“I’m going to get quite ready to die,” persisted Roy; “and if you really loved me you wouldn’t think of liking to see me alive hopping about on a wooden leg, I couldn’t do it.”

“Nelson lived with only one arm,” said Dudley.

Roy lay back on his pillows to consider this; then he said in a tired voice: 

“Will you write what I want?”

Dudley seized the pen and in round, childish hand wrote as follows: 

“When I am dead, Dudley is to have Norrington Court for his very own, and he is to live there instead of me.  He can have Dibble and Nibble too.  Rob is to have my musical box.  I leave him my best tool box, and father’s red silk pocket-handkerchief which I keep in the old tobacco pot on my chimneypiece.  I leave granny her sovereign which she gave me, and my book ’Heroes of old England.’  Aunt Judy is to have my best four-bladed knife, and my prayer book.  I want old Principle to have my silver mug and my new writing case.  I leave nurse the sovereign my guardian gave me to get herself some new shoes, and I leave her my Bible.”

Thus far; then Roy gave a tired sigh.  Dudley having entered completely into the spirit of the thing looked up and said eagerly, “There’s your telescope, you know, Roy!  If you leave it to me, I’ll let you look through it when we’re off on our travels.”

“I shall never travel with no legs—­besides I shall be dead.  I’ll leave my telescope to you.”

Dudley subsided at once; then after a silence he asked meekly, “Is that enough?”

“Yes, I’m so tired, put—­’I leave all my old clothes to the village boys, and my cricket bat and stumps to Ben’—­but wait a minute, Dudley—­there are all the servants, and I’ve got such heaps of books and toys—­I think we’ll leave it like that.”

Dudley looked at his paper with some pride.

“I’ve only made six mistakes and three blots,” he said; “now may I drop the sealing wax over it?  I’ve got a lovely red piece in my pocket.”

“I think I have to write my name at the bottom first, I know father did.  Give me the pen.”

Dudley handed it, and wondered why Roy’s fingers shook so as he signed his name.

“Is that all?”

“No, wait a moment.  I want to write something myself.”

And then in a large scrawl at the bottom of the paper Roy wrote—­

“This boy died before he had time to serve the Queen, he tried to serve God, and he tried to do good to some people, only they turned out mistakes.  He hopes the Queen will forgive him; he knows God will.  Amen.”

Dudley read this with awe.

“And is that a will?” he asked.

“Yes, let me drop some sealing wax; fetch a candle!”

Dudley was longing to do this part himself, but he generously said nothing, and presented Roy with a brass button out of his pocket, to stamp on the hot wax.

A lot of sealing wax was dropped indiscriminately all over the paper, and then old nurse appeared on the scene to order Dudley off.