"Now we'll look out for a shop where they sells these 'ere hold antics," said Beale. They were on the road and their faces were set towards London. Dickie's face looked pinched and white. Beale noticed it.
"You don't look up to much," he said; "warn't your bed to your liking?"
"The bed was all right," said Dickie, thinking of the bed in the dream. "I diden sleep much, though."
"Any more dreams?" Beale asked kindly enough.
"No," said Dickie. "I think p'raps it was me wanting so to dream it again kep' me awake."
"I dessey," said Beale, picking up a straw to chew.
Dickie limped along in the dust, the world seemed very big and hard. It was a long way to London and he had not been able to dream that dream again. Perhaps he would never be able to dream it. He stumbled on a big stone and would have fallen but that Beale caught him by the arm, and as he swung round by that arm Beale saw that the boy's eyes were thick with tears.
"Ain't 'urt yerself, 'ave yer?" he said—for in all their wanderings these were the first tears Dickie had shed.
"No," said Dickie, and hid his face against Beale's coat sleeve. "It's only——"
"What is it, then?" said Beale, in the accents of long-disused tenderness; "tell your old farver, then——"