\ / \ /
^ ^
/ \ / \
/___\_____/___\
\ /
\ /
v

with the rattle and the seal in the middle, and the light from the
street lamp shone brightly on it all.

"That's the prettiest of the lot," said Dickie Harding, alone in the
empty house.

And then the magic began.

CHAPTER IV

WHICH WAS THE DREAM?

THE two crossed triangles of white seeds, in the midst Tinkler and the
white seal, lay on the floor of the little empty house, grew dim and
faint before Dickie's eyes, and his eyes suddenly smarted and felt tired
so that he was very glad to shut them. He had an absurd fancy that he
could see, through his closed eyelids, something moving in the middle of
the star that the two triangles made. But he knew that this must be
nonsense, because, of course, you cannot see through your eyelids. His
eyelids felt so heavy that he could not take the trouble to lift them
even when a voice spoke quite near him. He had no doubt but that it was
the policeman come to "take him up" for being in a house that was not
his.

"Let him," said Dickie to himself. He was too sleepy to be afraid.

But for a policeman, who is usually of quite a large pattern, the voice
was unusually soft and small. It said briskly--

"Now, then, where do you want to go to?"

"I ain't particular," said Dickie, who supposed himself to be listening
to an offer of a choice of police-stations.

There were whispers--two small and soft voices. They made a sleepy
music.

"He's more yours than mine," said one.

"You're more his than I am," said the other.

"You're older than I am," said the first.

"You're stronger than I am," said the second.

"Let's spin for it," said the first voice, and there was a humming sound
ending in a little tinkling fall.

"That settles it," said the second voice--"here?"

"And when?"

"Three's a good number."

Then everything was very quiet, and sleep wrapped Dickie like a soft
cloak. When he awoke his eyelids no longer felt heavy, so he opened
them. "That was a rum dream," he told himself, as he blinked in broad
daylight.

He lay in bed--a big, strange bed--in a room that he had never seen
before. The windows were low and long, with small panes, and the light
was broken by upright stone divisions. The floor was of dark wood,
strewn strangely with flowers and green herbs, and the bed was a
four-post bed like