This had taken place more than a year before, when Crayshaw, having been invited by John to spend the holidays with his boy, the two had quarrelled, and even fought, to such a degree that John at last in despair had taken Johnnie over to his grandfather’s house, with the declaration that if he so much as spoke to Crayshaw again, or crossed the wide brook that ran between the two houses, he would fine him half-a-crown every time he did it.

“Ith all that hateful map,” said young hopeful sulkily, when he was borne off to his banishment.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” quoth his father.  “I don’t care what it’s about.  You have no notion of hospitality.  I won’t have you fight with your guest.”

Crayshaw was in very weak health, but full of mischief and fun.  For a few days he seemed happy enough, then he flagged, and on the fifth morning he laid half-a-crown beside John’s plate at breakfast.

“What’s this for?” asked John.

“Because it is not fair that he should be fined, and not I.”

“Put it in the missionary box,” said John, who knew very well that the boys had been constructing a dam together all the previous day.

“It was about their possessions that they quarrelled,” said Gladys in giving an account of the matter afterwards.  “They made a plan that they would go into partnership, and conquer all the rest of the world; but when they looked at the great map up in Parliament, and Johnnie found how much the most he had got, he said Cray must annex Japan, or he would not join.  Cray said it was against his principles.  So they quarrelled, and fought once or twice; but perhaps it was just as well, for you know the rest of the world would rather not be conquered.  Then, when they were fined for playing together, they did every day.  They made a splendid dam over the brook, which was very low; but one night came a storm, father’s meadows were flooded, they could not get the dam undone, and some sheep were drowned.  So they went to Grand, and begged him to tell father, and get them off.  They said it was a strange thing they were never to be together, and neither of them had got a penny left.  So Grand got them forgiven, and we went all over the meadows for two or three days in canoes and punts.”

And now these two desirable inmates were to be together for a week.  A great deal can be done in a week, particularly by those who give their minds to it because they know their time is short.  That process called turning the house out of windows took place when John was away.  Aunt Christie, who did not like boys, kept her distance, but Miss Crampton being very much scandalized by the unusual noise, declared, on the second morning of these holidays, that she should go up into Parliament, and see what they were all about.  Miss Crampton was not supposed ever to go up into Parliament; it was a privileged place.

“Will the old girl really come, do you think?” exclaimed Crayshaw.