"'Cause I wanter give that there little box to a chap I know wot lent me the money for the train to come to you at Gravesend."
"Pay 'im some other day when we're flusher."
"I'd rather pay 'im now," said Dickie. "I could make another box. There's a bit of the sofer leg left, ain't there?"
There was, and Dickie worked away at it in the odd moments that cluster round meal times, the half-hours before bed and before the morning start. Mr. Beale begged of all likely foot-passengers, but he noted that the "nipper" no longer "stuck it on." For the most part he was quite silent. Only when Beale appealed to him he would say, "Farver's very good to me. I don't know what I should do without farver."
And so at last they came to New Cross again, and Mr. Beale stepped in for half a pint at the Railway Hotel, while Dickie went clickety-clack along the pavement to his friend the pawnbroker.
"Here we are again," said that tradesman; "come to pawn the rattle?"
Dickie laughed. Pawning the rattle seemed suddenly to have become a very old and good joke between them.
"Look 'ere, mister," he said; "that chink wot you lent me to get to Gravesend with." He paused, and added in his other voice, "It was very good of you, sir."
"I'm not going to lend you any more, if
