The sight pulled at Dickie's heart-strings. He felt as a man might feel who beheld once more the seaport from which in old and beautiful days he had set sail for the shores of romance, the golden splendor of The Fortunate Islands.
"I could doss 'ere again," he said wistfully; "it 'ud save fourpence. Both 'ouses both sides is empty. Nobody wouldn't know."
"We don't need to look to our fourpences so sharp's all that," said Beale.
"I'd like to."
"Wonder you ain't afeared."
"I'm used to it," said Dickie; "it was our own 'ouse, you see."
"You come along to yer supper," said Beale; "don't be so flash with yer own 'ouses."
They had supper at a coffee-shop in the Broadway.
"Two mugs, four billiard balls, and 'arf a dozen door-steps," was Mr. Beale's order. You or I, more polite if less picturesque, would perhaps have said, "Two cups of tea, four eggs, and some thick bread and butter." It was a pleasant meal. Only just at the end it turned into something quite different. The shop was one of those old-fashioned ones, divided by partitions like the stalls in a stable, and over the top of this partition there suddenly appeared a head.
Dickie's mug paused in air half-way to his mouth, which remained open.