nd a dish and a spoon."

CHAPTER XXV. DIAMOND'S DREAM

"THERE, baby!" said Diamond; "I'm so happy that I can only sing
nonsense. Oh, father, think if you had been a poor man, and hadn't had a
cab and old Diamond! What should I have done?"

"I don't know indeed what you could have done," said his father from the
bed.

"We should have all starved, my precious Diamond," said his mother,
whose pride in her boy was even greater than her joy in the shillings.
Both of them together made her heart ache, for pleasure can do that as
well as pain.

"Oh no! we shouldn't," said Diamond. "I could have taken Nanny's
crossing till she came back; and then the money, instead of going for
Old Sal's gin, would have gone for father's beef-tea. I wonder what
Nanny will do when she gets well again. Somebody else will be sure to
have taken the crossing by that time. I wonder if she will fight for it,
and whether I shall have to help her. I won't bother my head about that.
Time enough yet! Hey diddle! hey diddle! hey diddle diddle! I wonder
whether Mr. Raymond would take me to see Nanny. Hey diddle! hey diddle!
hey diddle diddle! The baby and fiddle! O, mother, I'm such a silly!
But I can't help it. I wish I could think of something else, but there's
nothing will come into my head but hey diddle diddle! the cat and the
fiddle! I wonder what the angels do--when they're extra happy, you
know--when they've been driving cabs all day and taking home the money
to their mothers. Do you think they ever sing nonsense, mother?"

"I daresay they've got their own sort of it," answered his mother,
"else they wouldn't be like other people." She was thinking more of her
twenty-one shillings and sixpence, and of the nice dinner she would get
for her sick husband next day, than of the angels and their nonsense,
when she said it. But Diamond found her answer all right.

"Yes, to be sure," he replied. "They wouldn't be like other people
if they hadn't their nonsense sometimes. But it must be very pretty
nonsense, and not like that silly hey diddle diddle! the cat and the
fiddle! I wish I could get it out of my head. I wonder what the angels'
nonsense is like. Nonsense is a very good thing, ain't it, mother?--a
little of it now and then; more of it for baby, and not so much for
grown people like cabmen and their mothers? It's like the pepper and
salt that goes in the soup--that's it--isn't it, mother? There's baby
fast asleep! Oh, what a nonsense b