ng 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, c