Harding's luck

ittle houses built on the slope where once green fields ran down the hill to the river, and the old houses of the Deptford merc

, 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 s

hovels, a bottomless pail, and the mouldy remains of a hutch where once rabbits had lived. But that was a very long time ago, and Dickie had never seen the rabbits. A boy had brought a brown rabbit to school once, buttoned up inside his jacket, and he had

and the shovels, giving threepence for the lot, Dickie was almost as unhappy as though the hutch had really held a furry friend. And

t a Beast, and hit at her with his little dirty fist, was well slapped and put out into the bereaved yard to "come to himself,"

" the Man Next Door suddenly

away the 'utch

e warn't no

it took away,"

utt, bare at this time of the year, but still a real arbor. And an elder-tree that in the hot weather had flat, white flowers on it big as tea-plates. And a lilac-tree with brown buds on it. Beautiful. "Say, matey, just you chuck it! Chuck it, I say!

said Dickie,

ind, and let it be the last time you come your g

necessary to say, and

to waste, an' if you 'ave she do

ief hardly cleaner. "Now I'll come over and make a start." He threw his leg over the fence. "You just peg about an' be bus

ing down and beginning to draw to hims

spade. "'Ard as any old door-step it is. Never mind, we'll turn it over, and we'

apenny," s

and you leg 'long and buy s

eep Dickie when his father died, and she might have sent him to the work-house. For she was not really his aunt, but just the woman of the house where his father had lodged. It was good of her to keep Dickie, even if she wasn't v

IE-'GIMME A PENN'OR

, Canary, Millet, Mustard, and so on; and above the drawers pictures of the kind of animals that were fed on the kind of things that the shop sold. Fat, oblong cows that had eaten Burley's Cattle Food, stout pillows of

counter and pointing a grimy thumb at th

" the shopman a

it, and came home nursing a pap

Door, "that ain't seeds.

ncast; "I thought it 'ud come into flowers like birds-

omfortably. "I'll set it along this end soon's I've go

two more pennies later for real seed. Also he transpl

bells on dogs' collars. Also a rather crooked bit of something whitish and very hard, good to suck, or to stroke with your fingers, or to dig holes in the soap with. Dickie had no idea what it was. His father had given it to him in the hospital where Dickie was taken to say good-bye to him. Good-bye had to be said because of father having fallen off the s

of," and he had never seen it again. It was brassy, with a white stone and some sort of pattern on it. He had the treasure, and he had not the least idea what it was, with its bells that jangl

y sheets, "and greensward. Oh! Tinkler dear, 'twill indeed be a fair scene. The gayest colors of the rain

I wonder whether you know that most children can speak at least two languages, even if they have never had

uage quite different from the one he uses to them-a language in which he talks to the cook and the housemaid.

Forest," "Quentin Durward," "Hereward the Wake," and three others-all paper-backed. They made a new world for Dickie. And si

ot getting bore

nd the kind of way he lived, or you won't understand his adventures.

sun that was trying to look in

to the garden to-day!" he sa

e end of the street. Because, going along to school, with his silly little head full of Artistic Bird Seeds and flowers rainbow-colored, he had let his crutch slip on a banana-skin and had tumbled down, and a butcher's cart had

his books, and in a voice that he had not found anywhere; so when on the second day a round

, and I am in Lux Ury and Af Flu

y laughed and pi

s. And from them he learned more new words. They were very nice to him at the hospital, but when they sent him

e of it-they had got used to the crutch-and that was worse than being called "Old Dot-and-g

They had taken his Tinkler from the safe corner in his bed where the tic

t. Instead he searched and searched the house i

ttle square of cardboard at the back of the dresser drawer, among th

ticket-"Rattle

, don't. Well, ask some grown-up person to explain

FLOWER, OF COU

ag

wonder whether the Artistic Bird Seeds had come up parrot-colored. He had been a very long time in the hospital, and it was Augus

arden, and the next garden was full of weeds. For the Man Next Door had gone off to

owed the Artistic Bird Seed. And, towering high above everything else-oh, three times a

e, "it's as big a

w

tately, and turned its cream

little tree," said D

ite flowers stood out below it on long stalks, thinn

said, "if the other kind's sunflower

ing. Because without a shilling he could not exchange that square of cardboard with "Rattle" on it for his one friend, Tinkler.

nobody would let me run their errands when they could get a boy with b

Door had not had time to dig. There was certainly nothing there that any one would want to

ation, and stood outside, leaning on his crutch, and holding out the flowers to the people who came crowding out of the station after the arrival of each train-thick, black crowds of tired people, in too great a hurry to get home

-coated person would say to ano

unno! Hurry u

e, when a sudden thought brought the blood to his face. He turned again quickly and went strai

above its door, and in its window all sorts of pretty things-rings, and chains

tout gentleman behind the cou

my moonflowers

ith laughter, and slapped a

ver I heard. Why, you little duffer, they'd be dead lon

they were alive, you kn

come to think of it," said the pawnbroker, who lived in a neat villa at Brockley and went in for g

"and I want to pawn them and then ge

entleman, cleverly seeing th

hat my daddy gave me before he died, and my au

ed carefully

lling to prize them now that they were his (things do look different when they are your own,

