at the Railway Hotel, while Dickie went clickety-clack along the pavement to his friend the pawnbroker. "Here we are again," said that tradesman; "come to pawn the rattle?" Dickie laughed. Pawning the rattle seemed suddenly to have become a very old and good joke between them. "Look 'ere, mister," he said; "that chink wot you lent me to get to Gravesend with." He paused, and added in his other voice, "It was very good of you, sir." "I'm not going to lend you any more, if that's what you're after," said the Jew, who had already reproached himself for his confiding generosity. "It's not that I'm after," said Dickie, with dignity. "I wish to repay you." "Got the money?" said the Jew, laughing not unkindly. "No," said Dickie; "but I've got this." He handed the little box across the counter. "Where'd you get it?" "I made it." The pawnbroker laughed again. "Well, well, I'll ask no questions and you'll tell me no lies, eh?" "I shall certainly tell you no lies," said Dickie, with the dignity of the dream boy who was not a cripple and was heir to a great and gentle name; "will you take it instead of the money?" The pawnbroker turned the box over in his hands, while kindness and honesty struggled fiercely within him against the habits of a business life. Dickie eyed the china vases and concertinas and teaspoons tied together in fan shape, and waited silently.