"Did you ever have a tutor called Mr. Parados?" he asked. And again the others looked at him and at each other. "Parrot-nose for short," Dickie hastened to add; "and did you ever shovel snow on to his head and then ride away in a carriage drawn by swans?"
"It is you!" cried Elfrida, and hugged him. "Edred, it is Dickie! We were saying, could it be you? Oh! Dickie darling, how did you hurt your foot?"
Dickie flushed. "My foot's always been like that," he said, "in Nowadays time. When we met in the magic times I was like everybody else, wasn't I?"
Elfrida hugged him again, and said no more about the foot. Instead, she said, "Oh, how ripping it is to really and truly find you here! We thought you couldn't be real because we wrote a letter to you at the address it said on that bill you gave us. And the letter came back with 'not known' outside."
"What address was it?" Dickie asked.
"Laurie Grove, New Cross," Edred told him.
"Oh, that was just an address Mr. Beale made up to look grand with," said Dickie. "I remember his telling me about it. He's the man I live with; I call him father because he's been kind to me. But my own daddy's dead."
"Let's go up on the downs," said Elfrida, "and sit down, and you tell us all about everything from the very beginning."
So they went up and sat among the furze bushes, and Dickie told them all his story—just as much of it as I have told to you. And it took a long time. And then they reminded each other how they had met in the magic or dream world, and how Dickie had helped them to save their father—which he did do, only I have not had time to tell you about it; but it is all written in "The House of Arden."
"But our magic is all over now," said Edred sadly. "We had to give up ever having any more magic, so as to get father back. And now we shall never find the treasure or be able to buy back the old lands and restore the Castle and bring the water back to the moat, and build nice, dry, warm, cozy cottages for the tenants. But we've got father."