"You lay the rattle, the seal, and the moon-seeds as before, and listen to the voices." And then Dickie lay down in the cloth cloak, and the nurse sat by him and held his hand till he fell asleep. It was June now, and the scent of the roses was very sweet, and the nightingales kept him awake awhile. But the sky overhead was an old friend of his, and as he lay he could see the shining of the dew among the grass blades of the lawn. It was pleasant to lie again in the bed with the green curtains. When he awoke there was his old friend the starry sky, and for a moment he wondered. Then he remembered. He raised himself on his elbow. There were houses all about--little houses with lights in some of the windows. A broken paling was quite close to him. There was no grass near, only rough trampled earth; the smell all about him was not of roses, but of dust-bins, and there were no nightingales--but far away he could hear that restless roar that is the voice of London, and near at hand the foolish song and unsteady footfall of a man going home from the "Cat and Whistle." He scratched a cross on the hard ground with a broken bit of a plate to mark the spot, got up and crept on hands and knees to the house, climbed in and found the room where Beale lay asleep. * * * * * "Father," said Dickie, next morning, as Mr. Beale stretched and grunted and rubbed sleepy eyes with his unwashed fists in the cold daylight that filled the front room of 15, Lavender Terrace, Rosemary Lane. "You got to take this house--that's what you got to do; you remember." "Can't say I do," said Beale, scratching his head; "but if the nipper says so, it _is_ so. Let's go and get a mug and a door-step, and then we'll see." "You get it--if you're hungry," said Dickie. "I'd rather wait here in case anybody else was to take the house. You go and see 'im now. 'E'll think you're a man in reg'lar work by your being up so early." "P'raps," said Beale thoughtfully, running his hand over the rustling stubble of his two days' beard--"p'raps I'd best get a wash and brush-up first, eh? It might be worth it in the end. I'll 'ave to go to the doss to get our pram and things, any'ow." The landlord of the desired house really thought Mr. Beale a quite respectable working man, and Mr. Beale accounted for their lack of furniture by saying, quite truthfully, that he and his nipper had come up from Gravesend, doing a bit of work on the way. "I could," he added, quite untruthfully, "give you the gentleman I worked with for me reference--Talbott, 'is name is--a bald man with a squint and red ears--but p'raps this'll do as well." He pulled out of one pocket all their money--two pounds eighteen shillings--except six pennies which he had put in the other pocket to rattle. He rattled them now. "I'm anxious," he said, confidentially, "to get settled on account of the nipper. I don't deceive you; we 'oofed it up, not to waste our little bit, and he's a hoppy chap."