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 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, and
so stood on a pinnacle of virtue.

"I've been doing nothing bad," said he, curling himself into a long
chair with a studious affectation of the Colonel's langour after a hot
parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes
staring roundly over the rim, asked: "I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to
kiss big girls?"

"By Jove! You're beginning early. Who do you want to kiss?"

"No one. My muvver's always kissing me if I don't stop her. If it is
n't pwoper, how was you kissing Major Allardyce's big girl last
morning, by ve canal?"

Coppy's brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allardyce had with great craft
managed to keep their engagement secret for a fortnight. There were
urgent and imperative reasons why Major Allardyce should not know how
matters stood for at least another month, and this small marplot had
discovered a great deal too much.

"I saw you," said Wee Willie Winkle calmly. "But ve groom did n't see.
I said, 'Hut jao.'"

"Oh, you had that much sense, you young Rip," groaned poor Coppy, half
amuse