makin' a good figure every time, for 'e was a
'andsome dawg as ever I see. Trained the dawg to open the door and bunk
'ome. See? Clever, I call it."

"It's a mean trick," said Dickie when Beale told him of the loss of the
dog; "that's what I call it. I'm sorry you've lost the dog."

"I ain't exactly pleased myself," said Beale, "but no use crying over
broken glass. It's the cleverness I think of most," he said admiringly.
"Now I'd never a thought of a thing like that myself--not if I'd lived
to a hundred, so I wouldn't. _You_ might 'ave," he told Dickie
flatteringly, "but I wouldn't myself."

"We don't need to," said Dickie hastily. "We earns our livings. We don't
need to cheat to get our livings."

"No, no, dear boy," said Mr. Beale, more hastily still; "course we
don't. That's just what I'm a-saying, ain't it? We shouldn't never 'ave
thought o' that. No need to, as you say. The cleverness of it!"

This admiration of the cleverness by which he himself had been cheated
set Dickie thinking. He said, very gently and quietly, after a little
pause--

"This 'ere walking tower of ours. We pays our own way? No cadging?"

"I should 'ope you know me better than that," said Beale virtuously;
"not a patter have I done since I done the Rally and started in the dog
line."

"Nor yet no dealings with that redheaded chap what I never see?"

"Now, is it likely?" Beale asked reproachfully. "I should 'ope we're a
cut above a low chap like wot 'e is. The pram's dry as a bone and shiny
as yer 'at, and we'll start the first thing in the morning."

And in the early morning, which is fresh and sweet even in Deptford,
they bade farewell to Amelia and the dogs and set out.

Amelia watched them down the street and waved a farewell as they turned
the corner. "It'll be a bit lonesome," she said. "One thing, I shan't be
burgled, with all them dogs in the house."

The voices of the dogs, as she went in and shut the door, seemed to
assure her that she would not even be so very lonely.

And now they were really on the road. And they were going to Arden--to
that place by the sea where Dickie's uncle, in the other life, had a
castle, and where Dickie was to meet his cousins, after his seven months
of waiting.

You may think that Dickie would be very excited by the thought of
meeting, in this workaday, nowadays world, the children with whom he had
had such wonderful adventures in the other world, the dream world--too
excited, perhaps, to