't think you've finished your letter properly," observed Roy,
critically, as Dudley concluded reading his. "Why do you write you're my
friend?"

"Because I am," was the prompt reply; "I'm not Rob's friend and I shan't
tell him I am. I just write to him because you do, that's all."

"Don't you like him?"

"I don't want him for my friend; he's going to be a kind of servant.
Besides I wanted him to remember that I was your friend. I knew you long
before he did, and if he was dead now, or if he never had been born, I
should have been your friend just the same. We could have got on all
right without him."

This was not the first touch of jealousy that had appeared in Dudley's
character. He had more than once quarrelled with Roy on account of the
boy who he said had crept in between them, but on Roy always
emphatically assuring him that Rob occupied a back place in his
affections, Dudley would generally be appeased and become his sunny self
again.

"I like Rob very much," said Roy, slowly, "'specially now he's a
soldier. I was thinking in church last Sunday, when they were reading
about David and Jonathan, that Jonathan had an armor-bearer. That's Rob.
Only I can't go to battle, so I send him. Don't you think that's a nice
idea?"

"Did he get killed?" asked Dudley, with interest; "I forget about him."

"It doesn't say--I expect he lived as long as Jonathan did, and then
perhaps David took him to be his servant. That's what I've settled with
Rob, that he shall be your servant if I die."

Dudley gave himself an impatient shake.

"Oh, shut up with that rot, you'll live as long as I do!"

Roy did not speak for a minute, then he said, slowly, "You remember my
will that I made when I was so ill?"

"Yes, what did you do with it?"

"Aunt Judy found it the next morning on the floor nearly under the bed.
She laughed a little at first, and then got quite grave when I explained
it, and she took it away and locked it up somewhere. But if I never
make another, you will remember that I have left Rob to you for your
servant."

Dudley looked up with a comical gleam in his eye.

"And who gave Rob to you, old chap?"

"I took him--at least he gave himself to me."

Roy's tone was dignity itself, but Dudley laughed.

"Well he doesn't belong to you any longer; the Queen has got him."

"I have lent him to her, that's all."

"You talk of Rob as if he is a slave. He's a Briton, and 'Britons shall
be free!'"

"So he is free,