"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.




VIII


THE BERTRAMS' LEAP

It was Roy's birthday, and he was standing at his bedroom window before
breakfast looking out into the old garden below, his busy brain full of
thought and conjecture. His birthday was a very important day to him,
and for some years now there had been a settled programme for the day.
His guardian, an old Indian officer living in the neighborhood, and
formerly a very old friend of his father's, always came over to see him
and stayed to lunch, the two boys joining their elders at that meal.
Directly after, they would drive or ride over to Norrington Court which
was Roy's future home, and stay there for the rest of the day.