in a Windsor chair, with a brown
spaniel at his feet and a bird in a wicker cage above his head, and he
was nodding, for it was a hot day, and he was an old man and tired.

"Swelp me, I can't do it!" whispered Beale. "I'll walk on a bit. You
just arst for a drink, and sort of see 'ow the land lays. It might turn
'im up seeing me so sudden. Good old dad!"

He walked quickly on, and Dickie was left standing by the gate. Then the
brown spaniel became aware of True, and barked, and the old man said,
"Down, Trusty!" in his sleep, and then woke up.

His clear old eyes set in many wrinkles turned full on Dickie by the
gate.

"May I have a drink of water?" Dickie asked.

"Come in," said the old man.

And Dickie lifted the latch of smooth, brown, sun-warmed iron, and went
up the brick path, as the old man slowly turned himself about in the
chair.

"Yonder's the well," he said; "draw up a bucket, if thy leg'll let thee,
poor little chap!"

"I draws water with my arms, not my legs," said Dickie cheerfully.

"There's a blue mug in the wash-house window-ledge," said the old man.
"Fetch me a drop when you've had your drink, my lad."

Of course, Dickie's manners were too good for him to drink first. He
drew up the dripping oaken bucket from the cool darkness of the well,
fetched the mug, and offered it brimming to the old man. Then he drank,
and looked at the garden ablaze with flowers--blush-roses and damask
roses, and sweet-williams and candytuft, white lilies and yellow lilies,
pansies, larkspur, poppies, bergamot, and sage.

It was just like a play at the Greenwich Theatre, Dickie thought. He had
seen a scene just like that, where the old man sat in the sun and the
Prodigal returned.

Dickie would not have been surprised to see Beale run up the brick path
and throw himself on his knees, exclaiming, "Father, it is I--your
erring but repentant son! Can you forgive me? If a lifetime of
repentance can atone ..." and so on.

If Dickie had been Beale he would certainly have made the speech,
beginning, "Father, it is I." But as he was only Dickie, he said--

"Your name's Beale, ain't it?"

"It might be," old Beale allowed.

"I seen your son in London. 'E told me about yer garden."

"I should a thought 'e'd a-forgot the garden same as 'e's forgot me,"
said the old man.

"'E ain't forgot you, not 'e," said Dickie; "'e's come to see you, an
'e's waiting outside now to know if you'd like to see 'im."

"Then 'e oughte