“Yes, I’ll think of it when I crack them next,” said Dudley.

Tea was now brought in, and the boys did it full justice, and shortly after they were on their homeward way.

“She’s a jolly old thing,” remarked Dudley, presently, “and her cake was awfully good.  I’m glad we went to see her.”

Roy was unusually silent.  Dudley continued—­

“I expect you’ve got the biggest soul of us too, Roy; nurse is always saying your soul is too big for your body.”

“I wish I had no body sometimes,” said Roy, with a sigh; “it gets so tired and stupid.”

“Well, we won’t talk about souls and bodies any more,” Dudley said, quickly, “they aren’t interesting.  I say, do you think we could teach Rob cricket?”

Rob was a topic which always interested Roy.  He brightened up at once.

“We’ll teach him everything,” he said, eagerly.  “I want him to be able to read and write and play, and do everything that we do, and more besides, for I shall have him for my friend as well as a servant when I grow up.”

“A funny kind of chap for a friend,” said Dudley, a little crossly; “he’s twice as old as you are, to begin with, and he’s an awfully stupid, thick-headed fellow.”

“Don’t you like Rob?”

Roy’s tone was an astonished one.

“Oh, I like him well enough, but I’m getting rather sick of hearing you crack him up so.”

Roy changed the subject.  He wondered sometimes why Dudley seemed to lose his temper so over Rob; it never entered his head that Dudley might regard him as a possible rival; that Rob, the country lad, might spoil the covenant of friendship between them.

VIII

THE BERTRAMS’ LEAP

It was Roy’s birthday, and he was standing at his bedroom window before breakfast looking out into the old garden below, his busy brain full of thought and conjecture.  His birthday was a very important day to him, and for some years now there had been a settled programme for the day.  His guardian, an old Indian officer living in the neighborhood, and formerly a very old friend of his father’s, always came over to see him and stayed to lunch, the two boys joining their elders at that meal.  Directly after, they would drive or ride over to Norrington Court which was Roy’s future home, and stay there for the rest of the day.

The boy’s heart was full of the future as usual, and when Dudley burst into his room with a radiant face to offer his good wishes, he turned to meet him gravely.

But Dudley was too occupied in tugging in a small basket to notice it.

“This is my present, old chap.  Just open it and see if you don’t like it.”

Roy’s little face became illumined with smiles a moment after, when he saw two beautiful little white mice amongst the straw looking up at him with calm curiosity out of their bright beady eyes.