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diff --git a/old/3006.txt b/old/3006.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53c1c33 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3006.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8726 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stalky & Co., by Rudyard Kipling + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Stalky & Co. + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Posting Date: February 25, 2009 [EBook #3006] +Release Date: February, 2007 +Last Updated: October 7, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STALKY & CO. *** + + + + +Produced by A. Elizabeth Warren + + + + + +STALKY & CO. + +By Rudyard Kipling + + + + + “Let us now praise famous men”-- + Men of little showing-- + For their work continueth, + And their work continueth, + Greater than their knowing. + + Western wind and open surge + Tore us from our mothers; + Flung us on a naked shore + (Twelve bleak houses by the shore! + Seven summers by the shore!) + ‘Mid two hundred brothers. + + There we met with famous men + Set in office o’er us. + And they beat on us with rods-- + Faithfully with many rods-- + Daily beat us on with rods-- + For the love they bore us! + + Out of Egypt unto Troy-- + Over Himalaya-- + Far and sure our bands have gone-- + Hy-Brasil or Babylon, + Islands of the Southern Run, + And cities of Cathaia! + + And we all praise famous men-- + Ancients of the College; + For they taught us common sense--- + Tried to teach us common sense-- + Truth and God’s Own Common Sense + Which is more than knowledge! + + Each degree of Latitude + Strung about Creation + Seeth one (or more) of us, + (Of one muster all of us-- + Of one master all of us--) + Keen in his vocation. + + This we learned from famous men + Knowing not its uses + When they showed in daily work + Man must finish off his work-- + Right or wrong, his daily work-- + And without excuses. + + Servants of the staff and chain, + Mine and fuse and grapnel-- + Some before the face of Kings, + Stand before the face of Kings; + Bearing gifts to divers Kings-- + Gifts of Case and Shrapnel. + + This we learned from famous men + Teaching in our borders. + Who declare’d it was best, + Safest, easiest and best-- + Expeditious, wise and best-- + To obey your orders. + + Some beneath the further stars + Bear the greater burden. + Set to serve the lands they rule, + (Save he serve no man may rule) + Serve and love the lands they rule; + Seeking praise nor guerdon. + + This we learned from famous men + Knowing not we learned it. + Only, as the years went by-- + Lonely, as the years went by-- + Far from help as years went by + Plainer we discerned it. + + Wherefore praise we famous men + From whose bays we borrow-- + They that put aside Today-- + All the joys of their Today-- + And with toil of their Today + Bought for us Tomorrow! + + Bless and praise we famous men + Men of little showing! + For their work continueth + And their work continueth + Broad and deep continueth + Great beyond their knowing! + + Copyright, 1899. by Rudyard Kipling + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. IN AMBUSH + II. SLAVES OF THE LAMP--PART I. + III. AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE + IV. THE IMPRESSIONISTS + V. THE MORAL REFORMERS + VI. A LITTLE PREP. + VII. THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY + VIII. THE LAST TERM + IX. SLAVES OF THE LAMP--PART II. + + + + +“IN AMBUSH.” + + +In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the +College--little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, +full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly +forbidden, palaces of delight. And for the fifth summer in succession, +Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle (this was before they reached the dignity of +a study) had built like beavers a place of retreat and meditation, where +they smoked. + +Now, there was nothing in their characters as known to Mr. Prout, +their house-master, at all commanding respect; nor did Foxy, the +subtle red-haired school Sergeant, trust them. His business was to wear +tennis-shoes, carry binoculars, and swoop hawklike upon evil boys. Had +he taken the field alone, that hut would have been raided, for Foxy +knew the manners of his quarry; but Providence moved Mr. Prout, +whose school-name, derived from the size of his feet, was Hoofer, to +investigate on his own account; and it was the cautious Stalky who +found the track of his pugs on the very floor of their lair one peaceful +afternoon when Stalky would fain have forgotten Prout and his works in +a volume of Surtees and a new briar-wood pipe. Crusoe, at sight of the +footprint, did not act more swiftly than Stalky. He removed the pipes, +swept up all loose match-ends, and departed to warn Beetle and McTurk. + +But it was characteristic of the boy that he did not approach his allies +till he had met and conferred with little Hartopp, President of the +Natural History Society, an institution which Stalky held in contempt, +Hartopp was more than surprised when the boy meekly, as he knew how, +begged to propose himself, Beetle, and McTurk as candidates; confessed +to a long-smothered interest in first-flowerings, early butterflies, and +new arrivals, and volunteered, if Mr. Hartopp saw fit, to enter on the +new life at once. Being a master, Hartopp was suspicious; but he was +also an enthusiast, and his gentle little soul had been galled by +chance-heard remarks from the three, and specially Beetle. So he was +gracious to that repentant sinner, and entered the three names in his +book. + +Then, and not till then, did Stalky seek Beetle and McTurk in their +house form-room. They were stowing away books for a quiet afternoon in +the furze, which they called the “wuzzy.” + +“All up,” said Stalky, serenely. “I spotted Heffy’s fairy feet round our +hut after dinner. ‘Blessing they’re so big.” + +“Con-found! Did you hide our pipes?” said Beetle. + +“Oh, no. Left ‘em in the middle of the hut, of course. What a blind ass +you are, Beetle! D’you think nobody thinks but yourself? Well, we can’t +use the hut any more. Hoofer will be watchin’ it.” + +“‘Bother! Likewise blow!’” said McTurk thoughtfully, unpacking the +volumes with which his chest was cased. The boys carried their libraries +between their belt and their collar. “Nice job! This means we’re under +suspicion for the rest of the term.” + +“Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. He and Foxy will watch it. It’s +nothing to do with us; only we mustn’t be seen that way for a bit.” + +“Yes, and where else are we to go?” said Beetle. “You chose that place, +too--an’--an’ I wanted to read this afternoon.” + +Stalky sat on a desk drumming his heels on the form. + +“You’re a despondin’ brute, Beetle. Sometimes I think I shall have to +drop you altogether. Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky forget you yet? +_His rebus infectis_--after I’d seen Heffy’s man-tracks marchin’ +round our hut, I found little Hartopp--_destricto ense_--wavin’ a +butterfly-net. I conciliated Hartopp. ‘Told him that you’d read papers +to the Bug-hunters if he’d let you join, Beetle. ‘Told him you liked +butterflies, Turkey. Anyhow, I soothed the Hartoffles, and we’re +Bug-hunters now.” + +“What’s the good of that?” said Beetle. + +“Oh, Turkey, kick him!” + +In the interests of science bounds were largely relaxed for the members +of the Natural History Society. They could wander, if they kept clear +of all houses, practically where they chose; Mr. Hartopp holding himself +responsible for their good conduct. + +Beetle began to see this as McTurk began the kicking. + +“I’m an ass, Stalky!” he said, guarding the afflicted part. “_Pax_, +Turkey. I’m an ass.” + +“Don’t stop, Turkey. Isn’t your Uncle Stalky a great man?” + +“Great man,” said Beetle. + +“All the same bug-huntin’s a filthy business,” said McTurk. “How the +deuce does one begin?” + +“This way,” said Stalky, turning to some fags’ lockers behind him. “Fags +are dabs at Natural History. Here’s young Braybrooke’s botany-case.” He +flung out a tangle of decayed roots and adjusted the slide. “‘Gives one +no end of a professional air, I think. Here’s Clay Minor’s geological +hammer. Beetle can carry that. Turkey, you’d better covet a +butterfly-net from somewhere.” + +“I’m blowed if I do,” said McTurk, simply, with immense feeling. +“Beetle, give me the hammer.” + +“All right. I’m not proud. Chuck us down that net on top of the lockers, +Stalky.” + +“That’s all right. It’s a collapsible jamboree, too. Beastly luxurious +dogs these fags are. Built like a fishin’-rod. ‘Pon my sainted Sam, +but we look the complete Bug-hunters! Now, listen to your Uncle Stalky! +We’re goin’ along the cliffs after butterflies. Very few chaps come +there. We’re goin’ to leg it, too. You’d better leave your book behind.” + +“Not much!” said Beetle, firmly. “I’m not goin’ to be done out of my fun +for a lot of filthy butterflies.” + +“Then you’ll sweat horrid. You’d better carry my Jorrocks. ‘Twon’t make +you any hotter.” + +They all sweated; for Stalky led them at a smart trot west away along +the cliffs under the furze-hills, crossing combe after gorzy combe. They +took no heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and all that +Turkey said of geology was utterly unquotable. + +“Are we going to Clovelly?” he puffed at last, and they flung themselves +down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the sea below and +the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were looking into a +combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that ran up to a fringe +of brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and hollies. It was as +though one-half the combe were filled with golden fire to the cliff’s +edge. The side nearest to them was open grass, and fairly bristled with +notice-boards. + +“Fee-rocious old cove, this,” said Stalky, reading the nearest. +“‘_Prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law_. G. M. Dabney, Col., +J.P.,’ an’ all the rest of it. ‘Don’t seem to me that any chap in his +senses would trespass here, does it?” + +“You’ve got to prove damage ‘fore you can prosecute for anything! ‘Can’t +prosecute for trespass,” said McTurk, whose father held many acres in +Ireland. “That’s all rot!” + +“Glad of that, ‘cause this looks like what we wanted. Not straight +across, Beetle, you blind lunatic! Anyone could spot us half a mile off. +This way; and furl up your beastly butterfly-net.” + +Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up +the handle to a two-foot stave, and slid the cane-ring round his waist. +Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile +from the sea, and reached the fringe of the brambles. + +“_Now_ we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up +at all,” said the tactician. “Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf! Snf! +Beastly stink of fox somewhere!” + +On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into +the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had +found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky +pinched him _a tergo_. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently +a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their inexpressible +joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few square feet of dry +turf walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse. + +“By gum! There isn’t a single thing to do except lie down,” said Stalky, +returning a knife to his pocket. “Look here!” + +He parted the tough stems before him, and it was as a window opened on +a far view of Lundy, and the deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles a +couple of hundred feet below. They could hear young jackdaws squawking +on the ledges, the hiss and jabber of a nest of hawks somewhere out of +sight; and, with great deliberation, Stalky spat on to the back of a +young rabbit sunning himself far down where only a cliff-rabbit could +have found foot-hold. Great gray and black gulls screamed against the +jackdaws; the heavy-scented acres of bloom round them were alive with +low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the shadow of the wheeling hawks +passed and returned; and on the naked turf across the combe rabbits +thumped and frolicked. + +“Whew! What a place! Talk of natural history; this is it,” said Stalky, +filling himself a pipe. “Isn’t it scrumptious? Good old sea!” He spat +again approvingly, and was silent. + +McTurk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their +stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snored and gurgled; the birds, scattered +for the moment by these new animals, returned to their businesses, and +the boys read on in the rich, warm, sleepy silence. + +“Hullo, here’s a keeper,” said Stalky, shutting “Handley Cross” + cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared on +the sky-line to the east. “Confound him, he’s going to sit down.” + +“He’d swear we were poachin’, too,” said Beetle. “What’s the good of +pheasants’ eggs? They’re always addled, too.” + +“Might as well get up to the wood, I think,” said Stalky. “We don’t want +G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up the wuzzy +and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know.” + +Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp indescribably: +there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through the furze. + +“Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!” The keeper threw the gun to +his shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets +dusted the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky’s +legs, and ran over the cliff-edge. + +They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, disheveled, hot, but +unseen. + +“Narrow squeak,” said Stalky. “I’ll swear some of the pellets went +through my hair.” + +“Did you see him?” said Beetle. “I almost put my hand on him. Wasn’t +he a wopper! Didn’t he stink! Hullo, Turkey, what’s the matter? Are you +hit?” + +McTurk’s lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half +open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him like +this save once in a sad time of civil war. + +“Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?” he said, in a grating +voice, as he brushed prickles from his head. + +“Well, he didn’t hit us,” said Stalky. “I think it was rather a lark. +Here, where are you going?” + +“I’m going up to the house, if there is one,” said McTurk, pushing +through the hollies. “I am going to tell this Colonel Dabney.” + +“Are you crazy? He’ll swear it served us jolly well right. He’ll report +us. It’ll be a public lickin’. Oh, Turkey, don’t be an ass! Think of +us!” + +“You fool!” said McTurk, turning savagely. “D’you suppose I’m thinkin’ +of _us_? It’s the keeper.” + +“He’s cracked,” said Beetle, miserably, as they followed. Indeed, this +was a new Turkey--a haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey--whom they +accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a white-whiskered +old gentleman with a cleek was alternately putting and blaspheming +vigorously. + +“Are you Colonel Dabney?” McTurk began in this new creaking voice of +his. + +“I--I am, and--” his eyes traveled up and down the boy--“who--what the +devil d’you want? Ye’ve been disturbing my pheasants. Don’t attempt to +deny it. Ye needn’t laugh at it.” (McTurk’s not too lovely features had +twisted themselves into a horrible sneer at the word pheasant.) “You’ve +been birds’-nesting. You needn’t hide your hat. I can see that you +belong to the College. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye do! Your name +and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me--Eh? You saw my +notice-boards? Must have. