They were not the worst boys in the world, by any means; they did not quarrel all the time. For days together they would succeed in being very friendly, and in having good times, but it must be confessed that George had discovered certain directions in which his young brother could be easily teased, and that he delighted to tease him. “Davie is such a little spitfire,” he used to say to his Aunt Mary, when she argued with him about the sin of such a habit. “Why does he want to go off like a pop gun the first word that is said to him? I never do.” “No,” said Aunt Mary; “you laugh—a laugh which makes him feel more angry than he did before, and you say something to increase his rage. Is that really being any better than he?” But these questions George did not like to answer. On this particular morning, after having stopped the blood from his wound, he had sauntered away to see two of his friends who worked in the paper factory near at hand. There he mounted their work table and answered the questions which they eagerly put to him as to how he happened to get hurt. “Oh! it is Davie’s work; he’s a great boy. If he had had an open jack-knife in his hand it would have been all the same; it would have been flung at me when he got mad. I hope when he grows up he will never take a notion to carry a pistol, for if he does he will shoot the first fellow who laughs at him, or who laughs when he is within hearing.” “Why, George,” said one of the boys, “that will make an ugly scar.” “I dare say it will. I will carry it all my life to remember him by.” “It is a pity that he is such a little tiger; I wouldn’t stand it if I were you,” said the other boy. “You are a good deal older than he; why don’t you make him behave himself?” In this way poor Davie was discussed by the three, George telling story after story about his brother, led on by the sympathy which the two professed, into making Davie the one always to blame, and himself the injured, long-suffering elder brother. The boys did not know Davie very well, and George had always been good-natured with them, so of course they were on his side, and ready to sympathize with him for having such a wicked little brother. The longer George talked the more of a martyr he grew to considering himself; he racked his brain for illustrations of Davie’s ill temper, and was in the midst of a very harrowing story when Joe Winters appeared, breathless with running, and panted out: “Is George Campbell here? I say, George Campbell, your folks want you to come home just as fast as you can. Davie has tumbled from the scaffolding of the big barn and killed himself! or—well, he ain’t dead; but he lies there still; can’t stir nor speak, and they have sent for two doctors, and everybody thinks he is going to die.”