er part of his arm. "Come, look alive, Howlet. I sees a
railway porter and a bobby."

Owlet, whose nose had suggested his name, had been regardless of the
poke, the tug, and the pinch, but was alive to the hint. He at once
came to the sitting posture on hearing the dreaded name of "bobby," and
rubbed his eyes. On seeing that there was neither policeman nor guard
near, he uttered an uncomplimentary remark and was about to lie down
again, but was arrested by the animated expression of his comrade's face
and the heaving of his shoulders.

"Why, what ever is the matter with you?" he demanded. "Are you goin' to
bust yourself wi' larfin', by way of gettin' a happetite for the
breakfast that you hain't no prospect of?"

To this Stumpy replied by pulling from his trousers pocket four shining
pennies, which he held out with an air of triumph.

"Oh!" exclaimed Owlet; and then being unable to find words sufficiently
expressive, he rubbed the place where the front of his waistcoat would
have been if he had possessed one.

"Yes," said Stumpy, regarding the coppers with a pensive air, "I've
slep' with you all night in my 'and, an' my 'and in my pocket, an' my
knees doubled up to my chin to make all snug, an' now I'm going to have
a tuck in--a blow out--a buster--a--"

He paused abruptly, and looking with a gleeful air at his companion,
said--

"But that wasn't what I was laughin' at."

"Well, I suppose it warn't. What was it, then?"

The boy's eyes sparkled again, and for some moments a half-suppressed
chuckling prevented speech.

"It was a dream," he said at last.

"A dream!" exclaimed Owlet contemptuously.

"I hate dreams. When I dreams 'em they're always about bobbies and
maginstrates, an' wittles, an' when other fellows tells about 'em
they're so long-winded an' prosy. But I had a dream too. What was
yours?"

"My dream was about a bobby," returned his friend. "See, here it is,
an' I won't be long-winded or prosy, Howlet, so don't growl and spoil
your happetite for that 'ere breakfast that's a-comin'. I dreamed--let
me see, was it in Piccadilly--no, it was Oxford Street, close by Regent
Street, where all the swells go to promynade, you know. Well, I sees a
bobby--of course I never can go the length my little toe without seein'
a bobby! but this bobby was a stunner. You never see'd sitch a feller.
Not that he was big, or fierce, but he had a nose just two-foot-six
long. I know for certain, for I'm a g