Dickie saw no matter for regret. "My father 'e bought me a little coat for when it was cold of a night lying out."
"Lying out? Where?"
"In the bed with the green curtains," said Dickie. This led to Here Ward, and Dickie would willingly have told the whole story of that hero in full detail, but the lady said after breakfast, and now it was time for our bath. And sure enough there was a bath of steaming water before the fireplace, which was in quite another part of the room, so that Dickie had not noticed the cans being brought in by a maid in a pink print dress and white cap and apron.
"Come," said the lady, turning back the bed-clothes.
Somehow Dickie could not bear to let that lady see him crawl clumsily across the floor, as he had to do when he moved without his crutch. It was not because he thought she would make fun of him; perhaps it was because he knew she would not. And yet without his crutch, how else was he to get to that bath? And for no reason that he could have given he began to cry.
The lady's arms were round him in an instant.
"What is it, dear? Whatever is it?" she asked; and Dickie sobbed out—
"I ain't got my crutch, and I can't go to that there barf without I got it. Anything 'ud do—if 'twas only an old broom cut down to me 'eighth. I'm a cripple, they call it, you see. I can't walk like wot you can."
She carried him to the bath. There was scented soap, there was a sponge, and a warm, fluffy towel.
"I ain't had a barf since Gravesend," said Dickie, and flushed at the indiscretion.