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did! Damnable, oh +damnable!” + +He choked with emotion. McTurk’s heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered a +little--two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why should he, +the offender, be angry? + +“Lo-look here, sir. Do--do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don’t, your +keeper does. We’ve seen him! I do-don’t care what you call us--but it’s +an awful thing. It’s the ruin of good feelin’ among neighbors. A ma-man +ought to say once and for all how he stands about preservin’. It’s +worse than murder, because there’s no legal remedy.” McTurk was quoting +confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman made noises in his +throat. + +“Do you know who I am?” he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle quaking. + +“No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer me +now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?” + +And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked McTurk out +of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a sunstroke, +and as assuredly he would be slain--once by the old gentleman and once +by the Head. A public licking for the three was the least they could +expect. Yet--if their eyes and ears were to be trusted--the old +gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before the storm, but-- + +“I do not.” He was still gurgling. + +“Then you must sack your keeper. He’s not fit to live in the same county +with a God-fearin’ fox. An’ a vixen, too--at this time o’ year!” + +“Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this?” + +“Of course I did, ye silly man,” with a stamp of the foot. “Would you +not have done as much for me if you’d seen that thing happen on my land, +now?” + +Forgotten--forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders! +McTurk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy +West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand naked +acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a crazy +fishing-boat, and the idol of his father’s shiftless tenantry. It was +the landed man speaking to his equal--deep calling to deep--and the old +gentleman acknowledged the cry. + +“I apologize,” said he. “I apologize unreservedly--to you, and to the +Old Country. Now, will you be good enough to tell me your story?” + +“We were in your combe,” McTurk began, and he told his tale alternately +as a schoolboy and, when the iniquity of the thing overcame him, as an +indignant squire; concluding: “So you see he must be in the habit of +it. I--we---one never wants to accuse a neighbor’s man; but I took the +liberty in this case--” + +“I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous---oh, infamous!” + +The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and Colonel +Dabney was talking as one man to another. “This comes of promoting a +fisherman--a fisherman--from his lobster-pots. It’s enough to ruin the +reputation of an archangel. Don’t attempt to deny it. It is! Your father +has brought you up well. He has. I’d much like the pleasure of his +acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young gentlemen? English +they are. Don’t attempt to deny it. They came up with you, too? +Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present state of education I +shouldn’t have thought any three boys would be well enough grounded. +But out of the mouths of--No--no! Not that by any odds. Don’t attempt to +deny it. Ye’re not! Sherry always catches me under the liver, but--beer, +now? Eh? What d’you say to beer, and something to eat? It’s long since +I was a boy--abominable nuisances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a +vixen, too!” They were fed on the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper. +Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but McTurk with bright eyes continued a +free and lofty discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a +brother. + +“My dear man, of course ye can come again. Did I not say exceptions +prove the rule? The lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so long +as you do not disturb my pheasants. The two are not incompatible. Don’t +attempt to deny it. They’re not! I’ll never allow another gun, though. +Come and go as ye please. I’ll not see you, and ye needn’t see me. Ye’ve +been well brought up. Another glass of beer, now? I tell you a fisherman +he was and a fisherman he shall be to-night again. He shall! Wish +I could drown him. I’ll convoy you to the Lodge. My people are not +precisely--ah--broke to boy, but they’ll know you again.” + +He dismissed them with many compliments by the high Lodge-gate in the +split-oak park palings and they stood still; even Stalky, who had played +second, not to say a dumb, fiddle, regarding McTurk as one from another +world. The two glasses of strong home-brewed had brought a melancholy +upon the boy, for, slowly strolling with his hands in his pockets, he +crooned:--“Oh, Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?” + +Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle would have fallen upon him, +for that song was barred utterly--anathema--the sin of witchcraft. But +seeing what he had wrought, they danced round him in silence, waiting +till it pleased him to touch earth. + +The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile from College. McTurk +shivered and came out of dreams. The glory of his holiday estate had +left him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking English once more. + +“Turkey, it was immense!” said Stalky, generously. “I didn’t know you +had it in you. You’ve got us a hut for the rest of the term, where +we simply _can’t_ be collared. Fids! Fids! Oh, Fids! I gloat! Hear me +gloat!” + +They spun wildly on their heels, jodeling after the accepted manner of +a “gloat,” which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man’s song of +triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer just +in time to meet their house-master, who had spent the afternoon watching +their abandoned hut in the “wuzzy.” + +Unluckily, all Mr. Prout’s imagination leaned to the darker side of +life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys that +he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for at +any moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricket--even +house-matches; Beetle’s views on the honor of the house he knew were +incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was +laughing at him. Consequently--since human nature is what it is--those +boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was nothing very +serious, but... + +“_Ti-ra-ra-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” Stalky, still on his heels, +whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining-hall. + +“_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” Beetle spun behind him with +outstretched arms. + +“_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” McTurk’s voice cracked. + +Now was there or was there not a distinct flavor of beer as they shot +past Mr. Prout? + +He was unlucky in that his conscience as a house-master impelled him to +consult his associates. Had he taken his pipe and his troubles to +little Hartopp’s rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved confusion, for +Hartopp believed in boys, and knew something about them. His fate led +him to King, a fellow house-master, no friend of his, but a zealous +hater of Stalky & Co. + +“Ah-haa!” said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. “Curious! +Now _my_ house never dream of doing these things.” + +“But you see I’ve no proof, exactly.” + +“Proof? With the egregious Beetle! As if one wanted it! I suppose it +is not impossible for the Sergeant to supply it? Foxy is considered +at least a match for any evasive boy in my house. Of course they were +smoking and drinking somewhere. That type of boy always does. They think +it manly.” + +“But they’ve no following in the school, and they are distinctly--er +brutal to their juniors,” said Prout, who had from a distance seen +Beetle return, with interest, his butterfly-net to a tearful fag. + +“Ah! They consider themselves superior to ordinary delights. +Self-sufficient little animals! There’s something in McTurk’s Hibernian +sneer that would make me a little annoyed. And they are so careful +to avoid all overt acts, too. It’s sheer calculated insolence. I am +strongly opposed, as you know, to interfering with another man’s house; +but they need a lesson, Prout. They need a sharp lesson, if only to +bring down their over-weening self-conceit. Were I you, I should devote +myself for a week to their little performances. Boys of that order--and +I may flatter myself, but I think I know boys--don’t join the +Bug-hunters for love. Tell the Sergeant to keep his eye open; and, of +course, in my peregrinations I may casually keep mine open, too.” + +“_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” far down the corridor. + +“Disgusting!” said King. “Where do they pick up these obscene noises? +One sharp lesson is what they want.” + +The boys did not concern themselves with lessons for the next few days. +They had all Colonel Dabney’s estate to play with, and they explored it +with the stealth of Red Indians and the accuracy of burglars. They could +enter either by the Lodge-gates on the upper road--they were careful to +ingratiate themselves with the Lodge-keeper and his wife--drop down into +the combe, and return along the cliffs; or they could begin at the combe +and climb up into the road. + +They were careful not to cross the Colonel’s path--he had served his +turn, and they would not out-wear their welcome--nor did they show up on +the sky-line when they could move in cover. The shelter of the gorze +by the cliff-edge was their chosen retreat. Beetle christened it the +Pleasant Isle of Aves, for the peace and the shelter of it; and here, +the pipes and tobacco once cache’d in a convenient ledge an arm’s length +down the cliff, their position was legally unassailable. + +For, observe, Colonel Dabney had not invited them to enter his house. +Therefore, they did not need to ask specific leave to go visiting; and +school rules were strict on that point. He had merely thrown open his +grounds to them; and, since they were lawful Bug-hunters, their extended +bounds ran up to his notice-boards in the combe and his Lodge-gates on +the hill. + +They were amazed at their own virtue. + +“And even if it wasn’t,” said Stalky, flat on his back, staring into the +blue. “Even suppose we were miles out of bounds, no one could get at us +through this wuzzy, unless he knew the tunnel. Isn’t this better than +lyin’ up just behind the Coll.--in a blue funk every time we had a +smoke? Isn’t your Uncle Stalky--?” + +“No,” said Beetle--he was stretched at the edge of the cliff spitting +thoughtfully. “We’ve got to thank Turkey for this. Turkey is the Great +Man. Turkey, dear, you’re distressing Heffles.” + +“Gloomy old ass!” said McTurk, deep in a book. + +“They’ve got us under suspicion,” said Stalky. “Hoophats _is_ so +suspicious somehow; and Foxy always makes every stalk he does a sort +of--sort of--” + +“Scalp,” said Beetle. “Foxy’s a giddy Chingangook.” + +“Poor Foxy,” said Stalky. “He’s goin’ to catch us one of these days. +‘Said to me in the Gym last night, ‘I’ve got my eye on you, Mister +Corkran. I’m only warning you for your good.’ Then I said: ‘Well, you +jolly well take it off again, or you’ll get into trouble. I’m only +warnin’ you for your good.’ Foxy was wrath.” + +“Yes, but it’s only fair sport for Foxy,” said Beetle. “It’s Hefflelinga +that has the evil mind. ‘Shouldn’t wonder if he thought we got tight.” + +“I never got squiffy but once--that was in the holidays,” said Stalky, +reflectively; “an’ it made me horrid sick. ‘Pon my sacred Sam, though, +it’s enough to drive a man to drink, havin’ an animal like Hoof for +house-master.” + +“If we attended the matches an’ yelled, ‘Well hit, sir,’ an’ stood on +one leg an’ grinned every time Heffy said, ‘So ho, my sons. Is it thus?’ +an’ said, ‘Yes, sir,’ an’ ‘No, sir,’ an’ ‘O, sir,’ an’ ‘Please, sir,’ +like a lot o’ filthy fa-ags, Heffy ‘ud think no end of us,” said McTurk +with a sneer. + +“Too late to begin that.” + +“It’s all right. The Hefflelinga means well. _But_ he is an ass. _And_ +we show him that we think he’s an ass. An’ _so_ Heffy don’t love us. +‘Told me last night after prayers that he was _in loco parentis_,” + Beetle grunted. + +“The deuce he did!” cried Stalky. “That means he’s maturin’ something +unusual dam’ mean. Last time he told me that he gave me three hundred +lines for dancin’ the cachuca in Number Ten dormitory. _Loco parentis_, +by gum! But what’s the odds as long as you’re ‘appy? _We’re_ all right.” + +They were, and their very rightness puzzled Prout, King, and the +Sergeant. Boys with bad consciences show it. They slink out past the +Fives Court in haste, and smile nervously when questioned. They return, +disordered, in bare time to save a call-over. They nod and wink and +giggle one to the other, scattering at the approach of a master. But +Stalky and his allies had long out-lived these manifestations of youth. +They strolled forth unconcernedly, and returned in excellent shape after +a light refreshment of strawberries and cream at the Lodge. + +The Lodge-keeper had been promoted to keeper, _vice_ the murderous +fisherman, and his wife made much of the boys. The man, too, gave them +a squirrel, which they presented to the Natural History Society; thereby +checkmating little Hartopp, who wished to know what they were doing for +Science. Foxy faithfully worked some deep Devon lanes behind a lonely +cross-roads inn; and it was curious that Prout and King, members of +Common-room seldom friendly, walked together in the same direction--that +is to say, northeast. + +Now, the Pleasant Isle of Aves lay due southwest. “They’re +deep--day-vilish deep,” said Stalky. “Why are they drawin’ those +covers?” + +“Me,” said Beetle sweetly. “I asked Foxy if he had ever tasted the beer +there. That was enough for Foxy, and it cheered him up a little. He and +Heffy were sniffin’ round our old hut so long I thought they’d like a +change.” + +“Well, it can’t last forever,” said Stalky. “Heffy’s bankin’ up like +a thunder-cloud, an’ King goes rubbin’ his beastly hands, an’ grinnin’ +like a hyena. It’s shockin’ demoralizin’ for King. He’ll burst some +day.” + +That day came a little sooner than they expected--came when the +Sergeant, whose duty it was to collect defaulters, did not attend an +afternoon call-over. + +“Tired of pubs, eh? He’s gone up to the top of the bill with his +binoculars to spot us,” said Stalky. “Wonder he didn’t think of that +before. Did you see old Heffy cock his eye at us when we answered our +names? Heffy’s in it, too. _Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me! Come +on!” + +“Aves?” said Beetle. + +“Of course, but I’m not smokin’ _aujourd’hui_. _Parceque je_ jolly well +_pense_ that we’ll be _suivi_. We’ll go along the cliffs, slow, an’ give +Foxy lots of time to parallel us up above.” + +They strolled towards the swimming-baths, and presently overtook King. +“Oh, don’t let _me_ interrupt you,” he said. “Engaged in scientific +pursuits, of course? I trust you will enjoy yourselves, my young +friends.” + +“You see!” said Stalky, when they were out of earshot. “He _can’t_ keep +a secret. He’s followin’ to cut off our line of retreat. He’ll wait +at the baths till Heffy comes along. They’ve tried every blessed place +except along the cliffs, and now they think they’ve bottled us. No need +to hurry.” + +They walked leisurely over the combes till they reached the line of +notice-boards. + +“Listen a shake. Foxy’s up wind comin’ down hill like beans. When you +hear him move in the bushes, go straight across to Aves. They want to +catch us _flagrante delicto_.” + +They dived into the gorse at right angles to the tunnel, openly crossing +the grass, and lay still in Aves. + +“What did I tell you?” Stalky carefully put away the pipes and tobacco. +The Sergeant, out of breath, was leaning against the fence, raking +the furze with his binoculars, but he might as well have tried to see +through a sand-bag. Anon, Prout and King appeared behind him. They +conferred. + +“Aha! Foxy don’t like the notice-boards, and he don’t like the prickles +either. Now we’ll cut up the tunnel and go to the Lodge. Hullo! They’ve +sent Foxy into cover.” + +The Sergeant was waist-deep in crackling, swaying furze, his ears filled +with the noise of his own progress. The boys reached the shelter of the +wood and looked down through a belt of hollies. + +“Hellish noise!” said Stalky, critically. “‘Don’t think Colonel Dabney +will like it. I move we go into the Lodge and get something to eat. We +might as well see the fun out.” + +Suddenly the keeper passed them at a trot. “Who’m they to combe-bottom +for Lard’s sake? Master’ll be crazy,” he said. + +“Poachers simly,” Stalky replied in the broad Devon that was the boy’s +_langue de guerre_. + +“I’ll poach ‘em to raights!” He dropped into the funnel-like combe, +which presently began to fill with noises, notably King’s voice crying: +“Go on, Sergeant! Leave him alone, you, sir. He is executing my orders.” + +“Who’m yeou to give arders here, gingy whiskers? Yeou come up to the +master. Come out o’ that wuzzy! [This is to the Sergeant.] Yiss, I +reckon us knows the boys yeou’m after. They’ve tu long ears an’ vuzzy +bellies, an’ you nippies they in yeour pockets when they’m dead. Come on +up to master! He’ll boy yeou all you’re a mind to. Yeou other folk bide +your side fence.” + +“Explain to the proprietor. You can explain, Sergeant,” shouted King. +Evidently the Sergeant had surrendered to the major force. + +Beetle lay at full length on the turf behind the Lodge, literally biting +the earth in spasms of joy. Stalky kicked him upright. There was nothing +of levity about Stalky or McTurk save a stray muscle twitching on the +cheek. + +They tapped at the Lodge door, where they were always welcome. “Come +yeou right in an’ set down, my little dearrs,” said the woman. “They’ll +niver touch my man. He’ll poach ‘em to rights. Iss fai! Fresh berries +an’ cream. Us Dartymoor folk niver forgit their friends. But them +Bidevor poachers, they’ve no hem to their garments. Sugar? My man he’ve +digged a badger for yeou, my dearrs. ‘Tis in the linhay in a box.” + +“Us’ll take un with us when we’re finished here. I reckon yeou’m busy. +We’ll bide here an’--‘tis washin’ day with yeou, simly,” said Stalky. +“We’m no company to make all vitty for. Never yeou mind us. Yiss. +There’s plenty cream.” + +The woman withdrew, wiping her pink hands on her apron, and left them +in the parlor. There was a scuffle of feet on the gravel outside the +heavily-leaded diamond panes, and then the voice of Colonel Dabney, +something clearer than a bugle. + +“Ye can read? You’ve eyes in your head? Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye +have!” + +Beetle snatched a crochet-work antimacassar from the shiny horsehair +sofa, stuffed it into his mouth, and rolled out of sight. + +“You saw my notice-boards. Your duty? Curse your impudence, sir. Your +duty was to keep off my grounds. Talk of duty to _me_! Why--why--why, ye +misbegotten poacher, ye’ll be teaching me my A B C next! Roarin’ like a +bull in the bushes down there! Boys? Boys? Boys? Keep your boys at home, +then! I’m not responsible for your boys! But I don’t believe it--I +don’t believe a word of it. Ye’ve a furtive look in your eye--a furtive, +sneakin’, poachin’ look in your eye, that ‘ud ruin the reputation of an +archangel! Don’t attempt to deny it! Ye have! A sergeant? More shame to +you, then, an’ the worst bargain Her Majesty ever made! A sergeant, to +run about the country poachin’--on your pension! Damnable! Oh, damnable! +But I’ll be considerate. I’ll be merciful. By gad, I’ll be the very +essence o’ humanity! Did ye, or did ye not, see my notice-boards? Don’t +attempt to deny it! Ye did. Silence, Sergeant!” + +Twenty-one years in the army had left their mark on Foxy. He obeyed. + +“Now. March!” The high Lodge gate shut with a clang. “My duty! A +sergeant to tell me my duty!” puffed Colonel Dabney. “Good Lard! more +sergeants!” + +“It’s King! It’s King!” gulped Stalky, his head on the horsehair pillow. +McTurk was eating the rag-carpet before the speckless hearth, and the +sofa heaved to the emotions of Beetle. Through the thick glass the +figures without showed blue, distorted, and menacing. + +“I--I protest against this outrage.” King had evidently been running +up hill. “The man was entirely within his duty. Let--let me give you my +card.” + +“He’s in flannels!” Stalky buried his head again. + +“Unfortunately--most unfortunately--I have not one with me, but my +name is King, sir, a house-master of the College, and you will find me +prepared--fully prepared--to answer for this man’s action. We’ve seen +three--” + +“Did ye see my notice-boards?” + +“I admit we did; but under the circumstances--” + +“I stand _in loco parentis_.” Prout’s deep voice was added to the +discussion. They could hear him pant. + +“F’what?” Colonel Dabney was growing more and more Irish. + +“I’m responsible for the boys under my charge.” + +“Ye are, are ye? Then all I can say is that ye set them a very bad +example--a dam’ bad example, if I may say so. I do not own your boys. +I’ve not seen your boys, an’ I tell you that if there was a boy grinnin’ +in every bush on the place, _still_ ye’ve no shadow of a right here, +comin’ up from the combe that way, an’ frightenin’ everything in it. +Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did. Ye should have come to the Lodge an’ +seen me like Christians, instead of chasin’ your dam’ boys through the +length and breadth of my covers. _In loco parentis_ ye are? Well, +I’ve not forgotten my Latin either, an’ I’ll say to you: +‘_Quis custodiet ipsos custodes_.’ If the masters trespass, how can we +blame the boys?” + +“But if I could speak to you privately,” said Prout. + +“I’ll have nothing private with you! Ye can be as private as ye please +on the other side o’ that gate an’--I wish ye a very good afternoon.” + +A second time the gate clanged. They waited till Colonel Dabney had +returned to the house, and fell into one another’s arms, crowing for +breath. + +“Oh, my Soul! Oh, my King! Oh, my Heffy! Oh, my Foxy! Zeal, all zeal, +Mr. Simple.” Stalky wiped his eyes. “Oh! Oh I Oh!--‘I _did_ boil the +exciseman!’ We must get out of this or we’ll be late for tea.” + +“Ge--Ge--get the badger and make little Hartopp happy. Ma--ma--make +‘em all happy,” sobbed McTurk, groping for the door and kicking the +prostrate Beetle before him. + +They found the beast in an evil-smelling box, left two half-crowns for +payment, and staggered home. Only the badger grunted most marvelous like +Colonel Dabney, and they dropped him twice or thrice with shrieks of +helpless laughter. They were but imperfectly recovered when Foxy met +them by the Fives Court with word that they were to go up to their +dormitory and wait till sent for. + +“Well, take this box to Mr. Hartopp’s rooms, then. We’ve done something +for the Natural History Society, at any rate,” said Beetle. + +“‘Fraid that won’t save you, young gen’elmen,” Foxy answered, in an +awful voice. He was sorely ruffled in his mind. + +“All sereno, Foxibus.” Stalky had reached the extreme stage of hiccups. +“We--we’ll never desert you, Foxy. Hounds choppin’ foxes in cover is +more a proof of vice, ain’t it?... No, you’re right. I’m--I’m not quite +well.” + +“They’ve gone a bit too far this time,” Foxy thought to himself. “Very +far gone, _I’d_ say, excep’ there was no smell of liquor. An’ yet it +isn’t like ‘em--somehow. King and Prout they ‘ad their dressin’-down +same as me. That’s one comfort.” + +“Now, we must pull up,” said Stalky, rising from the bed on which he had +thrown himself. “We’re injured innocence--as usual. We don’t know what +we’ve been sent up here for, do we?” + +“No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public disgrace before the house,” + said McTurk, whose eyes were running over. “It’s dam’ serious.” + +“Well, hold on, till King loses his temper,” said Beetle. “He’s a +libelous old rip, an’ he’ll be in a ravin’ paddy-wack. Prout’s too +beastly cautious. Keep your eye on King, and, if he gives us a chance, +appeal to the Head. That always makes ‘em sick.” + +They were summoned to their house-master’s study, King and Foxy +supporting Prout, and Foxy had three canes under his arm. King leered +triumphantly, for there were tears, undried tears of mirth, on the boys’ +cheeks. Then the examination began. + +Yes, they had walked along the cliffs. Yes, they had entered Colonel +Dabney’s grounds. Yes, they had seen the notice-boards (at this point +Beetle sputtered hysterically). For what purpose had they entered +Colonel Dabney’s grounds? “Well, sir, there was a badger.” + +Here King, who loathed the Natural History Society because he did not +like Hartopp, could no longer be restrained. He begged them not to add +mendacity to open insolence. But the badger was in Mr. Hartopp’s rooms, +sir. The Sergeant had kindly taken it up for them. That disposed of the +badger, and the temporary check brought King’s temper to boiling-point. +They could hear his foot on the floor while Prout prepared his lumbering +inquiries. They had settled into their stride now. Their eyes ceased to +sparkle; their faces were blank; their hands hung beside them without a +twitch. They were learning, at the expense of a fellow-countryman, the +lesson of their race, which is to put away all emotion and entrap the +alien at the proper time. + +So far good. King was importing himself more freely into the trial, +being vengeful where Prout was grieved. They knew the penalties of +trespassing? With a fine show of irresolution, Stalky admitted that +he had gathered some information vaguely bearing on this head, but he +thought--The sentence was dragged out to the uttermost: Stalky did not +wish to play his trump with such an opponent. Mr. King desired no buts, +nor was he interested in Stalky’s evasions. They, on the other hand, +might be interested in his poor views. Boys who crept--who sneaked--who +lurked--out of bounds, even the generous bounds of the Natural +History Society, which they had falsely joined as a cloak for their +misdeeds--their vices--their villainies--their immoralities-- + +“He’ll break cover in a minute,” said Stalky to himself. “Then we’ll run +into him before he gets away.” + +Such boys, scabrous boys, moral lepers--the current of his words was +carrying King off his feet--evil-speakers, liars, slow-bellies--yea, +incipient drunkards... + +He was merely working up to a peroration, and the boys knew it; but +McTurk cut through the frothing sentence, the others echoing: + +“I appeal to the Head, sir.” + +“I appeal to the head, sir.” + +“I appeal to the Head, sir.” + +It was their unquestioned right. Drunkenness meant expulsion after a +public flogging. They had been accused of it. The case was the Head’s, +and the Head’s alone. + +“Thou hast appealed unto Caesar: unto Caesar shalt thou go.” They had +heard that sentence once or twice before in their careers. “None the +less,” said King, uneasily, “you would be better advised to abide by our +decision, my young friends.” + +“Are we allowed to associate with the rest of the school till we see the +Head, sir?” said McTurk to his house-master, disregarding King. This at +once lifted the situation to its loftiest plane. Moreover, it meant no +work, for moral leprosy was strictly quarantined, and the Head never +executed judgment till twenty-four cold hours later. + +“Well--er--if you persist in your defiant attitude,” said King, with a +loving look at the canes under Foxy’s arm. “There is no alternative.” + +Ten minutes later the news was over the whole school. Stalky and Co. +had fallen at last--fallen by drink. They had been drinking. They had +returned blind-drunk from a hut. They were even now lying hopelessly +intoxicated on the dormitory floor. A few bold spirits crept up to look, +and received boots about the head from the criminals. + +“We’ve got him--got him on the Caudine Toasting-fork!” said Stalky, +after those hints were taken. “King’ll have to prove his charges up to +the giddy hilt.” + +“Too much ticklee, him bust,” Beetle quoted from a book of his reading. +“Didn’t I say he’d go pop if we lat un bide?” + +“No prep., either, O ye incipient drunkards,” said McTurk, “and it’s +trig night, too. Hullo! Here’s our dear friend Foxy. More tortures, +Foxibus?” + +“I’ve brought you something to eat, young gentlemen,” said the Sergeant +from behind a crowded tray. Their wars had ever been waged without +malice, and a suspicion floated in Foxy’s mind that boys who allowed +themselves to be tracked so easily might, perhaps, hold something in +reserve. Foxy had served through the Mutiny, when early and accurate +information was worth much. + +“I--I noticed you ‘adn’t ‘ad anything to eat, an’ I spoke to Gumbly, an’ +he said you wasn’t exactly cut off from supplies. So I brought up this. +It’s your potted ‘am tin, ain’t it, Mr. Corkran?” + +“Why, Foxibus, you’re a brick,” said Stalky. “I didn’t think you had +this much--what’s the word, Beetle?” + +“Bowels,” Beetle replied, promptly. “Thank you, Sergeant. That’s young +Carter’s potted ham, though.” + +“There was a C on it. I thought it was Mr. Corkran’s. This is a very +serious business, young gentlemen. That’s what it is. I didn’t know, +perhaps, but there might be something on your side which you hadn’t said +to Mr. King or Mr. Prout, maybe.” + +“There is. Heaps, Foxibus.” This from Stalky through a full mouth. + +“Then you see, if that was the case, it seemed to me I might represent +it, quiet so to say, to the ‘Ead when he asks me about it. I’ve got to +take ‘im the charges to-night, an’--it looks bad on the face of it.” + +“‘Trocious bad, Foxy. Twenty-seven cuts in the Gym before all the +school, and public expulsion. ‘Wine is a mocker, strong drink is +ragin’,’” quoth Beetle. + +“It’s nothin’ to make fun of, young gentlemen. I ‘ave to go to the ‘Ead +with the charges. An’--an’ you mayn’t be aware, per’aps, that I was +followin’ you this afternoon; havin’ my suspicions.” + +“Did ye see the notice-boards?” croaked McTurk, in the very brogue of +Colonel Dabney. + +“Ye’ve eyes in your head. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did!” said +Beetle. + +“A sergeant! To run about poachin’ on your pension! Damnable, O +damnable!” said Stalky, without pity. + +“Good Lord!” said the Sergeant, sitting heavily upon a bed. +“Where--where the devil _was_ you? I might ha’ known it was a +do--somewhere.” + +“Oh, you clever maniac!” Stalky resumed. “We mayn’t be aware you were +followin’ us this afternoon, mayn’t we? ‘Thought you were stalkin’ us, +eh? Why, we led you bung into it, of course. Colonel Dabney--don’t +you think he’s a nice man, Foxy?--Colonel Dabney’s our pet particular +friend. We’ve been goin’ there for weeks and weeks, he invited us. +You and your duty! Curse your duty, sir! Your duty was to keep off his +covers.” + +“You’ll never be able to hold up your head again, Foxy. The fags ‘ll +hoot at you,” said Beetle. + +“Think of your giddy prestige!” The Sergeant was thinking--hard. + +“Look ‘ere, young gentlemen,” he said, earnestly. “You aren’t surely +ever goin’ to tell, are you? Wasn’t Mr. Prout and Mr. King in--in it +too?” + +“Foxibusculus, they _was_. They was--singular horrid. Caught it worse +than you. We heard every word of it. You got off easy, considerin’. If +I’d been Dabney I swear I’d ha’ quodded you. I think I’ll suggest it to +him to-morrow.” + +“An’ it’s all goin’ up to the ‘Ead. Oh, Good Lord!” + +“Every giddy word of it, my Chingangook,” said Beetle, dancing. “Why +shouldn’t it? _We’ve_ done nothing wrong. _We_ ain’t poachers. _We_ +didn’t cut about blastin’ the characters of poor, innocent boys--saying +they were drunk.” + +“That I didn’t,” said Foxy. “I--I only said that you be’aved uncommon +odd when you come back with that badger. Mr. King may have taken the +wrong hint from that.” + +“‘Course he did; an’ he’ll jolly well shove all the blame on you when +he finds out he’s wrong. We know King, if you don’t. I’m ashamed of you. +You ain’t fit to be a sergeant,” said McTurk. + +“Not with three thorough-goin’ young devils like you, I ain’t. I’ve +been had. I’ve been ambuscaded. Horse, foot, an’ guns, I’ve been had, +an’--an’ there’ll be no holdin’ the junior forms after this. M’rover, +the ‘Ead will send me with a note to Colonel Dabney to ask if what you +say about bein’ invited was true.” + +“Then you’d better go in by the Lodge-gates this time, instead of +chasin’ your dam’ boys--oh, that was the Epistle to King--so it was. +We-el, Foxy?” Stalky put his chin on his hands and regarded the victim +with deep delight. + +“_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” said McTurk. “Foxy brought us +tea when we were moral lepers. Foxy has a heart. Foxy has been in the +Army, too.” + +“I wish I’d ha’ had you in my company, young gentlemen,” said the +Sergeant from the depths of his heart; “I’d ha’ given you something.” + +“Silence at drum-head court-martial,” McTurk went on. “I’m advocate for +the prisoner; and, besides, this is much too good to tell all the other +brutes in the Coll. They’d _never_ understand. They play cricket, and +say: ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘O, sir,’ and ‘No, sir.’” + +“Never mind that. Go ahead,” said Stalky. + +“Well, Foxy’s a good little chap when he does not esteem himself so as +to be clever.” + +“‘Take not out your ‘ounds on a werry windy day,’” Stalky struck in. +“_I_ don’t care if you let him off.” + +“Nor me,” said Beetle. “Heffy is my only joy--Heffy and King.” + +“I ‘ad to do it,” said the Sergeant, plaintively. + +“Right, O! Led away by bad companions in the execution of his duty +or--or words to that effect. You’re dismissed with a reprimand, Foxy. +_We_ won’t tell about _you_. I swear we won’t,” McTurk concluded. “Bad +for the discipline of the school. Horrid bad.” + +“Well,” said the Sergeant, gathering up the tea-things, “knowin’ what I +know o’ the young dev--gentlemen of the College, I’m very glad to ‘ear +it. But what am I to tell the ‘Ead?” + +“Anything you jolly well please, Foxy. We aren’t the criminals.” + +To say that the Head was annoyed when the Sergeant appeared after dinner +with the day’s crime-sheet would be putting it mildly. + +“Corkran, McTurk, and Co., I see. Bounds as usual. Hullo! What the deuce +is this? Suspicion of drinking. Whose charge??” + +“Mr. King’s, sir. I caught ‘em out of bounds, sir: at least that was ‘ow +it looked. But there’s a lot be’ind, sir.” The Sergeant was evidently +troubled. + +“Go on,” said the Head. “Let us have your version.” He and the Sergeant +had dealt with one another for some seven years; and the Head knew that +Mr. King’s statements depended very largely on Mr. King’s temper. + +“I thought they were out of bounds along the cliffs. But it come out +they wasn’t, sir. I saw them go into Colonel Dabney’s woods, and--Mr. +King and Mr. Prout come along--and the fact was, sir, we was mistook +for poachers by Colonel Dabney’s people--Mr. King and Mr. Prout and me. +There were some words, sir, on both sides. The young gentlemen slipped +‘ome somehow, and they seemed ‘ighly humorous, sir. Mr. King was mistook +by Colonel Dabney himself--Colonel Dabney bein’ strict. Then they +preferred to come straight to you, sir, on account of what--what Mr. +King may ‘ave said about their ‘abits afterwards in Mr. Prout’s study. +I only said they was ‘ighly humorous, laughin’ an’ gigglin’, an’ a bit +above ‘emselves. They’ve since told me, sir, in a humorous way, that +they was invited by Colonel Dabney to go into ‘is woods.” + +“I see. They didn’t tell their house-master that, of course?” + +“They took up Mr. King on appeal just as soon as he spoke about +their--‘abits. Put in the appeal at once, sir, an’ asked to be sent +to the dormitory waitin’ for you. I’ve since gathered, sir, in their +humorous way, sir, that some’ow or other they’ve ‘eard about every word +Colonel Dabney said to Mr. King and Mr. Prout when he mistook ‘em for +poachers. I--I might ha’ known when they led me on so that they ‘eld the +inner line of communications. It’s--it’s a plain do, sir, if you ask me; +an’ they’re gloatin’ over it in the dormitory.” + +The Head saw--saw even to the uttermost farthing--and his mouth twitched +a little under his mustache. + +“Send them to me at once, Sergeant. This case needn’t wait over.” + +“Good evening,” said he when the three appeared under escort. “I want +your undivided attention for a few minutes. You’ve known me for five +years, and I’ve known you for--twenty-five. I think we understand one +another perfectly. I am now going to pay you a tremendous compliment +(the brown one, please, Sergeant. Thanks. You needn’t wait). I’m going +to execute you without rhyme, Beetle, or reason. I know you went to +Colonel Dabney’s covers because you were invited. I’m not even going to +send the Sergeant with a note to ask if your statement is true; because +I am convinced that on this occasion you have adhered strictly to the +truth. I know, too, that you were not drinking. (You can take off +that virtuous expression, McTurk, or I shall begin to fear you don’t +understand me.) There is not a flaw in any of your characters. And that +is why I am going to perpetrate a howling injustice. Your reputations +have been injured, haven’t they? You have been disgraced before the +house, haven’t you? You have a peculiarly keen regard for the honor of +your house, haven’t you? Well, now I am going to lick you.” + +Six apiece was their portion upon that word. + +“And this I think”--the Head replaced the cane, and flung the written +charge into the waste-paper basket--“covers the situation. When you +find a variation from the normal--this will be useful to you in later +life--always meet him in an abnormal way. And that reminds me. There are +a pile of paper-backs on that shelf. You can borrow them if you put them +back. I don’t think they’ll take any harm from being read in the open. +They smell of tobacco rather. You will go to prep. this evening as +usual. Good-night,” said that amazing man. + +“Good-night, and thank you, sir.” + +“I swear I’ll pray for the Head to-night,” said Beetle. “Those last two +cuts were just flicks on my collar. There’s a ‘Monte Cristo’ in that +lower shelf. I saw it. Bags I, next time we go to Aves!” + +“Dearr man!” said McTurk. “No gating. No impots. No beastly questions. +All settled. Hullo! what’s King goin’ in to him for--King and Prout?” + +Whatever the nature of that interview, it did not improve either King’s +or Prout’s ruffled plumes, for, when they came out of the Head’s house, +eyes noted that the one was red and blue with emotion as to his nose, +and that the other was sweating profusely. That sight compensated them +amply for the Imperial Jaw with which they were favored by the two. It +seems--and who so astonished as they?