aptain" and
"lieutenant," were ill. But weren't kids always having something or
other, and would he always be sent for to dose them? "Rot!"

However, these thoughts abruptly left him, when, directly after tea, he
went to the captain's and saw Mrs. Treves' pale and anxious face, and
instead, his old allegiance, but deeper and truer, returned.

"Thank you, Dick," she said kindly in reply to his awkward tender of
sympathy. And then they went upstairs.

By Jack's bed a glass of medicine was standing. A nurse was turning
Roy's pillow, and Captain Treves stood by her, gnawing his long
moustache.

Just then Jack's fretful wail sounded through the room for "'Colonel!'
Daddy, Jack wants the 'colonel'!"

"I'm here, old man," said Dick, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"Drink this at once," he added, taking up the glass, as he remembered
his brother's suggestion.

But Jack had clutched Dick's hand and now lay back sleepily.

Dick felt desperate. He glanced round. Captain and Mrs. Treves and the
nurse were gathered round the other little white bed. Was Roy worse?
With what he felt to be an unmanly lump in his throat, he leaned over
the boy again.

"Jack, I say, Jack" (hurriedly), "if you drink this you shall be a
captain."

Jack heard, and when Dick raised him up, he drained the glass.

"But Roy, Dick, he's a captain?"

"Roy shall be promoted too," replied Dick.

And just then the captain left the other bed and came over to Jack. Dick
could see Mrs. Treves bending over Roy, and the nurse leaving the room.
He looked up and saw that there were actually tears in the captain's
eyes. He had never seen a soldier cry before, and guessed what had
happened. Roy had indeed been promoted. He would never again "play
soldiers" with Jack or Dick.

Jack was now sleeping quietly, and the doctor, who came in an hour
later, pronounced him out of danger.

* * * * *

"Goodbye, my boy. We thought you'd like Roy's watch as you were fond of
him," said the captain next day; and then Mrs. Treves not only shook
hands, but stooped and kissed him.

Dick flushed, muttered some incoherent thanks, and went off to the
station.

Dick reached school in time for the cricket-match, after all; but, fond
as he was of cricket, he absented himself from the ground that
afternoon, and spent the time printing off some photos of "two kids," as
a chum rather scornfully remarked.

One of those "kids" is now a lieutena