Harding's Luck Part 16

"That's very flash, that what you're doing," said Beale; "who learned you that?"

"I learned it in a dream," said d.i.c.kie slowly. "I dreamed I 'ad a fever--and--I'll tell you if you like: it's a good yarn--good as Here Ward, very near."

Beale lay back on the dry stubble, his pipe between his teeth.

"Fire away," he said, and d.i.c.kie fired away.

When the long tale ended, the sun was beginning to go down towards its bed in the west. There was a pause.

"You'd make a tidy bit on the 'alls," said Beale, quite awestruck. "The things you think of! When did you make all that up?"

"I dreamed it, I tell you," said d.i.c.kie.

"You always could stick it on," said Mr. Beale admiringly.

"I ain't goin' to stick it on never no more," said d.i.c.kie. "They called it lying and cheating, where I was--in my dream, I mean."

"Once let a nipper out of yer sight," said Mr. Beale sadly, "and see what comes of it! 'No. 2' a-goin' to stick it on no more! Then how's us to get a honest living? Answer me that, young chap."

"I don't know," said d.i.c.kie, "but we got to do it som'ow."

"It ain't to be done--not with all the unemployed there is about," said Mr. Beale. "Besides, you've got a regular gift for sticking it on--a talent I call it. And now you want to throw it away. But you can't. We _got_ to live."

"In the dream," said d.i.c.kie, "there didn't seem to be no unemployed.

Every one was 'prenticed to a trade. I wish it was like that here."

"Well, it ain't," said Mr. Beale shortly. "I wasn't never 'prenticed to no trade, no more'n what you'll be."

"Worse luck," said d.i.c.kie. "But I started learning a lot of things--games mostly, in the dream, I did--and I started making a boat--a galleon they called it. All the names is different there. And I carved a little box--a fair treat it was--with my father's arms on it."

"Yer father's _what_?"

"Coat of arms. Gentlemen there all has different things--patterns like; they calls 'em coats of arms, and they put it on their silver and on their carriages and their furniture."

"Put _what_?" Beale asked again.

"The blazon. All gentlepeople have it."

"Don't you come the blazing toff over me," said Beale with sudden fierceness, "'cause I won't 'ave it. See? It's them bloomin' Talbots put all this rot into your head."

"The Talbots?" said d.i.c.kie. "Oh! the Talbots ain't been gentry more than a couple of hundred years. Our family's as old as King Alfred."

"Stow it, I say!" said Beale, more fiercely still. "I see what you're after; you want us to part company, that's what you want. Well, go. Go back to yer old Talbots and be the nice lady's little boy with velvet kicksies and a clean anky once a week. That's what you do."

d.i.c.kie looked forlornly out over the river.

"I can't 'elp what I dreams, can I?" he said. "In the dream I'd got lots of things. Uncles and aunts an' a little brother. I never seen him though. An' a farver and muvver an' all. It's different 'ere. I ain't got n.o.body but you 'ere--farver."

"Well, then," said Beale more gently, "what do you go settin' of yourself up agin me for?"

"I ain't," said d.i.c.kie. "I thought you liked me to tell you everythink."

Silence. d.i.c.kie could not help noticing the dirty s.h.i.+rt, the dirty face, the three days' beard, the filthy clothes of his friend, and he thought of his other friend, Sebastian of the Docks. He saw the pale blue reproachful eyes of Beale looking out of that dirty face, and he spoke aloud, quite without meaning to.

"All that don't make no difference," he said.

"Eh?" said Beale with miserable, angry eyes.

"Look 'ere," said d.i.c.kie desperately. "I'm a-goin' to show you. This 'ere's my Tinkler, what I told you about, what p.a.w.ns for a bob. I wouldn't show it to no one but you, swelp me, I wouldn't."

He held the rattle out.

Beale took it. "It's a fancy bit, I will say," he owned.

"Look 'ere," said d.i.c.kie, "what I mean to say----"

He stopped. What was the use of telling Beale that he had come back out of the dream just for _his_ sake? Beale who did not believe in the dream--did not understand it--hated it?

"Don't you go turning agin me," he said; "whether I dream or not, you and me'll stand together. I'm not goin' to do things wot's wrong--low, dirty tricks--so I ain't. But I knows we can get on without that. What would you _like_ to do for your living if you could choose?"

"I warn't never put to no trade," said Beale, "'cept being 'andy with a 'orse. I was a wagoner's mate when I was a boy. I likes a 'orse. Or a dawg," he added. "I ain't no good wiv me 'ands--not at working, you know--not to say working."

d.i.c.kie suppressed a wild notion he had had of getting into that dream again, learning some useful trade there, waking up and teaching it to Mr. Beale.

"Ain't there _nothing_ else you'd like to do?" he asked.

"I don't know as there is," said Mr. Beale drearily; "without it was pigeons."

Then d.i.c.kie wondered whether things that you learned in dreams would "_stay_ learned." Things you learned to do with your hands. The Greek and the Latin "stayed learned" right enough and sang in his brain encouragingly.

"Don't you get s.h.i.+rty if I talks about that dream," he said. "You dunno what a dream it was. I wasn't kidding you. I did dream it, honor bright.

I dreamed I could carve wood--make boxes and things. I wish I 'ad a bit of fine-grained wood. I'd like to try. I've got the knife they give me to cut the string of the basket in the train. It's jolly sharp."

"What sort o' wood?" Beale asked.

"It was mahogany I dreamed I made my box with," said d.i.c.kie. "I would like to try."

"Off 'is poor chump," Beale murmured with bitter self-reproach; "my doin' too--puttin' 'im on to a job like Talbot Court, the nipper is."

He stretched himself and got up.

"I'll get yer a bit of mahogany from somewheres," he said very gently.

"I didn't mean nothing, old chap. You keep all on about yer dreams. I don't mind. I likes it. Let's get a brace o' kippers and make a night of it."

So they went back to the Gravesend lodging-house.

Next day Mr. Beale produced the lonely leg of a sofa--mahogany, a fat round turned leg, old and seasoned.