--that they had held back material +facts; were guilty both of _suppressio veri_ and _suggestio falsi_ +(well-known gods against whom they often offended); further, that they +were malignant in their dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, +pernicious and revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the +devils of wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, +and lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful. + +They were careful, as only boys can be when there is a hurt to be +inflicted. They waited through one suffocating week till Prout and +King were their royal selves again; waited till there was a +house-match--their own house, too--in which Prout was taking part; +waited, further, till he had his pads in the pavilion and stood ready to +go forth. King was scoring at the window, and the three sat on a bench +without. + +Said Stalky to Beetle: “I say, Beetle, _quis custodet ipsos custodes_?” + +“Don’t ask me,” said Beetle. “I’ll have nothin’ private with you. Ye can +be as private as ye please the other end of the bench; and I wish ye a +very good afternoon.” + +McTurk yawned. + +“Well, ye should ha’ come up to the lodge like Christians instead o’ +chasin’ your--a-hem--boys through the length an’ breadth of my covers. +_I_ think these house-matches are all rot. Let’s go over to Colonel +Dabney’s an’ see if he’s collared any more poachers.” + +That afternoon there was joy in Aves. + + + + +SLAVES OF THE LAMP + + +The music-room on the top floor of Number Five was filled with the +“Aladdin” company at rehearsal. Dickson Quartus, commonly known as Dick +Four, was Aladdin, stage-manager, ballet-master, half the orchestra, and +largely librettist, for the “book” had been rewritten and filled +with local allusions. The pantomime was to be given next week, in the +down-stairs study occupied by Aladdin, Abanazar, and the Emperor of +China. The Slave of the Lamp, with the Princess Badroulbadour and the +Widow Twankay, owned Number Five study across the same landing, so +that the company could be easily assembled. The floor shook to the +stamp-and-go of the ballet, while Aladdin, in pink cotton tights, a blue +and tinsel jacket, and a plumed hat, banged alternately on the piano and +his banjo. He was the moving spirit of the game, as befitted a senior +who had passed his Army Preliminary and hoped to enter Sandhurst next +spring. + +Aladdin came to his own at last, Abanazar lay poisoned on the floor, the +Widow Twankay danced her dance, and the company decided it would “come +all right on the night.” + +“What about the last song, though?” said the Emperor, a tallish, +fair-headed boy with a ghost of a mustache, at which he pulled manfully. +“We need a rousing old tune.” + +“‘John Peel’? ‘Drink, Puppy, Drink’?” suggested Abanazar, smoothing his +baggy lilac pajamas. “Pussy” Abanazar never looked more than one-half +awake, but he owned a soft, slow smile which well suited the part of the +Wicked Uncle. + +“Stale,” said Aladdin. “Might as well have ‘Grandfather’s Clock.’ What’s +that thing you were humming at prep. last night, Stalky?” + +Stalky, The Slave of the Lamp, in black tights and doublet, a black silk +half-mask on his forehead, whistled lazily where he lay on the top of +the piano. It was a catchy music-hall tune. + +Dick Four cocked his head critically, and squinted down a large red +nose. + +“Once more, and I can pick it up,” he said, strumming. “Sing the words.” + +“Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child! Wrap him in +an overcoat, he’s surely going wild! Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! just +you mind the child awhile! He’ll kick and bite and cry all night! Arrah, +Patsy, mind the child!” + +“Rippin’! Oh, rippin’!” said Dick Four. “Only we shan’t have any piano +on the night. We must work it with the banjoes--play an’ dance at the +same time. You try, Tertius.” + +The Emperor pushed aside his pea-green sleeves of state, and followed +Dick Four on a heavy nickel plated banjo. + +“Yes, but I’m dead all this time. Bung in the middle of the stage, too,” + said Abanazar. + +“Oh, that’s Beetle’s biznai,” said Dick Four. “Vamp it up, Beetle. Don’t +keep us waiting all night. You’ve got to get Pussy out of the light +somehow, and bring us all in dancin’ at the end.” + +“All right. You two play it again,” said Beetle, who, in a gray skirt +and a wig of chestnut sausage-curls, set slantwise above a pair of +spectacles mended with an old boot-lace, represented the Widow Twankay. +He waved one leg in time to the hammered refrain, and the banjoes grew +louder. + +“Um! Ah! Er--‘Aladdin now has won his wife,’” he sang, and Dick Four +repeated it. + +“‘Your Emperor is appeased.’” Tertius flung out his chest as he +delivered his line. + +“Now jump up, Pussy! Say, ‘I think I’d better come to life! Then we +all take hands and come forward: ‘We hope you’ve all been pleased.’ +_Twiggez-vous_?” + +“_Nous twiggons_. Good enough. What’s the chorus for the final ballet? +It’s four kicks and a turn,” said Dick Four. + +“Oh! Er! + + John Short will ring the curtain down. + And ring the prompter’s bell; + We hope you know before you go + That we all wish you well.” + +“Rippin’! Rippin’! Now for the Widow’s scene with the Princess. Hurry +up, Turkey.” + +McTurk, in a violet silk skirt and a coquettish blue turban, slouched +forward as one thoroughly ashamed of himself. The Slave of the Lamp +climbed down from the piano, and dispassionately kicked him. “Play up, +Turkey,” he said; “this is serious.” But there fell on the door the +knock of authority. It happened to be King, in gown and mortar-board, +enjoying a Saturday evening prowl before dinner. + +“Locked doors! Locked doors!” he snapped with a scowl. “What’s the +meaning of this; and what, may I ask, is the intention of this--this +epicene attire?” + +“Pantomime, sir. The Head gave us leave,” said Abanazar, as the only +member of the Sixth concerned. Dick Four stood firm in the confidence +born of well-fitting tights, but Beetle strove to efface himself behind +the piano. A gray princess-skirt borrowed from a day-boy’s mother and a +spotted cotton bodice unsystematically padded with imposition-paper make +one ridiculous. And in other regards Beetle had a bad conscience. + +“As usual!” sneered King. “Futile foolery just when your careers, such +as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see! The old +gang of criminals--allied forces of disorder--Corkran”--the Slave of the +Lamp smiled politely--“McTurk”--the Irishman scowled--“and, of course, +the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs.” Abanazar, the Emperor, and +Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed them over. “Come +forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument of music! You +supply, I presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. Esteem yourself +to be, as it were, a poet?” + +“He’s found one of ‘em,” thought Beetle, noting the flush on King’s +cheek-bone. + +“I have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my +address, I believe--an effusion intended to rhyme. So--so you despise +me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite aware--you need not +explain--that it was ostensibly not intended for my edification. I read +it with laughter--yes, with laughter. These paper pellets of inky +boys--still a boy we are, Master Gigadibs--do not disturb my equanimity.” + +“Wonder which it was,” thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons on +an appreciative public ever since he discovered that it was possible to +convey reproof in rhyme. + +In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he +called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his +mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he held +him up to the derision of his associates--with the usual result. His +wild flowers of speech--King had an unpleasant tongue---restored him to +good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle’s latter +end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few +compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he must +come up for judgment when called upon, went to Common-room, where he +triumphed anew over his victims. + +“And the worst of it,” he explained in a loud voice over his soup, “is +that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. It’s miles above +them, I’m certain.” + +“We-ell,” said the school chaplain slowly, “I don’t know what Corkran’s +appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin for his +amusement.” + +“Nonsense! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt.” + +“He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, +unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers of +‘Fors Clavigera.’” + +“I don’t know anything about their private lives,” said a mathematical +master hotly, “but I’ve learned by bitter experience that Number Five +study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils.” + +He blushed as the others laughed. + +But in the music-room there were wrath and bad language. Only Stalky, +Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano unmoved. + +“That little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. He’s +always suckin’ up to King. Go and kill him,” he drawled. “Which one was +it, Beetle?” + +“Dunno,” said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. “There was one about +his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other one was +one about him in hell, tellin’ the Devil he was a Balliol man. I swear +both of ‘em rhymed all right. By gum! P’raps Manders minor showed him +both! _I’ll_ correct his caesuras for him.” + +He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and +white boy in a form-room next door to King’s study, which, again, +was immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a +form-room sacred to the revels of the Lower Third. Thence he came +back, greatly disordered, to find McTurk, Stalky, and the others of the +company, in his study enjoying an unlimited “brew”--coffee, cocoa, buns, +new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, ham-and-tongue paste, +pilchards, three jams, and at least as many pounds of Devonshire cream. + +“My hat!” said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. “Who stumped +up for this, Stalky?” It was within a month of term end, and blank +starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks. + +“You,” said Stalky, serenely. + +“Confound you! You haven’t been popping my Sunday bags, then?” + +“Keep your hair on. It’s only your watch.” + +“Watch! I lost it--weeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to shoot +the old ram--the day our pistol burst.” + +“It dropped out of your pocket (you’re so beastly careless, Beetle), and +McTurk and I kept it for you. I’ve been wearing it for a week, and you +never noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. Got thirteen +and sevenpence. Here’s the ticket.” + +“Well, that’s pretty average cool,” said Abanazar behind a slab of cream +and jam, as Beetle, reassured upon the safety of his Sunday trousers, +showed not even surprise, much less resentment. Indeed, it was McTurk +who grew angry, saying: + +“You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated beast! +Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! ‘Never got a sniff of any +ticket.” + +“Ah, that was because you locked your trunk, and we wasted half the +afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if you’d behaved +like a Christian, Turkey.” + +“My Aunt!” said Abanazar, “you chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to +Beetle, though.” + +“That’s beastly unfair,” said Stalky, “when I took all the trouble to +pawn it. Beetle never knew he had a watch. Oh, I say, Rabbits-Eggs gave +me a lift into Bideford this afternoon.” + +Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrier--an outcrop of the early Devonian +formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. “He was +pretty average drunk, or he wouldn’t have done it. Rabbits-Eggs is a +little shy of me, somehow. But I swore it was _pax_ between us, and gave +him a bob. He stopped at two pubs on the way in, so he’ll be howling +drunk to-night. Oh, don’t begin reading, Beetle; there’s a council of +war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?” + +“‘Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third box-room. ‘Had all his +beastly little friends on top of me,” said Beetle from behind a jar of +pilchards and a book. + +“You ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to,” + said McTurk. + +“I didn’t think,” said Beetle, meekly, scooping out pilchards with a +spoon. + +“Course you didn’t. You never do.” McTurk adjusted Beetle’s collar with +a savage tug. “Don’t drop oil all over my ‘Fors’ or I’ll scrag you!” + +“Shut up, you--you Irish Biddy! ‘Tisn’t your beastly ‘Fors.’ It’s one of +mine.” + +The book was a fat, brown-backed volume of the later Sixties, which King +had once thrown at Beetle’s head that Beetle might see whence the +name Gigadibs came. Beetle had quietly annexed the book, and had +seen--several things. The quarter-comprehended verses lived and ate with +him, as the bedropped pages showed. He removed himself from all that +world, drifting at large with wondrous Men and Women, till McTurk +hammered the pilchard spoon on his head and he snarled. + +“Beetle! You’re oppressed and insulted and bullied by King. Don’t you +feel it?” + +“Let me alone! I can write some more poetry about him if I am, I +suppose.” + +“Mad! Quite mad!” said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange +beasts. “Beetle reads an ass called Brownin’, and McTurk reads an ass +called Ruskin; and--” + +“Ruskin isn’t an ass,” said McTurk. “He’s almost as good as the Opium +Eater. He says ‘we’re children of noble races trained by surrounding +art.’ That means _me_, and the way I decorated the study when you two +badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a +noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading, or I’ll shove a +pilchard down your neck!” + +“It’s two to one,” said Stalky, warningly, and Beetle closed the book, +in obedience to the law under which he and his companions had lived for +six checkered years. + +The visitors looked on delighted. Number Five study had a reputation for +more variegated insanity than the rest of the school put together; and +so far as its code allowed friendship with outsiders it was polite and +open-hearted to its neighbors on the same landing. + +“What rot do you want now?” said Beetle. + +“King! War!” said McTurk, jerking his head toward the wall, where hung a +small wooden West-African war-drum, a gift to McTurk from a naval uncle. + +“Then we shall be turned out of the study again,” said Beetle, who loved +his flesh-pots. “Mason turned us out for--just warbling on it.” Mason +was the mathematical master who had testified in Common-room. + +“Warbling?--O Lord!” said Abanazar. “We couldn’t hear ourselves speak in +our study when you played the infernal thing. What’s the good of getting +turned out of your study, anyhow?” + +“We lived in the form-rooms for a week, too,” said Beetle, tragically. +“And it was beastly cold.” + +“Ye-es, but Mason’s rooms were filled with rats every day we were out. +It took him a week to draw the inference,” said McTurk. “He loathes +rats. ‘Minute he let us go back the rats stopped. Mason’s a little shy +of us now, but there was no evidence.” + +“Jolly well there wasn’t,” said Stalky, “when I got out on the roof and +dropped the beastly things down his chimney. But, look here--question +is, are our characters good enough just now to stand a study row?” + +“Never mind mine,” said Beetle. “King swears I haven’t any.” + +“I’m not thinking of you,” Stalky returned scornfully. “You aren’t +going up for the Army, you old bat. I don’t want to be expelled--and the +Head’s getting rather shy of us, too.” + +“Rot!” said McTurk. “The Head never expels except for beastliness or +stealing. But I forgot; you and Stalky _are_ thieves--regular burglars.” + +The visitors gasped, but Stalky interpreted the parable with large +grins. + +“Well, you know, that little beast Manders minor saw Beetle and me +hammerin’ McTurk’s trunk open in the dormitory when we took his watch +last month. Of course Manders sneaked to Mason, and Mason solemnly took +it up as a case of theft, to get even with us about the rats.” + +“That just put Mason into our giddy hands,” said McTurk, blandly. “We +were nice to him, because he was a new master and wanted to win the +confidence of the boys. ‘Pity he draws inferences, though. Stalky went +to his study and pretended to blub, and told Mason he’d lead a new life +if Mason would let him off this time, but Mason wouldn’t. ‘Said it was +his duty to report him to the Head.” + +“Vindictive swine!” said Beetle. “It was all those rats! Then _I_ +blubbed, too, and Stalky confessed that he’d been a thief in regular +practice for six years, ever since he came to the school; and that I’d +taught him--_a la_ Fagin. Mason turned white with joy. He thought he had +us on toast.” + +“Gorgeous! Gorgeous!” said Dick Four. “We never heard of this.” + +“‘Course not. Mason kept it jolly quiet. He wrote down all our +statements on impot-paper. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t believe,” + said Stalky. + +“And handed it all up to the Head, _with_ an extempore prayer. It took +about forty pages,” said Beetle. “I helped him a lot.” + +“And then, you crazy idiots?” said Abanazar. + +“Oh, we were sent for; and Stalky asked to have the ‘depositions’ read +out, and the Head knocked him spinning into a waste-paper basket. Then +he gave us eight cuts apiece--welters--for--for--takin’ unheard-of +liberties with a new master. I saw his shoulders shaking when we went +out. Do you know,” said Beetle, pensively, “that Mason can’t look at us +now in second lesson without blushing? We three stare at him sometimes +till he regularly trickles. He’s an awfully sensitive beast.” + +“He read ‘Eric, or Little by Little,’” said McTurk; “so we gave him ‘St. +Winifred’s, or the World of School.’ They spent all their spare time +stealing at St. Winifred’s, when they weren’t praying or getting drunk +at pubs. Well, that was only a week ago, and the Head’s a little bit shy +of us. He called it constructive deviltry. Stalky invented it all.” + +“Not the least good having a row with a master unless you can make an +ass of him,” said Stalky, extended at ease on the hearth-rug. “If Mason +didn’t know Number Five--well, he’s learnt, that’s all. Now, my dearly +beloved ‘earers”--Stalky curled his legs under him and addressed the +company--“we’ve got that strong’, perseverin’ man King on our hands. He +went miles out of his way to provoke a conflict.” (Here Stalky snapped +down the black silk domino and assumed the air of a judge.) “He has +oppressed Beetle, McTurk, and me, _privatim et seriatim_, one by one, +as he could catch us. But now, he has insulted Number Five up in +the music-room, and in the presence of these--these ossifers of the +Ninety-third, wot look like hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry +‘Capivi!’” + +Stalky’s reading did not include Browning or Ruskin. + +“And, besides,” said McTurk, “he’s a Philistine, a basket-hanger. He +wears a tartan tie. Ruskin says that any man who wears a tartan tie +will, without doubt, be damned everlastingly.” + +“Bravo, McTurk,” said Tertius; “I thought he was only a beast.” + +“He’s that, too, of course, but he’s worse. He has a china basket with +blue ribbons and a pink kitten on it, hung up in his window to grow musk +in. You know when I got all that old oak carvin’ out of Bideford Church, +when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who’ll restore a +church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with glue? Well, +King came in and wanted to know whether we’d done it with a fret-saw! +Yah! He is the King of basket-hangers!” + +Down went McTurk’s inky thumb over an imaginary arena full of bleeding +Kings. “_Placete_, child of a generous race!” he cried to Beetle. + +“Well,” began Beetle, doubtfully, “he comes from Balliol, but I’m going +to give the beast a chance. You see I can always make him hop with +some more poetry. He can’t report me to the Head, because it makes him +ridiculous. (Stalky’s quite right.) But he shall have his chance.” + +Beetle opened the book on the table, ran his finger down a page, and +began at random: + + “Or who in Moscow toward the Czar + With the demurest of footfalls, + Over the Kremlin’s pavement white + With serpentine and syenite, + Steps with five other generals--” + +“That’s no good. Try another,” said Stalky. + +“Hold on a shake; I know what’s coming.” McTurk was reading over +Beetle’s shoulder. + + “That simultaneously take snuff, + For each to have pretext enough + And kerchiefwise unfold his sash, + Which--softness’ self--is yet the stuff + +(Gummy! What a sentence!) + + To hold fast where a steel chain snaps + And leave the grand white neck no gash. + +(Full stop.)” + +“‘Don’t understand a word of it,” said Stalky. + +“More fool you! Construe,” said McTurk. “Those six bargees scragged the +Czar, and left no evidence. _Actum est_ with King.” + +“He gave me that book, too,” said Beetle, licking his lips: + + “There’s a great text in Galatians, + Once you trip on it entails + Twenty-nine distinct damnations, + One sure if another fails.” + +Then irrelevantly: + + “Setebos! Setebos! and Setebos! + Thinketh he liveth in the cold of the moon.” + +“He’s just come in from dinner,” said Dick Four, looking through the +window. “Manders minor is with him.” + +“‘Safest place for Manders minor just now,” said Beetle. + +“Then you chaps had better clear out,” said Stalky politely to the +visitors. “‘Tisn’t fair to mix you up in a study row. Besides, we can’t +afford to have evidence.” + +“Are you going to begin at once?’ said Aladdin. + +“Immediately, if not sooner,” said Stalky, and turned out the gas. +“Strong, perseverin’ man--King. Make him cry ‘Capivi.’ G’way, Binjimin.” + +The company retreated to their own neat and spacious study with +expectant souls. + +“When Stalky blows out his nostrils like a horse,” said Aladdin to the +Emperor of China, “he’s on the war-path. ‘Wonder what King will get.” + +“Beans,” said the Emperor. “Number Five generally pays in full.” + +“Wonder if I ought to take any notice of it officially,” said Abanazar, +who had just remembered he was a prefect. + +“It’s none of your business, Pussy. Besides, if you did, we’d have them +hostile to us; and we shouldn’t be able to do any work,” said Aladdin. +“They’ve begun already.” + +Now that West-African war-drum had been made to signal across estuaries +and deltas. Number Five was forbidden to wake the engine within earshot +of the school. But a deep, devastating drone filled the passages as +McTurk and Beetle scientifically rubbed its top. Anon it changed to the +blare of trumpets--of savage pursuing trumpets. Then, as McTurk slapped +one side, smooth with the blood of ancient sacrifice, the roar broke +into short coughing howls such as the wounded gorilla throws in his +native forest. These were followed by the wrath of King--three steps +at a time, up the staircase, with a dry whir of the gown. Aladdin and +company, listening, squeaked with excitement as the door crashed open. +King stumbled into the darkness, and cursed those performers by the gods +of Balliol and quiet repose. + +“Turned out for a week,” said Aladdin, holding the study door on the +crack. “Key to be brought down to his study in five minutes. ‘Brutes! +Barbarians! Savages! Children!’ He’s rather agitated. ‘Arrah, Patsy, +mind the baby,’” he sang in a whisper as he clung to the door-knob, +dancing a noiseless war-dance. + +King went down-stairs again, and Beetle and McTurk lit the gas to confer +with Stalky. But Stalky had vanished. + +“Looks like no end of a mess,” said Beetle, collecting his books and +mathematical instrument case. “A week in the form-rooms isn’t any +advantage to us.” + +“Yes, but don’t you see that Stalky isn’t here, you owl!” said McTurk. +“Take down the key, and look sorrowful. King’ll only jaw you for half an +hour. I’m going to read in the lower form-room.” + +“But it’s always me,” mourned Beetle. + +“Wait till we see,” said McTurk, hopefully. “I don’t know any more than +you do what Stalky means, but it’s something. Go down and draw King’s +fire. You’re used to it.” + +No sooner had the key turned in the door than the lid of the coal-box, +which was also the window-seat, lifted cautiously. It had been a tight +fit, even for the lithe Stalky, his head between his knees, and his +stomach under his right ear. From a drawer in the table he took a +well-worn catapult, a handful of buckshot, and a duplicate key of the +study; noiselessly he raised the window and kneeled by it, his face +turned to the road, the wind-sloped trees, the dark levels of the +Burrows, and the white line of breakers falling nine-deep along the +Pebbleridge. Far down the steep-banked Devonshire lane he heard the +husky hoot of the carrier’s horn. There was a ghost of melody in it, as +it might have been the wind in a gin-bottle essaying to sing, “It’s a +way we have in the Army.” + +Stalky smiled a tight-lipped smile, and at extreme range opened fire: +the old horse half wheeled in the shafts. + +“Where he gwaine tu?” hiccoughed Rabbits-Eggs. Another buckshot tore +through the rotten canvas tilt with a vicious zipp. + +“_Habet_!” murmured Stalky, as Rabbits-Eggs swore into the patient +night, protesting that he saw the “dommed colleger” who was assaulting +him. + +“And so,” King was saying in a high head voice to Beetle, whom he had +kept to play with before Manders minor, well knowing that it hurts +a Fifth-form boy to be held up to a fag’s derision, “and so, Master +Beetle, in spite of all our verses, which we are so proud of, when +we presume to come into direct conflict with even so humble a +representative of authority as myself, for instance, we are turned out +of our studies, are we not?” + +“Yes, sir,” said Beetle, with a sheepish grin on his lips and murder in +his heart. Hope had nearly left him, but he clung to a well-established +faith that never was Stalky so dangerous as when he was invisible. + +“You are _not_ required to criticise, thank you. Turned out of our +studies, we are, just as if we were no better than little Manders minor. +Only inky schoolboys we are, and must be treated as such.” + +Beetle pricked up his ears, for Rabbits-Eggs was swearing savagely +on the road, and some of the language entered at the upper sash. King +believed in ventilation. He strode to the window gowned and majestic, +very visible in the gaslight. + +“I zee ‘un! I zee ‘un!” roared Rabbits-Eggs, now that he had found a +visible foe--another shot from the darkness above. “Yiss, yeou, yeou +long-nosed, fower-eyed, gingy-whiskered beggar! Yeu’m tu old for such +goin’s on. Aie! Poultice yeour nose, I tall ‘ee! Poultice yeour long +nose!” + +Beetle’s heart leaped up within him. Somewhere, somehow, he knew, Stalky +moved behind these manifestations. There were hope and the prospect +of revenge. He would embody the suggestion about the nose in deathless +verse. King threw up the window, and sternly rebuked Rabbits-Eggs. But +the carrier was beyond fear or fawning. He had descended from the cart, +and was stooping by the roadside. + +It all fell swiftly as a dream. Manders minor raised his hand to his +head with a cry, as a jagged flint cannoned on to some rich tree-calf +bindings in the book-shelf. Another quoited along the writing-table. +Beetle made zealous feint to stop it, and in that endeavor overturned +a student’s lamp, which dripped, _via_ King’s papers and some choice +books, greasily on to a Persian rug. There was much broken glass on the +window-seat; the china basket--McTurk’s aversion--cracked to flinders, +had dropped her musk plant and its earth over the red rep cushions; +Manders minor was bleeding profusely from a cut on the cheek-bone; and +King, using strange words, every one of which Beetle treasured, ran +forth to find the school-sergeant, that Rabbits-Eggs might be instantly +cast into jail. + +“Poor chap!” said Beetle, with a false, feigned sympathy. “Let it +bleed a little. That’ll prevent apoplexy,” and he held the blind head +skilfully over the table, and the papers on the table, as he guided the +howling Manders to the door. + +Then did Beetle, alone with the wreckage, return good for evil. How, in +that office, a complete set of “Gibbon” was scarred all along the back +as by a flint; how so much black and copying ink came to be mingled with +Manders’s gore on the table-cloth; why the big gum-bottle, unstoppered, +had rolled semicircularly across the floor; and in what manner the white +china door-knob grew to be painted with yet more of Manders’s young +blood, were matters which Beetle did not explain when the rabid King +returned to find him standing politely over the reeking hearth-rug. + +“You never told me to go, sir,” he said, with the air of Casabianca, and +King consigned him to the outer darkness. + +But it was to a boot-cupboard under the staircase on the ground floor +that he hastened, to loose the mirth that was destroying him. He had +not drawn breath for a first whoop of triumph when two hands choked him +dumb. + +“Go to the dormitory and get me my things. Bring ‘em to Number Five +lavatory. I’m still in tights,” hissed Stalky, sitting on his head. +“Don’t run. Walk.” + +But Beetle staggered into the form-room next door, and delegated his +duty to the yet unenlightened McTurk, with an hysterical precis of the +campaign thus far. So it was McTurk, of the wooden visage, who brought +the clothes from the dormitory while Beetle panted on a form. Then the +three buried themselves in Number Five lavatory, turned on all the taps, +filled the place with steam, and dropped weeping into the baths, where +they pieced out the war. + +“_Moi_! _Je_! _Ich_! _Ego_!” gasped Stalky. “I waited till I +couldn’t hear myself think, while you played the drum! Hid in the +coal-locker--and tweaked Rabbits-Eggs--and Rabbits-Eggs rocked King. +Wasn’t it beautiful? Did you hear the glass?” + +“Why, he--he--he,” shrieked McTurk, one trembling finger pointed at +Beetle. + +“Why, I--I--I was through it all,” Beetle howled; “in his study, being +jawed.” + +“Oh, my soul!” said Stalky with a yell, disappearing under water. + +“The--the glass was nothing. Manders minor’s head’s cut open. +La--la--lamp upset all over the rug. Blood on the books and papers. The +gum! The gum! The gum! The ink! The ink! The ink! Oh, Lord!” + +Then Stalky leaped out, all pink as he was, and shook Beetle into some +sort of coherence; but his tale prostrated them afresh. + +“I bunked for the boot-cupboard the second I heard King go down-stairs. +Beetle tumbled in on top of me. The spare key’s hid behind the loose +board. There isn’t a shadow of evidence,” said Stalky. They were all +chanting together. + +“And he turned us out himself--himself--himself!” This from McTurk. “He +can’t begin to suspect us. Oh, Stalky, it’s the loveliest thing we’ve +ever done.” + +“Gum! Gum! Dollops of gum!” shouted Beetle, his spectacles gleaming +through a sea of lather. “Ink and blood all mixed. I held the little +beast’s head all over the Latin proses for Monday. Golly, how the oil +stunk! And Rabbits-Eggs told King to poultice his nose! Did you hit +Rabbits-Eggs, Stalky?” + +“Did I jolly well not? Tweaked him all over. Did you hear him curse? Oh, +I shall be sick in a minute if I don’t stop.” + +But dressing was a slow process, because McTurk was obliged to dance +when he heard that the musk basket was broken, and, moreover, Beetle +retailed all King’s language with emendations and purple insets. + +“Shockin’!” said Stalky, collapsing in a helpless welter of half-hitched +trousers. “So dam’ bad, too, for innocent boys like us! Wonder what +they’d say at ‘St. Winifred’s, or the World of School.’--By gum! That +reminds me we owe the Lower Third one for assaultin’ Beetle when he +chivied Manders minor. Come on! It’s an alibi, Samivel; and, besides, if +we let ‘em off they’ll be worse next time.” + +The Lower Third had set a guard upon their form-room for the space of a +full hour, which to a boy is a lifetime. Now they were busy with their +Saturday evening businesses--cooking sparrows over the gas with +rusty nibs; brewing unholy drinks in gallipots; skinning moles with +pocket-knives; attending to paper trays full of silkworms, or discussing +the iniquities of their elders with a freedom, fluency, and point that +would have amazed their parents. The blow fell without warning. Stalky +upset a form crowded with small boys among their own cooking utensils, +McTurk raided the untidy lockers as a terrier digs at a rabbit-hole, +while Beetle poured ink upon such heads as he could not appeal to with +a Smith’s Classical Dictionary. Three brisk minutes accounted for many +silkworms, pet larvae, French exercises, school caps, half-prepared +bones and skulls, and a dozen pots of home-made sloe jam. It was a great +wreckage, and the form-room looked as though three conflicting tempests +had smitten it. + +“Phew!” said Stalky, drawing breath outside the door (amid groans of +“Oh, you beastly ca-ads! You think yourselves awful funny,” and so +forth). “_That’s_ all right. Never let the sun go down upon your wrath. +Rummy little devils, fags. Got no notion o’ combinin’.” + +“Six of ‘em sat on my head when I went in after Manders minor,” said +Beetle. “I warned ‘em what they’d get, though.” + +“Everybody paid in full--beautiful feelin’,” said McTurk absently, as +they strolled along the corridor. “Don’t think we’d better say much +about King, though, do you, Stalky?” + +“Not _much_. Our line is injured innocence, of course--same as when the +Sergeant reported us on suspicion of smoking in the bunkers. If I hadn’t +thought of buyin’ the pepper and spillin’ it all over our clothes, +he’d have smelt us. King was gha-astly facetious about that. ‘Called us +bird-stuffers in form for a week.” + +“Ah, King hates the Natural History Society because little Hartopp is +president. Mustn’t do anything in the Coll. without glorifyin’ King,” + said McTurk. “But he must be a putrid ass, know, to suppose at our time +o’ life we’d go and stuff birds like fags.” + +“Poor old King!” said Beetle. “He’s unpopular in Common-room, and +they’ll chaff his head off about Rabbits-Eggs. Golly! How lovely! How +beautiful! How holy! But you should have seen his face when the first +rock came in! _And_ the earth from the basket!” + +So they were all stricken helpless for five minutes. + +They repaired at last to Abanazar’s study, and were received reverently. + +“What’s the matter?” said Stalky, quick to realize new atmospheres. + +“You know jolly well,” said Abanazar. “You’ll be expelled if you get +caught. King is a gibbering maniac.” + +“Who? Which? What? Expelled for how? We only played the war-drum. We’ve +got turned out for that already.” + +“Do you chaps mean to say you didn’t make Rabbits-Eggs drunk and bribe +him to rock King’s rooms?” + +“Bribe him? No, that I’ll swear we didn’t,” said Stalky, with a relieved +heart, for he loved not to tell lies. “What a low mind you’ve got, +Pussy! We’ve been down having a bath. Did Rabbits-Eggs rock King? +Strong, perseverin’ man King? Shockin’!” + +“Awf’ly. King’s frothing at the mouth. There’s bell for prayers. Come +on.” + +“Wait a sec,” said Stalky, continuing the conversation in a loud and +cheerful voice, as they descended the stairs. “What did Rabbits-Eggs +rock King for?” + +“I know,” said Beetle, as they passed King’s open door. “I was in his +study.” + +“Hush, you ass!” hissed the Emperor of China. “Oh, he’s gone down to +prayers,” said Beetle, watching the shadow of the house-master on the +wall. “Rabbits-Eggs was only a bit drunk, swearin’ at his horse, and +King jawed him through the window, and then, of course, he rocked King.” + +“Do you mean to say,” said Stalky, “that King began it?” + +King was behind them, and every well-weighed word went up the staircase +like an arrow. “I can only swear,” said Beetle, “that King cursed like a +bargee. Simply disgustin’. I’m goin’ to write to my father about it.” + +“Better report it to Mason,” suggested Stalky. “He knows our tender +consciences. Hold on a shake. I’ve got to tie my boot-lace.” + +The other study hurried forward. They did not wish to be dragged into +stage asides of this nature. So it was left to McTurk to sum up the +situation beneath the guns of the enemy. + +“You see,” said the Irishman, hanging on the banister, “he begins by +bullying little chaps; then he bullies the big chaps; then he bullies +some one who isn’t connected with the College, and then catches it. +Serves him jolly well right... I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t see you +were coming down the staircase.” + +The black gown tore past like a thunder-storm, and in its wake, three +abreast, arms linked, the Aladdin company rolled up the big corridor to +prayers, singing with most innocent intention: + + “Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child! + Wrap him up in an overcoat, he’s surely goin’ wild! + Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby; just ye mind the child awhile! + He’ll kick an’ bite an’ cry all night! Arrah, Patsy, mind + the child!” + + + + +AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. + + +It was a maiden aunt of Stalky who sent him both books, with the +inscription, “To dearest Artie, on his sixteenth birthday;” it was +McTurk who ordered their hypothecation; and it was Beetle, returned from +Bideford, who flung them on the window-sill of Number Five study with +news that Bastable would advance but ninepence on the two; “Eric; or, +Little by Little,” being almost as great a drug as “St. Winifred’s.” + “An’ I don’t think much of your aunt. We’re nearly out of cartridges, +too--Artie, dear.” + +Whereupon Stalky rose up to grapple with him, but McTurk sat on Stalky’s +head, calling him a “pure-minded boy” till peace was declared. As they +were grievously in arrears with a Latin prose, as it was a blazing July +afternoon, and as they ought to have been at a house cricket-match, +they began to renew their acquaintance, intimate and unholy, with the +volumes. + +“Here we are!” said McTurk. “‘Corporal punishment produced on Eric the +worst effects. He burned _not_ with remorse or regret’--make a note o’ +that, Beetle--’ but with shame and violent indignation. He glared’--oh, +naughty Eric! Let’s get to where he goes in for drink.” + +“Hold on half a shake. Here’s another sample. ‘The Sixth,’ he says, ‘is +the palladium of all public schools.’ But this lot--” Stalky rapped the +gilded book--“can’t prevent fellows drinkin’ and stealin’, an’ lettin’ +fags out of window at night, an’--an’ doin’ what they please. Golly, +what we’ve missed--not goin’ to St. Winifred’s!...” + +“I’m sorry to see any boys of my house taking so little interest in +their matches.” + +Mr. Prout could move very silently if he pleased, though that is +no merit in a boy’s eyes. He had flung open the study-door without +knocking--another sin--and looked at them suspiciously. “Very sorry, +indeed, I am to see you frowsting in your studies.” + +“We’ve been out ever since dinner, sir,” said. McTurk wearily. One +house-match is just like another, and their “ploy” of that week happened +to be rabbit-shooting with saloon-pistols. + +“I can’t see a ball when it’s coming, sir,” said Beetle. “I’ve had my +gig-lamps smashed at the Nets till I got excused. I wasn’t any good even +as a fag, then, sir.” + +“Tuck is probably your form. Tuck and brewing. Why can’t you three take +any interest in the honor of your house?” + +They had heard that phrase till they were wearied. The “honor of the +house” was Prout’s weak point, and they knew well how to flick him on +the raw. + +“If you order us to go down, sir, of course we’ll go,” said Stalky, with +maddening politeness. But Prout knew better than that. He had tried the +experiment once at a big match, when the three, self-isolated, stood +to attention for half an hour in full view of all the visitors, to whom +fags, subsidized for that end, pointed them out as victims of Prout’s +tyranny. And Prout was a sensitive man. + +In the infinitely petty confederacies of the Common-room, King and +Macrea, fellow house-masters, had borne it in upon him that by games, +and games alone, was salvation wrought. Boys neglected were boys lost. +They must be disciplined. Left to himself, Prout would have made +a sympathetic house-master; but he was never so left, and with the +devilish insight of youth, the boys knew to whom they were indebted for +his zeal. + +“Must we go down, sir?’ said McTurk. + +“I don’t want to order you to do what a right-thinking boy should do +gladly. I’m sorry.” And he lurched out with some hazy impression that he +had sown good seed on poor ground. + +“Now what does he suppose is the use of that?” said Beetle. + +“Oh, he’s cracked. King jaws him in Common-room about not keepin’ us up +to the mark, an’ Macrea burbles about ‘dithcipline,’ an’ old Heffy sits +between ‘em sweatin’ big drops. I heard Oke (the Common-room butler) +talking to Richards (Prout’s house-servant) about it down in the +basement the other day when I went down to bag some bread,” said Stalky. + +“What did Oke say?” demanded McTurk, throwing “Eric” into a corner. + +“Oh, he said, ‘They make more nise nor a nest full o’ jackdaws, an’ half +of it like we’d no ears to our heads that waited on ‘em. They talks over +old Prout--what he’ve done an’ left undone about his boys. An’ how their +boys be fine boys, an’ his’n be dom bad.’ Well, Oke talked like that, +you know, and Richards got awf’ly wrathy. He has a down on King for +something or other. Wonder why?” + +“Why, King talks about Prout in form-room--makes allusions, an’ all +that--only half the chaps are such asses they can’t see what he’s +drivin’ at. And d’you remember what he said about the ‘Casual House’ +last Tuesday? He meant us. They say he says perfectly beastly things to +his own house, making fun of Prout’s,” said Beetle. + +“Well, we didn’t come here to mix up in their rows,” McTurk said +wrathfully. “Who’ll bathe after call-over? King’s takin’ it in the +cricket-field. Come on.” Turkey seized his straw and led the way. + +They reached the sun-blistered pavilion over against the gray +Pebbleridge just before roll-call, and, asking no questions, gathered +from King’s voice and manner that his house was on the road to victory. + +“Ah, ha!” said he, turning to show the light of his countenance. “Here +we have the ornaments of the Casual House at last. You consider cricket +beneath you, I believe “--the crowd, flannelled, sniggered “and from +what I have seen this afternoon, I fancy many others of your house hold +the same view. And may I ask what you purpose to do with your noble +selves till tea-time?” + +“Going down to bathe, sir,” said Stalky. + +“And whence this sudden zeal for cleanliness? There is nothing about you +that particularly suggests it. Indeed, so far as I remember--I may be at +fault--but a short time ago--” + +“Five years, sir,” said Beetle hotly. + +King scowled. “_One_ of you was that thing called a water-funk. Yes, +a water-funk. So now you wish to wash? It is well. Cleanliness never +injured a boy or--a house. We will proceed to business,” and he +addressed himself to the call-over board. + +“What the deuce did you say anything to him for, Beetle?” said McTurk +angrily, as they strolled towards the big, open sea-baths. + +“‘Twasn’t fair--remindin’ one of bein’ a water-funk. My first term, too. +Heaps of chaps are--when they can’t swim.” + +“Yes, you ass; but he saw he’d fetched you. You ought never to answer +King.” + +“But it wasn’t fair, Stalky.” + +“My Hat! You’ve been here six years, and you expect fairness. Well, you +are a dithering idiot.” + +A knot of King’s boys, also bound for the baths, hailed them, beseeching +them to wash--for the honor of their house. + +“That’s what comes of King’s jawin’ and messin’. Those young animals +wouldn’t have thought of it unless he’d put it into their heads. Now +they’ll be funny about it for weeks,” said Stalky. “Don’t take any +notice.” + +The boys came nearer, shouting an opprobrious word. At last they moved +to windward, ostentatiously holding their noses. + +“That’s pretty,” said Beetle. “They’ll be sayin’ our house stinks next.” + +When they returned from the baths, damp-headed, languid, at peace with +the world, Beetle’s forecast came only too true. They were met in the +corridor by a fag--a common, Lower-Second fag--who at arm’s length +handed them a carefully wrapped piece of soap “with the compliments of +King’s House.” + +“Hold on,” said Stalky, checking immediate attack. “Who put you up +to this, Nixon? Rattray and White? (Those were two leaders in King’s +house.) Thank you. There’s no answer.” + +“Oh, it’s too sickening to have this kind o’ rot shoved on to a chap. +What’s the sense of it? What’s the fun of it?” said McTurk. + +“It will go on to the end of the term, though,” Beetle wagged his head +sorrowfully. He had worn many jests threadbare on his own account. + +In a few days it became an established legend of the school that Prout’s +house did not wash and were therefore noisome. Mr. King was pleased to +smile succulently in form when one of his boys drew aside from Beetle +with certain gestures. + +“There seems to be some disability attaching to you, my Beetle, or else +why should Burton major withdraw, so to speak, the hem of his garments? +I confess I am still in the dark. Will some one be good enough to +enlighten me?” + +Naturally, he was enlightened by half the form. + +“Extraordinary! Most extraordinary! However, each house has its +traditions, with which I would not for the world interfere. +_We_ have a prejudice in favor of washing. Go on, Beetle--from +‘_jugurtha tamen_’--and, if you can, avoid the more flagrant forms of +guessing.” + +Prout’s house was furious because Macrea’s and Hartopp’s houses joined +King’s to insult them. They called a house-meeting after dinner--an +excited and angry meeting of all save the prefects, whose dignity, +though they sympathized, did not allow them to attend. They read +ungrammatical resolutions, and made speeches beginning, “Gentlemen, we +have met on this occasion,” and ending with, “It’s a beastly shame,” + precisely as houses have done since time and schools began. + +Number Five study attended, with its usual air of bland patronage. At +last McTurk, of the lanthorn jaws, delivered himself: + +“You jabber and jaw and burble, and that’s about all you can do. What’s +the good of it? King’s house’ll only gloat because they’ve drawn +you, and King will gloat, too. Besides, that resolution of Orrin’s is +chock-full of bad grammar, and King’ll gloat over that.” + +“I thought you an’ Beetle would put it right, an’--an’ we’d post it in +the corridor,” said the composer meekly. + +“_Par si je le connai_. I’m not goin’ to meddle with the biznai,” said +Beetle. “It’s a gloat for King’s house. Turkey’s quite right.” + +“Well, won’t Stalky, then?” + +But Stalky puffed out his cheeks and squinted down his nose in the style +of Panurge, and all he said was, “Oh, you abject burblers!” + +“You’re three beastly scabs!” was the instant retort of the democracy, +and they went out amid execrations. + +“This is piffling,” said McTurk. “Let’s get our sallies, and go and +shoot bunnies.” + +Three saloon-pistols, with a supply of bulleted breech-caps, were stored +in Stalky’s trunk, and this trunk was in their dormitory, and +their dormitory was a three-bed attic one, opening out of a ten-bed +establishment, which, in turn, communicated with the great range of +dormitories that ran practically from one end of the College to the +other. Macrea’s house lay next to Prout’s, King’s next to Macrea’s, and +Hartopp’s beyond that again. Carefully locked doors divided house from +house, but each house, in its internal arrangements--the College had +originally been a terrace of twelve large houses--was a replica of the +next; one straight roof covering all. + +They found Stalky’s bed drawn out from the wall to the left of the +dormer window, and the latter end of Richards protruding from a +two-foot-square cupboard in the wall. + +“What’s all this? I’ve never noticed it before. What are you tryin’ to +do, Fatty?” + +“Fillin’ basins, Muster Corkran.” Richards’s voice was hollow and +muffled. “They’ve been savin’ me trouble. Yiss.” + +“‘Looks like it,” said McTurk. “Hi! You’ll stick if you don’t take +care.” + +Richards backed puffing. + +“I can’t rache un. Yiss, ‘tess a turncock, Muster McTurk. They’ve took +an’ runned all the watter-pipes a storey higher in the houses--runned +‘em all along under the ‘ang of the heaves, like. Runned ‘em in last +holidays. _I_ can’t rache the turncock.” + +“Let me try,” said Stalky, diving into the aperture. + +“Slip ‘ee to the left, then, Muster Corkran. Slip ‘ee to the left, an’ +feel in the dark.” + +To the left Stalky wriggled, and saw a long line of lead pipe +disappearing up a triangular tunnel, whose roof was the rafters and +boarding of the college roof, whose floor was sharp-edged joists, and +whose side was the rough studding of the lath and plaster wall under the +dormer. + +“Rummy show. How far does it go?” + +“Right along, Muster Corkran--right along from end to end. Her runs +under the ‘ang of the heaves. Have ‘ee rached the stopcock yet? Mr. King +got un put in to save us carryin’ watter from down-stairs to fill the +basins. No place for a lusty man like old Richards. I’m tu thickabout to +go ferritin’. Thank ‘ee, Muster Corkran.” + +The water squirted through the tap just inside the cupboard, and, having +filled the basins, the grateful Richards waddled away. + +The boys sat round-eyed on their beds considering the possibilities of +this trove. Two floors below them they could hear the hum of the angry +house; for nothing is so still as a dormitory in mid-afternoon of a +midsummer term. + +“It has been papered over till now.” McTurk examined the little door. +“If we’d only known before!” + +“I vote we go down and explore. No one will come up this time o’ day. We +needn’t keep _cave’_.” + +They crawled in, Stalky leading, drew the door behind them, and on all +fours embarked on a dark and dirty road full of plaster, odd shavings, +and all the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of a house. +The passage was perhaps three feet wide, and, except for the struggling +light round the edges of the cupboards (there was one to each dormer), +almost pitchy dark. + +“Here’s Macrea’s house,” said Stalky, his eye at the crack of the third +cupboard. “I can see Barnes’s name on his trunk. Don’t make such a row, +Beetle! We can get right to the end of the Coll. Come on!... We’re in +King’s house now--I can see a bit of Rattray’s trunk. How these beastly +boards hurt one’s knees!” They heard his nails scraping, on plaster. + +“That’s the ceiling below. Look out! If we smashed that the plaster ‘ud +fall down in the lower dormitory,” said Beetle. + +“Let’s,” whispered McTurk. + +“An’ be collared first thing? Not much. Why, I can shove my hand ever so +far up between these boards.” + +Stalky thrust an arm to the elbow between the joists. + +“No good stayin’ here. I vote we go back and talk it over. It’s a crummy +place. ‘Must say I’m grateful to King for his water-works.” + +They crawled out, brushed one another clean, slid the saloon-pistols +down a trouser-leg, and hurried forth to a deep and solitary Devonshire +lane in whose flanks a boy might sometimes slay a young rabbit. They +threw themselves down under the rank elder bushes, and began to think +aloud. + +“You know,” said Stalky at last, sighting at a distant sparrow, “we +could hide our sallies in there like anything.” + +“Huh!” Beetle snorted, choked, and gurgled. He had been silent since +they left the dormitory. “Did you ever read a book called ‘The History +of a House’ or something? I got it out of the library the other day. A +French woman wrote it--Violet somebody. But it’s translated, you know; +and it’s very interestin’. Tells you how a house is built.” + +“Well, if you’re in a sweat to find out that, you can go down to the new +cottages they’re building for the coastguard.” + +“My Hat! I will.” He felt in his pockets. “Give me tuppence, some one.” + +“Rot! Stay here, and don’t mess about in the sun.” + +“Gi’ me tuppence.” + +“I say, Beetle, you aren’t stuffy about anything, are you?” said McTurk, +handing over the coppers. His tone was serious, for though Stalky often, +and McTurk occasionally, manoeuvred on his own account, Beetle had never +been known to do so in all the history of the confederacy. + +“No, I’m not. I’m thinking.” + +“Well, we’ll come, too,” said Stalky, with a general’s suspicion of his +aides. + +“Don’t want you.” + +“Oh, leave him alone. He’s been taken worse with a poem,” said McTurk. +“He’ll go burbling down to the Pebbleridge and spit it all up in the +study when he comes back.” + +“Then why did he want the tuppence, Turkey? He’s gettin’ too beastly +independent. Hi! There’s a bunny. No, it ain’t. It’s a cat, by Jove! You +plug first.” + +Twenty minutes later a boy with a straw hat at the back of his head, and +his hands in his pockets, was staring at workmen as they moved about +a half-finished cottage. He produced some ferocious tobacco, and +was passed from the forecourt into the interior, where he asked many +questions. + +“Well, let’s have your beastly epic,” said Turkey, as they burst into +the study, to find Beetle deep in Viollet-le-Duc and some drawings. +“We’ve had no end of a lark.” + +“Epic? What epic? I’ve been down to the coastguard.” + +“No epic? Then we will slay you, O Beetle,” said Stalky, moving to the +attack. “You’ve got something up your sleeve. _I_ know, when you talk in +that tone!” + +“Your Uncle Beetle”--with an attempt to imitate Stalky’s war-voice--“is +a great man.” + +“Oh, no; he jolly well isn’t anything of the kind. You deceive yourself, +Beetle. Scrag him, Turkey!” + +“A great man,” Beetle gurgled from the floor. “_You_ are futile--look +out for my tie!