T THESE IN A JUG OF W

ag

ark cave at the back of the shop, took flowers and ticke

rvently. "I shall live but to r

he pawnbroker, reddening, an

of these days. I read an interesting Nar Rataive about a Lion the King of Beasts and a Mouse,

on't think," said the man. "W

y returning to the language of his aunt. "You bein' a t

ke a book when you like, and

cents of the gutter, "and your noble benefacteriness made me s

of b

Dickie, and there were

bit of clean rag, he said a whispered word or two to the paw

nd it's a beauty too, l

touched by this praise

here that's got the sam

hat you wear on your helmet in the

mets, but on all sorts of odd things. And the queer little animal, dra

ded, "give it a rub up a

y powder and a brush and a wash-leather, while his master

e said, "and I don't mind

he rested his crutch against the counter expressly

tle box. Don't you take it out till to-morrow and it'll be stuck fast. Only don't go trying to s

pawnbroker never dreamed of. But

n seal carefully packed in a strong little cardboard box with metal corners. Also a broken-backed copy of "Ingoldsby Legends" and one of "Mrs. Markham's English History," which had no ba

ome back. I say, you are good! Thank you, thank you-I will come back next mo

that's the way to pernounce it.

ker's shop, and with a very different person from the pawnbroker who i

urse your house has a secret panel, which his had not. There was a loose board in his room, where the man "saw to" the ga

board was coaxed quite back into its p

t up there. Come along down and fetch me a ha'porth o' wo

htly slapped him, and he took the h

udy show. He had never seen one before, and it interested him extremely. He longed to see it unpack itself and display its wonders, and he followed it through more streets than he knew; and when he found that

was a tall, thin, ragged man lounging against a stable door in the yard wher

matey? Los

e exp

live," he ended-"Lavender Terra

etting away from the wall. "We'll go back by

said D

ke

if I do,"

g inside it like a giant's heart. The wind blew freshly, and the ragged man found a sheltered corner behind the funnel. It was so sheltered, and the

you been asleep? Not 'alf! Stir y

he people shoving and crushing to get o

all right. This 'ere's where we get o

r-and if the bread was thick, so was the butter-and as many cups of tea as you liked to say thank you for. When it was over the

the egg. And this is the prettiest place ever I see. But I ought to be getting 'ome. I shall c

the

al aunt. Only I

any g

en she's in a

e you've gone and done it, mate. Why, it's hours and hours s

ere now in a country road, with green hedges and green grass growing beside it,

aid Dickie sadly. "I'd

you," said the man. "I'd go out

e?" sai

ger me an' see life! I'm a-goin' to tramp as far as Brig

ckie. "Oh, no

yer aunt do? I give yer a ride in a pleasure boat, only you w

that," s

ffer. You come longer me, and be my little 'un, and I'll be your daddy,

nd hearty, the whole adventure

going?" said Dickie, lo

where gents go for their outings. They've always got a bit to spare then. I lay you'll get some

RD ON THE ROAD AND

ag

at call you got to do it? It'll cost a lot-my

n he looked up at the sky and then down at th

lone ain't no beano to me. An' as I gets my living by the sweat of charitable ladies an' gents it don't do no harm to 'ave

ue. But-"We'll be beggars, y

gives us a helping hand, well, so much the better for all parties, if wot they

bird. Dickie thought of the kitchen at home, the lamp that smoked, the dirty table, the fender full of ashes and dirty paper, the dry bread that tast

id he, "and tha

ain't no kidnapping. I ain't 'ticed you

, y

you w

Dickie, "if

t of paper, and a new pencil ready sharpened by machinery. It almost looked, Dickie

of me boot." He lay face downward on the road and turned up his bo

ht-you are a scholar!), 'an' I asks you let me come alonger you.' (Got that? All right, I'll stop a bit till you catch up. Then you say) 'If you take me along I promise

ie Ha

d I wasn't born a table to be wrote on.

d it slowly and with difficulty. Then

d true and legal in any police-court in En

are very alarming indeed. Dickie turned a little paler and said, "

re's bad people in the world-police and such-as might lay it up to me as I to

my will," said Di

ed upon it, if you'll step it we'll see about a doss for to-nigh

harmed. "He Reward the Wake, the last of the

e stars till you goes by-by. An' jolly good business, too, fine weather. An' then you 'oofs it a bit and resties a bit, and some one gives you something to 'elp you along the road, and in the evening

ognizing in this description a rough sket

y last month a brute of a dog bit me in the leg, at

ked Dickie

oldiers, and parties in red coats ridin' on horses, with spotted dawgs, and motors as run you down and

and a full silenc

ked Mr. Bea

ps," said Dickie bravel

he man, "if it's only a sugar-box; an' I can tie that le

ty boot as makes me

you sets on them stones and hoff with it! T'oth

your toes. That was charming; but it was pleasant, too, to wash the mud off on the wet grass. Dickie always remembered that moment. It was the first time in his life that he really enjoyed being c

elf. Some blokes think it pays to be dirty. But it don't. If you're clean they say 'Honest Poverty

said Dickie. "

deepening twilight-rather queerly, D

ings don't always-- What I mean to say, you be

ickie, with enthusiasm. "

y. "Well, there. Step out, sonny, or we

going to be very unkind indeed to Dickie when once he gets him away into the country, and is all alone with him-and his having that paper

ich yellow light streamed welcomingly. "Now mind you don't contradict anything wot I

said Dickie. "I got a da

, stopping suddenly,

ckie; "but 'e's my

Mr. Beale impatientl