ke all that white curtain," he told himself; "not much be'ind
it, if you ask me. People don't go to that extreme in Nottingham lace
without there's something to hide--a house full of emptiness, most
likely."

Inside Dickie was telling a very astonished Mr. Beale that there was
money buried in the garden.

"It was give me," said he, "for learning of something--and we've got to
get it up so as no one sees us. I can't think of nothing but build a
chicken-house and then dig inside of it. I wish I was cleverer. Here
Ward would have thought of something first go off."

"Don't you worry," said Beale; "you're clever enough for this poor
world. _You're_ all right. Come on out and show us where you put it.
Just peg with yer foot on the spot, looking up careless at the sky."

They went out. And Dickie put his foot on the cross he had scratched
with the broken bit of plate. It was close to the withered stalk of the
moonflower.

"This 'ere garden's in a poor state," said Beale in a loud voice; "wants
turning over's what _I_ think--against the winter. I'll get a spade and
'ave a turn at it this very day, so I will. This 'ere old artichook's
got some roots, I lay."

The digging began at the fence and reached the moonflower, whose roots
were indeed deep. Quite a hole Mr. Beale dug before the tall stalk
sloped and fell with slow dignity, like a forest tree before the axe.
Then the man and the child went in and brought out the kitchen table and
chairs, and laid blankets over them to air in the autumn sunlight.
Dickie played at houses under the table--it was not the sort of game he
usually played, but the neighbors could not know that. The table
happened to be set down just over the hole that had held the roots of
the moonflower. Dickie dug a little with a trowel in the blanket house.

After dark they carried the blankets and things in. Then one of the
blankets was nailed up over the top-floor window, and on the iron
bedstead's dingy mattress the resin was melted from the lid of the pot
that Mr. Beale had brought in with the other things from the garden.
Also it was melted from the crack of the iron casket. Mr. Beale's eyes,
always rather prominent, almost resembled the eyes of the lobster or the
snail as their gaze fell on the embroidered leather bag. And when Dickie
opened this and showered the twenty gold coins into a hollow of the drab
ticking, he closed his eyes and sighed, and opened them again and said--

"_Give_ you? They