—make boxes and things. I wish I 'ad a bit of fine-grained wood. I'd like to try. I've got the knife they give me to cut the string of the basket in the train. It's jolly sharp."
"What sort o' wood?" Beale asked.
"It was mahogany I dreamed I made my box with," said Dickie. "I would like to try."
"Off 'is poor chump," Beale murmured with bitter self-reproach; "my doin' too—puttin' 'im on to a job like Talbot Court, the nipper is."
He stretched himself and got up.
"I'll get yer a bit of mahogany from somewheres," he said very gently. "I didn't mean nothing, old chap. You keep all on about yer dreams. I don't mind. I likes it. Let's get a brace o' kippers and make a night of it."
So they went back to the Gravesend lodging-house.
Next day Mr. Beale produced the lonely leg of a sofa—mahogany, a fat round turned leg, old and seasoned.
"This what you want?" he asked.
Dickie took it eagerly. "I do wonder if I can," he said. "I feel just exactly like as if I could. I say, farver, let's get out in the woods somewheres quiet and take our grub along. Somewheres where nobody can't say, 'What you up to?' and make a mock of me."
They found a place such as Dickie desired, a warm, sunny nest in the heart of a green wood, and all through the long, warm hours of the autumn day Mr. Beale lay lazy in the sunshine while Dickie, very pale and deter-
