eale later, "so help
me three men and a boy you might. It's a rum go. My lord 'e says there's
some woman been writing letters to 'im this long time saying she'd got
'old of 'is long-lost nephew or cousin or something, and a-wanting to
get money out of him--though what for, goodness knows. An' 'e says
you're a Arden by rights, you nipper you, an' 'e wants to take you and
bring you up along of his kids--so there's an end of you and me, Dickie,
old boy. I didn't understand more than 'arf of wot 'e was saying. But I
tumbled to that much. It's all up with you and me and Amelia and the
dogs and the little 'ome. You're a-goin' to be a gentleman, you are--an'
I'll have to take to the road by meself and be a poor beast of a cadger
again. That's what it'll come to, I know."

"Don't you put yourself about," said Dickie calmly. "I ain't a-goin' to
leave yer. Didn't Lady Talbot ask me to be her boy--and didn't I cut
straight back to you? I'll play along o' them kids if Lord Arden'll let
me. But I ain't a-goin' to leave you, not yet I ain't. So don't you go
snivelling afore any one's 'urt yer, farver. See?"

But that was before Lord Arden had his second talk with Mr. Beale. After
that it was--

"Look 'ere, you nipper, I ain't a-goin' to stand in your light. You're
goin' up in the world, says you. Well, you ain't the only one. Lord
Arden's bought father's cottage an' 'e's goin' to build on to it, and
I'm to 'ave all the dawgs down 'ere, and sell 'em through the papers
like. And you'll come an' 'ave a look at us sometimes."

"And what about Amelia?" said Dickie, "and the little ones?"

"Well, I did think," said Beale, rubbing his nose thoughtfully, "of
asking 'Melia to come down 'ere along o' the dawgs. Seems a pity to
separate 'em somehow. It was Lord Arden put it into my 'ed. 'You oughter
be married you ought,' 'e says to me pleasant like, man to man; 'ain't
there any young woman I could give a trifle to, to set you and her up in
housekeeping?' So then I casts about, and I thinks of 'Melia. As well
'er as anybody, and she's used to the dawgs. And the trifle's an hundred
pounds. That's all. _That's all!_ So I'm sending to her by this post,
and it's an awful toss up getting married, but 'Melia ain't like a
stranger, and it couldn't ever be the same with us two and nipper after
all this set out. What you say?"

I don't know what Dickie said; what he felt was something like this:--

"I _have_ tried to stick to Beale, and help him