"I expect you've got the biggest soul of us too, Roy; nurse is always saying your soul is too big for your body."
"I wish I had no body sometimes," said Roy, with a sigh; "it gets so tired and stupid."
"Well, we won't talk about souls and bodies any more," Dudley said, quickly, "they aren't interesting. I say, do you think we could teach Rob cricket?"
Rob was a topic which always interested Roy. He brightened up at once.
"We'll teach him everything," he said, eagerly. "I want him to be able to read and write and play, and do everything that we do, and more besides, for I shall have him for my friend as well as a servant when I grow up."
"A funny kind of chap for a friend," said Dudley, a little crossly; "he's twice as old as you are, to begin with, and he's an awfully stupid, thick-headed fellow."
"Don't you like Rob?"
Roy's tone was an astonished one.
"Oh, I like him well enough, but I'm getting rather sick of hearing you crack him up so."
Roy changed the subject. He wondered sometimes why Dudley seemed to lose his temper so over Rob; it never entered his head that Dudley might regard him as a possible rival; that Rob, the country lad, might spoil the covenant of friendship between them.