the nurse was chanting something in a very low voice.
"Men die,
Man dies not.
Times fly,
Time flies not."
That was all he heard, though he heard confusedly that there was more.
He seemed to sink deep into a soft sea of sleep, to be rocked on its tide, and then to be flung by its waves, roughly, suddenly, on some hard shore of awakening. He opened his eyes. He was in the little bare front room in New Cross. Tinkler and the white seal lay on the floor among white moonflower seeds confusedly scattered, and the gas lamp from the street shone through the dirty panes on the newspapers and sacking.
"What a dream!" said Dickie, shivering, and very sleepy. "Oh, what a dream!" He put Tinkler and the seal in one pocket, gathered up the moon-seeds and put them in the other, drew the old newspapers over him and went to sleep.
*****
The morning sun woke him.
"How odd," said he, "to dream all that—weeks and weeks, in just a little bit of one little night! If it had only been true!"
He jumped up, eager to start for Gravesend. Since he had wakened out of that wonderful dream on purpose to go to Gravesend, he might as well start at once. But his jump ended in a
