"I could keep a lookout for likely pups," said Beale; "there's a plenty here and there all about--and you with your boxes. We might go to three bob a week for the room." "I'd like a 'ouse with a garden," said Dickie. "Go back to yer Talbots," said Beale. "No--but look 'ere," said Dickie, "if we was to take a 'ouse--just a little 'ouse, and let half of it." "We ain't got no sticks to put in it." "Ain't there some way you get furniture without payin' for it?" "'Ire systim. But that's for toffs on three quid a week, reg'lar wages. They wouldn't look at us." "We'll get three quid right enough afore we done," said Dickie firmly; "and if you want London, I'd like our old house because of the seeds I sowed in the garden; I lay they'll keep on a-coming up, forever and ever. That's what annuals means. The chap next door told me. It means flowers as comes up fresh every year. Let's tramp up, and I'll show it to you--where we used to live." And when they had tramped up and Dickie had shown Mr. Beale the sad-faced little house, Mr. Beale owned that it would do 'em a fair treat. "But we must 'ave some bits of sticks or else nobody won't let us have no 'ouses." They flattened their noses against the front window. The newspapers and dirty sackings still lay scattered on the floor as they had fallen from Dickie when he had got up in the morning after the night when he had had The Dream. The sight pulled at Dickie's heart-strings. He felt as a man might feel who beheld once more the seaport from which in old and beautiful days he had set sail for the shores of romance, the golden splendor of The Fortunate Islands. "I could doss 'ere again," he said wistfully; "it 'ud save fourpence. Both 'ouses both sides is empty. Nobody wouldn't know." "We don't need to look to our fourpences so sharp's all that," said Beale. "I'd like to." "Wonder you ain't afeared." "I'm used to it," said Dickie; "it was our own 'ouse, you see." "You come along to yer supper," said Beale; "don't be so flash with yer own 'ouses." They had supper at a coffee-shop in the Broadway. "Two mugs, four billiard balls, and 'arf a dozen door-steps," was Mr. Beale's order. You or I, more polite if less picturesque, would perhaps have said, "Two cups of tea, four eggs, and some thick bread and butter." It was a pleasant meal. Only just at the end it turned into something quite different. The shop was one of those old-fashioned ones, divided by partitions like the stalls in a stable, and over the top of this partition there suddenly appeared a head. Dickie's mug paused in air half-way to his mouth, which remained open. "What's up?" Beale asked, trying to turn on the narrow seat and look up, which he couldn't do. "It's 'im," whispered Dickie, setting down the mug. "That red'eaded chap wot I never see."