There would be room on the top of the boxes—they did not reach within two feet of the tilt.
Should he ask for a lift, when the carter came out of the "Marquis"? Or should he, if he could, climb up and hide on the boxes and take his chance of discovery on the lift? He laid a hand on the tailboard.
"Hi, Dickie!" said a voice surprisingly in his ear; "that you?"
Dickie owned that it was, with the feeling of a trapped wild animal, and turned and faced a boy of his own age, a schoolfellow—the one, in fact, who had christened him "Dot-and-go-one."
"Oh, what a turn you give me!" he said; "thought you was my aunt. Don't you let on you seen me."
"Where you been?" asked the boy curiously.
"Oh, all about," Dickie answered vaguely. "Don't you tell me aunt."
"Yer aunt? Don't you know?" The boy was quite contemptuous with him for not knowing.
"Know? No. Know what?"
"She shot the moon—old Hurle moved her; says he don't remember where to. She give him a pint to forget's what I say."
"Who's livin' there now?" Dickie asked, interest in his aunt's address swallowed up in a sudden desperate anxiety.
"No one don't live there. It's shut up to let apply Roberts 796 Broadway," said the boy. "I say, what'll you do?"
