onfidentially, "to get settled on account
of the nipper. I don't deceive you; we 'oofed it up, not to waste our
little bit, and he's a hoppy chap."

"That's odd," said the landlord; "there was a lame boy lived there along
of the last party that had it. It's a cripple's home by rights, I should
think."

Beale had not foreseen this difficulty, and had no story ready. So he
tried the truth.

"It's the same lad, mister," he said; "that's why I'm rather set on the
'ouse. You see, it's 'ome to 'im like," he added sentimentally.

"You 'is father?" said the landlord sharply. And again Beale was
inspired to truthfulness--quite a lot of it.

"No," he said cautiously, "wish I was. The fact is, the little chap's
aunt wasn't much class. An' I found 'im wandering. An' not 'avin' none
of my own, I sort of adopted 'im."

"Like Wandering Hares at the theatre," said the landlord, who had been
told by Dickie's aunt that the "ungrateful little warmint" had run away.
"I see."

"And 'e's a jolly little chap," said Beale, warming to his subject and
forgetting his caution, "as knowing as a dog-ferret; and his
patter--enough to make a cat laugh, 'e is sometimes. And I'll pay a week
down if you like, mister--and we'll get our bits of sticks in to-day."

"Well," said the landlord, taking a key from a nail on the wall, "let's
go down and have a look at the 'ouse. Where's the kid?"

"'E's there awaitin' for me," said Beale; "couldn't get 'im away."

Dickie was very polite to the landlord, at whom in unhappier days he had
sometimes made faces, and when the landlord went he had six of their
shillings and they had the key.

"So now we've got a 'ome of our own," said Beale, rubbing his hands when
they had gone through the house together; "an Englishman's 'ome is 'is
castle--and what with the boxes you'll cut out and the dogs what I'll
pick up, Buckingham Palace'll look small alongside of us--eh, matey?"

They locked up the house and went to breakfast, Beale gay as a lark and
Dickie rather silent. He was thinking over a new difficulty. It was all
very well to bury twenty sovereigns and to know exactly where they were.
And they were his own beyond a doubt. But if any one saw those
sovereigns dug up, those sovereigns would be taken away from him. No one
would believe that they were his own. And the earthenware pot was so
big. And so many windows looked out on the garden. No one could hope to
dig up a big thing like that from his back garden