ohnny came home, and with him the inevitable
Crayshaw. The latter was only to stay a week, and that week should have
been spent with Brandon, but the boys had begged hard to be together,
having developed a peculiar friendship for one another which seemed to
have been founded on many fights, in consequence of which they had been
strictly forbidden to meet.

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 t