6

"'IT _IS_ A MOONFLOWER, OF COURSE,' HE SAID" 12

"'HERE, HUMPHREYS, PUT THESE IN A JUG OF WATER TILL I GO
HOME'" 16

"HE LAY FACE DOWNWARD ON THE ROAD AND TURNED UP HIS BOOT" 24

"'IT ONLY PAWNS FOR A SHILLIN',' SAID DICKIE" 38

"THREE OR FOUR FACES LOOKED DOWN AT DICKIE" 70

"HE MADE, WITH TRIPLE LINES OF SILVERY SEEDS, A SIX-POINTED
STAR" 80

"''TIS THE PICTURE,' HE SAID PROUDLY, 'OF MY OLD SHIP, "THE
GOLDEN VENTURE"'" 98

"THE GALLEY WAS DECKED WITH FRESH FLOWERS" 102

"'AN' I OFF'S WITH ME COAT, AND FLOPS IT DOWN IN THE MIDDLE
OF THE PUDDLE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE GAL'" 134

"'OH, WHAT A LONG TIME SINCE I HAVE SEEN THEE!' DICKIE CRIED" 148

"IT HURT, BUT DICKIE LIKED IT" 158

"'ELFRIDA!' SAID BOTH BOYS AT ONCE" 272

"'I HAVE KILLED A MAN,' HE SAID" 290

"'I'VE THOUGHT OF NOTHING ELSE FOR A MONTH,' SAID DICKIE" 304

HARDING'S LUCK

Harding's Luck

CHAPTER I

TINKLER AND THE MOONFLOWER

DICKIE lived at New Cross. At least the address was New Cross, but
really the house where he lived was one of a row of horrid little houses
built on the slope where once green fields ran down the hill to the
river, and the old houses of the Deptford merchants stood stately in
their pleasant gardens and fruitful orchards. All those good fields and
happy gardens are built over now. It is as though some wicked giant had
taken a big brush full of yellow ochre paint, and another full of mud
color, and had painted out the green in streaks of dull yellow and
filthy brown; and the brown is the roads and the yellow is the houses.
Miles and miles and miles of them, and not a green thing to be seen
except the cabbages in the greengrocers' shops, and here and there some
poor trails of creeping-jenny drooping from a dirty window-sill. There
is a little yard at the back of each house; this is called "the garden,"
and some of these show green--but they only show it to the houses' back
windows. You cannot see it from the street. These gardens are green,
because green is the color that most pleases and soothes men's ey