"You going to keep him back? Why you're the one that's always talking about serving the Queen, and fighting for her!"
"Yes, I should like to, but—but Rob is different. I want him to be with me."
"Then you don't care about serving the Queen, if you're going to do her out of a soldier who might fight for her!"
This was quite a new aspect of the affair.
"You think I'm like the dog in the manger? I can't go myself and I don't want him to. But if you go to a boarding school like Aunt Judy talks of, and I'm not allowed to go with you, and Rob is gone, I shall be left all alone; and I hate being alone, you don't know how I hate it—I think I should die!"
"Well, if I was you and knew I couldn't be a soldier myself, I would love to send some one instead of me—you know how they do in France. Old Selby was telling us. They pay a subsidy—substitute—don't you call it?—to go and fight for them."
"Yes, that is the coward's way," Roy said, scornfully.
He paused for a minute, and then his eyes flashed fire.
"Yes, Dudley, I'll let him go. It's me that's the coward to try and keep him back! You and I shall send him, and he shall be our substitute, and when we hear of him doing brave things, we shall feel it's ourselves. And we'll make him write letters to us and tell us all he is doing—oh, it will be splendid. How glad I am he has learned to read and write. Dudley, you just go and fetch him in, will you?"
Dudley crammed rather a large piece of cake into his mouth, and dashed out of the room; and a few minutes later dragged in the would-be soldier.