u see me you
don't know me. Nor yet that redheaded chap wot you never see." He looked
down at the small, earnest face turned up to his own. "You _are_ a
little nipper," he said affectionately. "I don't know as I ever noticed
before quite wot a little 'un you was. Think you can stick it? You
shan't go without you wants to, matey. There!"

"It's splendid!" said Dickie; "it is an adventure for a bold knight. I
shall feel like Here Ward when he dressed in the potter's clothes and
went to see King William."

He spoke in the book voice.

"There you go," said Mr. Beale, "but don't you go and talk to 'em like
that if they pinches you; they'd never let you loose again. Think they'd
got a marquis in disguise, so they would."

Dickie thought all day about this great adventure. He did not tell Mr.
Beale so, but he was very proud of being so trusted. If you come to
think of it, burgling must be a very exciting profession. And Dickie had
no idea that it was wrong. It seemed to him a wholly delightful and
sporting amusement.

While he was exploring the fox-runs among the thick stems of the grass
Mr. Beale lay at full length and pondered.

"I don't more'n 'arf like it," he said to himself. "Ho yuss. I know
that's wot I got him for--all right. But 'e's such a jolly little
nipper. I wouldn't like anything to 'appen to 'im, so I wouldn't."

Dickie took his boots off and went to sleep as usual, and in the middle
of the night Mr. Beale woke him up and said, "It's time."

There was no moon that night, and it was very, very dark. Mr. Beale
carried Dickie on his back for what seemed a very long way along dark
roads, under dark trees, and over dark meadows. A dark bush divided
itself into two parts and one part came surprisingly towards them. It
turned out to be the red-whiskered man, and presently from a ditch
another man came. And they all climbed a chill, damp park-fence, and
crept along among trees and shrubs along the inside of a high park wall.
Dickie, still on Mr. Beale's shoulders, was astonished to find how
quietly this big, clumsy-looking man could move.

Through openings in the trees and bushes Dickie could see the wide park,
like a spread shadow, dotted with trees that were like shadows too. And
on the other side of it the white face of a great house showed only a
little paler than the trees about it. There were no lights in the house.

They got quite close to it before the shelter of the trees ended, for a
little wood l