Coppy returned his liking with interest. Coppy had let him wear
for five rapturous minutes his own big sword--just as tall as Wee
Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a terrier puppy, and Coppy
had permitted him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving.
Nay, more--Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would
rise in time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a silver
soap-box, and a silver-handled "sputter-brush," as Wee Willie
Winkie called it. Decidedly, there was no one except his own
father, who could give or take away good-conduct badges at
pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the
Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. Why, then, should Coppy
be guilty of the unmanly weakness of kissing--vehemently kissing--
a "big girl," Miss Allardyce to wit? In the course of a morning
ride Wee Willie Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the
gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round and cantered back to
his groom, lest the groom should also see.

Under ordinary circumstances he would have spoken to his father,
but he felt instinctively that this was a matter on which Coppy
ought first to be consulted.

"Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up outside that
subaltern's bungalow early one morning--"I want to see you,
Coppy!"

"Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, who was at early breakfast
in the midst of his dogs. "What mischief have you been getting
into now?"

Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad for three days,