“Well, what happened arter that?” asked Owlet.
“Nothin’ happened after that,” returned Stumpy, with a somewhat sad expression on his usually gleeful visage. “It’s a wery strange thing, Howlet, that dreams inwariably wanishes away just at the most interestin’ p’int. Did you ever notice that?”
“Notice it! I should think I did. Why the dream that I had w’en I was layin’ alongside o’ you was o’ that sort exactly. It was all about wittles, too, an’ it’s made me that ’ungry I feels like a ravagin’ wolf.”
“Come along, then, Howlet, an’ you an’ me will ravage somethin’ wi’ them browns o’ mine. We’ll ’ave a good breakfast, though it should be our last, an’ I’ll stand treat.”
“You’re a trump, Stumpy; an’ I’ll tell you my dream as we goes along.”
“Hall right—but mind you don’t come prosy over me. I can’t stand it no more nor yourself.”
“You mind Dick Wilkin, don’t you?”
“What—the young man from the country as I’ve see’d standin’ at the dock gates day after day for weeks without getting took on?”
“That’s him,” continued Owlet, with a nod, as he shoved his hand into his trousers pockets. “He brought a wife and five kids from the country with him—thinkin’ to better hisself in London. Ha! a sweet little town for a cove as is ’ard up to better hisself in—ho yes, certingly!” remarked the precocious boy in a tone of profound sarcasm.
“Well,” he continued, “Dick Wilkin came to better hisself an’ he set about it by rentin’ a single room in Cherubs Court—a fine saloobrious spot, as you know, not far from the Tower. He ’ad a few bobs when he came, and bought a few sticks o’ furniture, but I don’t need for to tell you, Stumpy, that the most o’ that soon went up the spout, and the Wilkins was redooced to beggary—waried off an’ on with an odd job at the docks. It was when they first comed to town that I was down wi’ that fever, or ’flenzy, or somethink o’ that sort. The streets bein’ my usual ’abitation, I ’ad no place in partikler to go to, an’ by good luck, when I gave in, I lay down at the Wilkins’ door. O! but I was bad—that bad that it seemed as if I should be cleared out o’ my mortal carcase entirely—”