--futile burblers. I am the Great Man. I gloat. Ouch! +Hear me!” + +“Beetle, de-ah”--Stalky dropped unreservedly on Beetle’s chest--“we love +you, an’ you’re a poet. If I ever said you were a doggaroo, I apologize; +but you know as well as we do that you can’t do anything by yourself +without mucking it.” + +“I’ve got a notion.” + +“And you’ll spoil the whole show if you don’t tell your Uncle Stalky. +Cough it up, ducky, and we’ll see what we can do. Notion, you fat +impostor--I knew you had a notion when you went away! Turkey said it was +a poem.” + +“I’ve found out how houses are built. Le’ me get up. The floor-joists of +one room are the ceiling-joists of the room below.” + +“Don’t be so filthy technical.” + +“Well, the man told me. The floor is laid on top of those joists--those +boards on edge that we crawled over--but the floor stops at a partition. +Well, if you get behind a partition, same as you did in the attic, don’t +you see that you can shove anything you please under the floor between +the floor-boards and the lath and plaster of the ceiling below? Look +here. I’ve drawn it.” + +He produced a rude sketch, sufficient to enlighten the allies. There is +no part of the modern school curriculum that deals with architecture, +and none of them had yet reflected whether floors and ceilings were +hollow or solid. Outside his own immediate interests the boy is as +ignorant as the savage he so admires; but he has also the savage’s +resource. + +“I see,” said Stalky. “I shoved my hand there. An’ then?” + +“An’ then They’ve been calling us stinkers, you know. We might shove +somethin’ under--sulphur, or something that stunk pretty bad--an’ stink +‘em out. I know it can be done somehow.” Beetle’s eyes turned to Stalky +handling the diagrams. + +“Stinks?” said Stalky interrogatively. Then his face grew luminous with +delight. “By gum! I’ve got it. Horrid stinks! Turkey!” He leaped at the +Irishman. “This afternoon--just after Beetle went away! _She’s_ the very +thing!” + +“Come to my arms, my beamish boy,” caroled McTurk, and they fell into +each other’s arms dancing. “Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay! She will! +She will!” + +“Hold on,” said Beetle. “I don’t understand.” + +“Dearr man! It shall, though. Oh, Artie, my pure-souled youth, let us +tell our darling Reggie about Pestiferous Stinkadores.” + +“Not until after call-over. Come on!” + +“I say,” said Orrin, stiffly, as they fell into their places along the +walls of the gymnasium. “The house are goin’ to hold another meeting.” + +“Hold away, then.” Stalky’s mind was elsewhere. + +“It’s about you three this time.” + +“All right, give ‘em my love... _Here, sir_,” and he tore down the +corridor. + +Gamboling like kids at play, with bounds and sidestarts, with caperings +and curvetings, they led the almost bursting Beetle to the rabbit-lane, +and from under a pile of stones drew forth the new-slain corpse of a +cat. Then did Beetle see the inner meaning of what had gone before, and +lifted up his voice in thanksgiving for that the world held warriors so +wise as Stalky and McTurk. + +“Well-nourished old lady, ain’t she?” said Stalky. “How long d’you +suppose it’ll take her to get a bit whiff in a confined space?” + +“Bit whiff! What a coarse brute you are!” said McTurk. “Can’t a poor +pussy-cat get under King’s dormitory floor to die without your pursuin’ +her with your foul innuendoes?” + +“What did she die under the floor for?’ said Beetle, looking to the +future. + +“Oh, they won’t worry about that when they find her,” said Stalky. + +“A cat may look at a king.” McTurk rolled down the bank at his own +jest. “Pussy, you don’t know how useful you’re goin’ to be to three +pure-souled, high-minded boys.” + +“They’ll have to take up the floor for her, same as they did in Number +Nine when the rat croaked. Big medicine--heap big medicine! Phew! Oh, +Lord, I wish I could stop laughin’,” said Beetle. + +“Stinks! Hi, stinks! Clammy ones!” McTurk gasped as he regained his +place. “And”--the exquisite humor of it brought them sliding down +together in a tangle--“it’s all for the honor of the house, too!” + +“An’ they’re holdin’ another meeting--on us,” Stalky panted, his knees +in the ditch and his face in the long grass. “Well, let’s get the bullet +out of her and hurry up. The sooner she’s bedded out the better.” + +Between them they did some grisly work with a penknife; between them +(ask not who buttoned her to his bosom) they took up the corpse and +hastened back, Stalky arranging their plan of action at the full trot. + +The afternoon sun, lying in broad patches on the bed-rugs, saw three +boys and an umbrella disappear into a dormitory wall. In five minutes +they emerged, brushed themselves all over, washed their hands, combed +their hair, and descended. + +“Are you sure you shoved her far enough under?” said McTurk suddenly. + +“Hang it, man, I shoved her the full length of my arm and Beetle’s +brolly. That must be about six feet. She’s bung in the middle of King’s +big upper ten-bedder. Eligible central situation, _I_ call it. She’ll +stink out his chaps, and Hartopp’s and Macrea’s, when she really begins +to fume. I swear your Uncle Stalky is a great man. Do you realize what a +great man he is, Beetle?” + +“Well, I had the notion first, hadn’t I--? only--” + +“You couldn’t do it without your Uncle Stalky, could you?” + +“They’ve been calling us stinkers for a week now,” said McTurk. “Oh, +_won’t_ they catch it!” + +“Stinker! Yah! Stink-ah!” rang down the corridor. + +“And she’s there,” said Stalky, a hand on either boy’s shoulder. +“She--is--there, gettin’ ready to surprise ‘em. Presently she’ll begin +to whisper to ‘em in their dreams. Then she’ll whiff. Golly, how she’ll +whiff! Oblige me by thinkin’ of it for two minutes.” + +They went to their study in more or less of silence. There they began to +laugh--laugh as only boys can. They laughed with their foreheads on the +tables, or on the floor; laughed at length, curled over the backs of +chairs or clinging to a book-shelf; laughed themselves limp. + +And in the middle of it Orrin entered on behalf of the house. “Don’t +mind us, Orrin; sit down. You don’t know how we respect and admire you. +There’s something about your pure, high young forehead, full of the +dreams of innocent boyhood, that’s no end fetchin’. It is, indeed.” + +“The house sent me to give you this.” He laid a folded sheet of paper on +the table and retired with an awful front. + +“It’s the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. I’m too silly-sick +with laughin’ to see,” said Beetle. Stalky jerked it open with a +precautionary sniff. “Phew! Phew! Listen. ‘_The house notices with pain +and contempt the attitude of indiference_’ --how many f’s in +indifference, Beetle?” + +“Two for choice.” + +“Only one here--adopted by the occupants of Number Five study in +relation to the insults offered to Mr. Prout’s house at the recent +meeting in Number Twelve form-room, and the House hereby pass a +vote of censure on the said study. That’s all.” + +“And she bled all down my shirt, too!” said Beetle. + +“An’ I’m catty all over,” said McTurk, “though I washed twice.” + +“An’ I nearly broke Beetle’s brolly plantin’ her where she would +blossom!” + +The situation was beyond speech, but not laughter. There was some +attempt that night to demonstrate against the three in their dormitory; +so they came forth. + +“You see,” Beetle began suavely as he loosened his braces, “the trouble +with you is that you’re a set of unthinkin’ asses. You’ve no more brains +than spidgers. We’ve told you that heaps of times, haven’t we?” + +“We’ll give the three of you a dormitory lickin’. You always jaw at us +as if you were prefects,” cried one. + +“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Stalky, “because you know that if you did +you’d get the worst of it sooner or later. _We_ aren’t in any hurry. We +can afford to wait for our little revenges. You’ve made howlin’ asses +of yourselves, and just as soon as King gets hold of your precious +resolutions to-morrow you’ll find that out. If you aren’t sick an’ sorry +by to-morrow night, I’ll--I’ll eat my hat.” + +But or ever the dinner-bell rang the next day Prout’s were sadly aware +of their error. King received stray members of that house with an +exaggerated attitude of fear. Did they purpose to cause him to be +dismissed from the College by unanimous resolution? What were their +views concerning the government of the school, that he might hasten +to give effect to them? he would not offend them for worlds; but +he feared--he sadly feared--that his own house, who did not pass +resolutions (but washed), might somewhat deride. + +King was a happy man, and his house, basking in the favor of his smile, +made that afternoon a long penance to the misled Prouts. And Prout +himself, with a dull and lowering visage, tried to think out the rights +and wrongs of it all, only plunging deeper into bewilderment. Why should +his house be called “Stinkers”? Truly, it was a small thing, but he had +been trained to believe that straws show which way the wind blows, and +that there is no smoke without fire. He approached King in Common-room +with a sense of injustice, but King was pleased to be full of airy +persiflage that tide, and brilliantly danced dialectical rings round +Prout. + +“Now,” said Stalky at bedtime, making pilgrimage through the dormitories +before the prefects came by, “_now_ what have you got to say for +yourselves? Foster, Carton, Finch, Longbridge, Marlin, Brett! I heard +you chaps catchin’ it from King--he made hay of you--an’ all you could +do was to wriggle an’ grin an’ say, ‘Yes, sir,’ an’ ‘No, sir,’ an’ ‘Oh +sir,’ an’ ‘Please, sir’! You an’ your resolution! Urh!” + +“Oh, shut up, Stalky.” + +“Not a bit of it. You’re a gaudy lot of resolutionists, you are! You’ve +made a sweet mess of it. Perhaps you’ll have the decency to leave us +alone next time.” + +Here the house grew angry, and in many voices pointed out how this +blunder would never have come to pass if Number Five study had helped +them from the first. + +“But you chaps are so beastly conceited, an’--an’ you swaggered into the +meetin’ as if we were a lot of idiots,” growled Orrin of the resolution. + +“That’s precisely what you are! That’s what we’ve been tryin’ to hammer +into your thick heads all this time,” said Stalky. “Never mind, we’ll +forgive you. Cheer up. You can’t help bein’ asses, you know,” and, the +enemy’s flank deftly turned, Stalky hopped into bed. + +That night was the first of sorrow among the jubilant King’s. By some +accident of under-floor drafts the cat did not vex the dormitory beneath +which she lay, but the next one to the right; stealing on the air rather +as a pale-blue sensation than as any poignant offense. But the mere +adumbration of an odor is enough for the sensitive nose and clean tongue +of youth. Decency demands that we draw several carbolized sheets over +what the dormitory said to Mr. King and what Mr. King replied. He was +genuinely proud of his house and fastidious in all that concerned their +well-being. He came; he sniffed; he said things. Next morning a boy in +that dormitory confided to his bosom friend, a fag of Macrea’s, that +there was trouble in their midst which King would fain keep secret. + +But Macrea’s boy had also a bosom friend in Prout’s, a shock-headed +fag of malignant disposition, who, when he had wormed out the secret, +told--told it in a high-pitched treble that rang along the corridor like +a bat’s squeak. + +“An’--an’ they’ve been calling us ‘stinkers’ all this week. Why, Harland +minor says they simply can’t sleep in his dormitory for the stink. Come +on!” + +“With one shout and with one cry” Prout’s juniors hurled themselves into +the war, and through the interval between first and second lesson some +fifty twelve-year-olds were embroiled on the gravel outside King’s +windows to a tune whose _leit-motif_ was the word “stinker.” + +“Hark to the minute-gun at sea!” said Stalky. They were in their study +collecting books for second lesson--Latin, with King. “I thought his +azure brow was a bit cloudy at prayers. ‘She is comin’, sister Mary. She +is--’” + +“If they make such a row now, what will they do when she really begins +to look up an’ take notice?” + +“Well, no vulgar repartee, Beetle. All we want is to keep out of this +row like gentlemen.” + +“‘Tis but a little faded flower.’ Where’s my Horace? Look here, I don’t +understand what she means by stinkin’ out Rattray’s dormitory first. We +holed in under White’s, didn’t we?” asked McTurk, with a wrinkled brow. + +“Skittish little thing. She’s rompin’ about all over the place, I +suppose.” + +“My Aunt! King’ll be a cheerful customer at second lesson. I haven’t +prepared my Horace one little bit, either,” said Beetle. “Come on!” + +They were outside the form-room door now. It was within five minutes of +the bell, and King might arrive at any moment. + +Turkey elbowed into a cohort of scuffling fags, cut out Thornton tertius +(he that had been Harland’s bosom friend), and bade him tell his tale. + +It was a simple one, interrupted by tears. Many of King’s house had +already battered him for libel. + +“Oh, it’s nothing,” McTurk cried. “He says that King’s house stinks. +That’s all.” + +“Stale!” Stalky shouted. “We knew that years ago, only we didn’t +choose to run about shoutin’ ‘stinker.’ We’ve got some manners, ir they +haven’t. Catch a fag, Turkey, and make sure of it.” + +Turkey’s long arm closed on a hurried and anxious ornament of the Lower +Second. + +“Oh, McTurk, please let me go. I don’t stink--I swear I don’t!” + +“Guilty conscience!” cried Beetle. “Who said you did?” + +“What d’you make of it?” Stalky punted the small boy into Beetle’s arms. + +“Snf! Snf! He does, though. I think it’s leprosy--or thrush. P’raps it’s +both. Take it away.” + +“Indeed, Master Beetle”--King generally came to the house-door for a +minute or two as the bell rang--“we are vastly indebted to you for your +diagnosis, which seems to reflect almost as much credit on the natural +unwholesomeness of your mind as it does upon your pitiful ignorance of +the diseases of which you discourse so glibly. We will, however, test +your knowledge in other directions.” + +That was a merry lesson, but, in his haste to scarify Beetle, King +clean neglected to give him an imposition, and since at the same time +he supplied him with many priceless adjectives for later use, Beetle was +well content, and applied himself most seriously throughout third +lesson (algebra with little Hartopp) to composing a poem entitled “The +Lazar-house.” + +After dinner King took his house to bathe in the sea off the +Pebbleridge. It was an old promise; but he wished he could have evaded +it, for all Prout’s lined up by the Fives Court and cheered with +intention. In his absence not less than half the school invaded the +infected dormitory to draw their own conclusions. The cat had gained in +the last twelve hours, but a battlefield of the fifth day could not have +been so flamboyant as the spies reported. + +“My word, she _is_ doin’ herself proud,” said Stalky. “Did you ever +smell anything like it? Ah, an’ she isn’t under White’s dormitory at all +yet.” + +“But she will be. Give her time,” said Beetle. “She’ll twine like +a giddy honeysuckle. What howlin’ Lazarites they are! No house is +justified in makin’ itself a stench in the nostrils of decent--” + +“High-minded, pure-souled boys. Do you burn with remorse and regret?” + said McTurk, as they hastened to meet the house coming up from the sea. +King had deserted it, so speech was unfettered. Round its front played +a crowd of skirmishers--all houses mixed--flying, reforming, shrieking +insults. On its tortured flanks marched the Hoplites, seniors hurling +jests one after another--simple and primitive jests of the Stone Age. +To these the three added themselves, dispassionately, with an air of +aloofness, almost sadly. + +“And they look all right, too,” said Stalky. “It can’t be Rattray, can +it? Rattray?” + +No answer. + +“Rattray, dear? He seems stuffy about something or other. Look here, old +man, we don’t bear any malice about your sending that soap to us last +week, do we? Be cheerful, Rat. You can live this down all right. I dare +say it’s only a few fags. Your house is so beastly slack, though.” + +“You aren’t going back to the house, are you?” said McTurk. The victims +desired nothing better. “You’ve simply no conception of the reek up +there. Of course, frowzin’ as you do, you wouldn’t notice it; but, after +this nice wash and the clean, fresh air, even you’d be upset. ‘Much +better camp on the Burrows. We’ll get you some straw. Shall we’?” The +house hurried in to the tune of “John Brown’s body,” sung by loving +schoolmates, and barricaded themselves in their form-room. Straightway +Stalky chalked a large cross, with “Lord, have mercy upon us,” on the +door, and left King to find it. + +The wind shifted that night and wafted a carrion-reek into Macrea’s +dormitories; so that boys in nightgowns pounded on the locked door +between the houses, entreating King’s to wash. Number Five study went to +second lesson with not more than half a pound of camphor apiece in their +clothing; and King, too wary to ask for explanations, gibbered a while +and hurled them forth. So Beetle finished yet another poem at peace in +the study. + +“They’re usin’ carbolic now. Malpas told me,” said Stalky. “King thinks +it’s the drains.” + +“She’ll need a lot o’ carbolic,” said McTurk. “No harm tryin’, I +suppose. It keeps King out of mischief.” + +“I swear I thought he was goin’ to kill me when I sniffed just now. He +didn’t mind Burton major sniffin’ at me the other day, though. He never +stopped Alexander howlin’ ‘Stinker!’ into our form-room before--before +we doctored ‘em. He just grinned,” said Stalky. “What was he frothing +over you for, Beetle?” + +“Aha! That, was my subtle jape. I had him on toast. You know he always +jaws about the learned Lipsius.” + +“‘Who at the age of four’--that chap?” said McTurk. + +“Yes. Whenever he hears I’ve written a poem. Well, just as I was sittin’ +down, I whispered, ‘How is our learned Lepsius?’ to Burton major. Old +Butt grinned like an owl. _He_ didn’t know what I was drivin’ at; but +King jolly well did. That was really why he hove us out. Ain’t you +grateful? Now shut up. I’m goin’ to write the ‘Ballad of the Learned +Lipsius.’” + +“Keep clear of anything coarse, then,” said Stalky. “I shouldn’t like to +be coarse on this happy occasion.” + +“Not for wo-orlds. What rhymes to ‘stenches,’ someone?” + +In Common-room at lunch King discoursed acridly to Prout of boys with +prurient minds, who perverted their few and baleful talents to sap +discipline and corrupt their equals, to deal in foul imagery and destroy +reverence. + +“But you didn’t seem to consider this when your house called +us--ah--stinkers. If you hadn’t assured me that you never interfere with +another man’s house, I should almost believe that it was a few casual +remarks of yours that started all this nonsense.” + +Prout had endured much, for King always took his temper to meals. + +“You spoke to Beetle yourself, didn’t you? Something about not bathing, +and being a water-funk?” the school chaplain put in. “I was scoring in +the pavilion that day.” + +“I may have--jestingly. I really don’t pretend to remember every remark +I let fall among small boys; and full well I know the Beetle has no +feelings to be hurt.” + +“May be; but he, or they--it comes to to same thing--have the fiend’s +own knack of discovering a man’s weak place. I confess I rather go out +of my way to conciliate Number Five study. It may be soft, but so far, +I believe, I am the only man here whom they haven’t maddened by +their--well--attentions.” + +“That is all beside the point. I flatter myself I can deal with them +alone as occasion arises. But if they feel themselves morally supported +by those who should wield an absolute and open-handed justice, then I +say that my lot is indeed a hard one. Of all things I detest, I admit +that anything verging on disloyalty among ourselves is the first.” + +The Common-room looked at one another out of the corners of their eyes, +and Prout blushed. + +“I deny it absolutely,” he said. “Er--in fact, I own that I personally +object to all three of them. It is not fair, therefore, to--” + +“How long do you propose to allow it?” said King. + +“But surely,” said Macrea, deserting his usual ally, “the blame, if +there be any, rests with you, King. You can’t hold them responsible +for the--you prefer the good old Anglo-Saxon, I believe--stink in your +house. My boys are complaining of it now.” + +“What can you expect? You know what boys are. Naturally they take +advantage of what to them is a heaven-sent opportunity,” said little +Hartopp. “What _is_ the trouble in your dormitories, King?” + +Mr. King explained that as he had made it the one rule of his life never +to interfere with another man’s house, so he expected not to be too +patently interfered with. They might be interested to learn--here the +chaplain heaved a weary sigh--that he had taken all steps that, in his +poor judgment, would meet the needs of the case. Nay, further, he had +himself expended, with no thought of reimbursement, sums, the amount of +which he would not specify, on disinfectants. This he had done because +he knew by bitter--by most bitter--experience that the management of the +college was slack, dilatory, and inefficient. He might even add, almost +as slack as the administration of certain houses which now thought +fit to sit in judgment on his actions. With a short summary of his +scholastic career, and a precis of his qualifications, including his +degrees, he withdrew, slamming the door. + +“Heigho!” said the chaplain. “Ours is a dwarfing life--a belittling +life, my brethren. God help all schoolmasters! They need it.” + +“I don’t like the boys, I own”--Prout dug viciously with his fork into +the table-cloth--“and I don’t pretend to be a strong man, as you know. +But I confess I can’t see any reason why I should take steps against +Stalky and the others because King happens to be annoyed by--by--” + +“Falling into the pit he has digged,” said little Hartopp. “Certainly +not, Prout. No one accuses you of setting one house against another +through sheer idleness.” + +“A belittling life--a belittling life.” The chaplain rose. “I go to +correct French exercises. By dinner King will have scored off some +unlucky child of thirteen; he will repeat to us every word of his +brilliant repartees, and all will be well.” + +“But about those three. Are they so prurient-minded?” + +“Nonsense,” said little Hartopp. “If you thought for a minute, Prout, +you would see that the ‘precocious flow of fetid imagery,’ that King +complains of, is borrowed wholesale from King. He ‘nursed the pinion +that impelled the steel.’ Naturally he does not approve. Come into the +smoking-room for a minute. It isn’t fair to listen to boys; but they +should be now rubbing it into King’s house outside. Little things please +little minds.” + +The dingy den off the Common-room was never used for anything except +gowns. Its windows were ground glass; one could not see out of it, but +one could hear almost every word on the gravel outside. A light and wary +footstep came up from Number Five. + +“Rattray!” in a subdued voice--Rattray’s study fronted that way. “D’you +know if Mr. King’s anywhere about? I’ve got a--” McTurk discreetly left +the end of the sentence open. + +“No, he’s gone out,” said Rattray unguardedly. + +“Ah! The learned Lipsius is airing himself, is he? His Royal Highness +has gone to fumigate.” McTurk climbed on the railings, where he held +forth like the never-wearied rook. + +“Now in all the Coll. there was no stink like the stink of King’s house, +for it stank vehemently and none knew what to make of it. Save King. And +he washed the fags _privatim et seriatim_. In the fishpools of Hesbon +washed he them, with an apron about his loins.” + +“Shut up, you mad Irishman!” There was the sound of a golf-ball spurting +up gravel. + +“It’s no good getting wrathy, Rattray. We’ve come to jape with you. Come +on, Beetle. They’re all at home. You can wind ‘em.” + +“Where’s the Pomposo Stinkadore? ‘Tisn’t safe for a pure-souled, +high-minded boy to be seen round his house these days. Gone out, has he? +Never mind. I’ll do the best I can, Rattray. I’m _in loco parentis_ just +now.” + +(“One for you, Prout,” whispered Macrea, for this was Mr. Prout’s pet +phrase.) + +“I have a few words to impart to you, my young friend. We will discourse +together a while.” + +Here the listening Prout sputtered: Beetle, in a strained voice, had +chosen a favorite gambit of King’s. + +“I repeat, Master Rattray, we will confer, and the matter of our +discourse shall not be stinks, for that is a loathsome and obscene +word. We will, with your good leave--granted, I trust, Master Rattray, +granted, I trust--study this--this scabrous upheaval of latent +demoralization. What impresses me most is not so much the blatant +indecency with which you swagger abroad under your load of putrescence” + (you must imagine this discourse punctuated with golf-balls, but old +Rattray was ever a bad shot) “as the cynical immorality with which you +revel in your abhorrent aromas. Far be it from me to interfere with +another’s house--” + +(“Good Lord!” said Prout, “but this is King.” + +“Line for line, letter for letter; listen;” said little Hartopp.) + +“But to say that you stink, as certain lewd fellows of the baser sort +aver, is to say nothing--less than nothing. In the absence of your +beloved house-master, for whom no one has a higher regard than myself, +I will, if you will allow me, explain the grossness--the unparalleled +enormity--the appalling fetor of the stenches (I believe in the good old +Anglo-Saxon word), stenches, sir, with which you have seen fit to infect +your house... Oh, bother! I’ve forgotten the rest, but it was very +beautiful. Aren’t you grateful to us for laborin’ with you this way, +Rattray? Lots of chaps ‘ud never have taken the trouble, but we’re +grateful, Rattray.” + +“Yes, we’re horrid grateful,” grunted McTurk. “We don’t forget that +soap. We’re polite. Why ain’t you polite, Rat?” + +“Hallo!” Stalky cantered up, his cap over one eye. “Exhortin’ the +Whiffers, eh? I’m afraid they’re too far gone to repent. Rattray! +White! Perowne! Malpas! No answer. This is distressin’. This is truly +distressin’. Bring out your dead, you glandered lepers!” + +“You think yourself funny, don’t you?” said Rattray, stung from his +dignity by this last. “It’s only a rat or something under the floor. +We’re going to have it up to-morrow.” + +“Don’t try to shuffle it off on a poor dumb animal, and dead, too. I +loathe prevarication. ‘Pon my soul, Rattray--” + +“Hold on. The Hartoffles never said ‘Pon my soul’ in all his little +life,” said Beetle critically. + +(“Ah!” said Prout to little Hartopp.) + +“Upon my word, sir, upon my word, sir, I expected better things of you, +Rattray. Why can you not own up to your misdeeds like a man? Have _I_ +ever shown any lack of confidence in _you_?” + +(“It’s not brutality,” murmured little Hartopp, as though answering a +question no one had asked. “It’s boy; only boy.”) + +“And this was the house,” Stalky changed from a pecking, fluttering +voice to tragic earnestness. “This was the--the--open cesspit that dared +to call us ‘stinkers.’ And now--and now, it tries to shelter itself +behind a dead rat. You annoy me, Rattray. You disgust me! You irritate +me unspeakably! Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable temper--” + +(“This is to your address, Macrea,” said Prout. + +“I fear so, I fear so.”) + +“Or I should scarcely be able to contain myself before your mocking +visage.” + +“_Cave_!” in an undertone. Beetle had spied King sailing down the +corridor. + +“And what may you be doing here, my little friends?” the house-master +began. “I had a fleeting notion--correct me if I am wrong” (the +listeners with one accord choked)--“that if I found you outside my house +I should visit you with dire pains and penalties.” + +“We were just goin’ for a walk, sir,” said Beetle. + +“And you stopped to speak to Rattray _en route_?” + +“Yes, sir. We’ve been throwing golf-balls,” said Rattray, coming out of +the study. + +(“Old Rat is more of a diplomat than I thought. So far he is strictly +within the truth,” said little Hartopp. “Observe the ethics of it, +Prout.”) + +“Oh, you were sporting with them, were you? I must say I do not envy +you your choice of associates. I fancied they might have been engaged in +some of the prurient discourse with which they have been so disgustingly +free of late. I should strongly advise you to direct your steps most +carefully in the future. Pick up those golf-balls.” He passed on. + + +Next day Richards, who had been a carpenter in the Navy, and to whom odd +jobs were confided, was ordered to take up a dormitory floor; for Mr. +King held that something must have died there. + +“We need not neglect all our work for a trumpery incident of this +nature; though I am quite aware that little things please little +minds. Yes, I have decreed the boards to be taken up after lunch under +Richards’s auspices. I have no doubt it will be vastly interesting to +a certain type of so-called intellect; but any boy of my house or +another’s found on the dormitory stairs will _ipso facto_ render himself +liable to three hundred lines.” + +The boys did not collect on the stairs, but most of them waited outside +King’s. Richards had been bound to cry the news from the attic window, +and, if possible, to exhibit the corpse. + +“‘Tis a cat, a dead cat!” Richards’s face showed purple at the window. +He had been in the chamber of death and on his knees for some time. + +“Cat be blowed!” cried McTurk. “It’s a dead fag left over from last +term. Three cheers for King’s dead fag!” + +They cheered lustily. + +“Show it, show it! Let’s have a squint at it!” yelled the juniors. “Give +her to the Bug-hunters.” (This was the Natural History Society). “The +cat looked at the King--and died of it! Hoosh! Yai! Yaow! Maiow! Ftzz!” + were some of the cries that followed. + +Again Richards appeared. + +“She’ve been”--he checked himself suddenly--“dead a long taime.” + +The school roared. + +“Well, come on out for a walk,” said Stalky in a well-chosen pause. +“It’s all very disgustin’, and I do hope the Lazar-house won’t do it +again.” + +“Do what?” a King’s boy cried furiously. + +“Kill a poor innocent cat every time you want to get off washing. It’s +awfully hard to distinguish between you as it is. I prefer the cat, I +must say. She isn’t quite so whiff. What are you goin’ to do, Beetle?” + +“_Je vais gloater. Je vais gloater tout le blessed afternoon. Jamais +j’ai gloate’ comme je gloaterai aujourd’hui. Nous bunkerons aux_ +bunkers.” + +And it seemed good to them so to do. + + +Down in the basement, where the gas flickers and the boots stand in +racks, Richards, amid his blacking-brushes, held forth to Oke of the +Common-room, Gumbly of the dining-halls, and fair Lena of the laundry. + +“Yiss. Her were in a shockin’ staate an’ condition. Her nigh made me +sick, I tal ‘ee. But I rowted un out, and I rowted un out, an’ I made +all shipshape, though her smelt like to bilges.” + +“Her died mousin’, I reckon, poor thing,” said Lena. + +“Then her moused different to any made cat o’ God’s world, Lena. I up +with the top-board, an’ she were lying on her back, an’ I turned un +ovver with the brume-handle, an’ ‘twas her back was all covered with +the plaster from ‘twixt the lathin’. Yiss, I tal ‘ee. An’ under her +head there lay, like, so’s to say, a little pillow o’ plaster druv up +in front of her by raison of her slidin’ along on her back. No cat niver +went mousin’ on her back, Lena. Some one had shoved her along right +underneath, so far as they could shove un. Cats don’t make theyselves +pillows for to die on. Shoved along, she were, when she was settin’ for +to be cold, laike.” + +“Oh, yeou’m too clever to live, Fatty. Yeou go get wed an’ taught some +sense,” said Lena, the affianced of Gumbly. + +“Larned a little ‘fore iver some maidens was born. Sarved in the Queen’s +Navy, I have, where yeou’m taught to use your eyes. Yeou go ‘tend your +own business, Lena.” + +“Do ‘ee mean what you’m been tellin’ us?” said Oke. + +“Ask me no questions, I’ll give ‘ee no lies. Bullet-hole clane thru from +side to side, an’ tu heart-ribs broke like withies. I seed un when I +turned un ovver. They’re clever, oh, they’m clever, but they’m not too +clever for old Richards! ‘Twas on the born tip o’ my tongue to tell, +tu, but... he said us niver washed, he did. Let his dom boys call us +‘stinkers,’ he did. Sarve un dom well raight, I say!” + +Richards spat on a fresh boot and fell to his work, chuckling. + + + + +THE IMPRESSIONISTS. + + +They had dropped into the chaplain’s study for a Saturday night +smoke---all four house-masters--and the three briars and the one cigar +reeking in amity proved the Rev. John Gillett’s good generalship. Since +the discovery of the cat, King had been too ready to see affront +where none was meant, and the Reverend John, buffer-state and general +confidant, had worked for a week to bring about a good understanding. +He was fat, clean-shaven, except for a big mustache, of an imperturbable +good temper, and, those who loved him least said, a guileful Jesuit. +He smiled benignantly upon his handiwork--four sorely tried men talking +without very much malice. + +“Now remember,” he said, when the conversation turned that way, “I +impute nothing. But every time that any one has taken direct steps +against Number Five study, the issue has been more or less humiliating +to the taker.” + +“I can’t admit that. I pulverize the egregious Beetle daily for his +soul’s good; and the others with him,” said King. + +“Well, take your own case, King, and go back a couple of years. Do +you remember when Prout and you were on their track for hutting and +trespass, wasn’t it? Have you forgotten Colonel Dabney?” + +The others laughed. King did not care to be reminded of his career as a +poacher. + +“That was one instance. Again, when you had rooms below them--I always +said that that was entering the lion’s den--you turned them out.” + +“For making disgusting noises. Surely, Gillett, you don’t excuse--” + +“All I say is that you turned them out. That same evening your study was +wrecked.” + +“By Rabbits-Eggs--most beastly drunk--from the road,” said King. “What +has that?” + +The Reverend John went on. + +“Lastly, they conceive that aspersions are cast upon their personal +cleanliness--a most delicate matter with all boys. Ve-ry good. Observe +how, in each case, the punishment fits the crime. A week after your +house calls them ‘stinkers,’ King, your house is, not to put too fine a +point on it, stunk out by a dead cat who chooses to die in the one +spot where she can annoy you most. Again the long arm of coincidence! +_Summa_. You accuse them of trespass. Through some absurd chain of +circumstances--they may or may not be at the other end of it--you and +Prout are made to appear as trespassers. You evict them. For a time your +study is made untenable. I have drawn the parallel in the last case. +Well?” + +“She was under the centre of White’s dormitory,” said King. “There are +double floor-boards there to deaden noise. No boy, even in my own house, +could possibly have pried up the boards without leaving some trace--and +Rabbits-Eggs was phenomenally drunk that other night.” + +“They are singularly favored by fortune. That is all I ever said. +Personally, I like them immensely, and I believe I have a little of +their confidence. I confess I like being called ‘Padre.’ They are at +peace with me; consequently I am not treated to bogus confessions of +theft.” + +“You mean Mason’s case?” said Prout heavily. “That always struck me +as peculiarly scandalous. I thought the Head should have taken up the +matter more thoroughly. Mason may be misguided, but at least he is +thoroughly sincere and means well.” + +“I confess I cannot agree with you, Prout,” said the Reverend John. “He +jumped at some silly tale of theft on their part; accepted another boy’s +evidence without, so far as I can see, any inquiry; and--frankly, I +think he deserved all he got.” + +“They deliberately outraged Mason’s best feelings,” said Prout. “A word +to me on their part would have saved the whole thing. But they preferred +to lure him on; to play on his ignorance of their characters--” + +“That may be,” said King, “but I don’t like Mason. I dislike him for the +very reason that Prout advances to his credit. He means well.” + +“Our criminal tradition is not theft--among ourselves, at least,” said +little Hartopp. + +“For the head of a house that raided seven head of cattle from the +innocent pot-wallopers of Northam, isn’t that rather a sweeping +statement?” said Macrea. + +“Precisely so,” said Hartopp, unabashed. “That, with gate-lifting, and a +little poaching and hawk-hunting on the cliffs, is our salvation.” + +“It does us far more harm as a school--” Prout began. + +“Than any hushed-up scandal could? Quite so. Our reputation among the +farmers is most unsavory. But I would much sooner deal with any amount +of ingenious crime of that nature than--some other offenses.” + +“They may be all right, but they are unboylike, abnormal, and, in +my opinion, unsound,” Prout insisted. “The moral effect of their +performances must pave the way for greater harm. It makes me doubtful +how to deal with them. I might separate them.” + +“You might, of course; but they have gone up the school together for six +years. _I_ shouldn’t care to do it,” said Macrea. + +“They use the editorial ‘we,’” said King, irrelevantly. “It annoys me. +‘Where’s your prose, Corkran?’ ‘Well, sir, we haven’t quite done it +yet.’ ‘We’ll bring it in a minute,’ and so on. And the same with the +others.” + +“There’s great virtue in that ‘we,’” said little Hartopp. “You know I +take them for trig. McTurk may have some conception of the meaning of +it; but Beetle is as the brutes that perish about sines and cosines. He +copies serenely from Stalky, who positively rejoices in mathematics.” + +“Why don’t you stop it?” said Prout. + +“It rights itself at the exams. Then Beetle shows up blank sheets, and +trusts to his ‘English’ to save him from a fall. I fancy he spends most +of his time with me in writing verse.” + +“I wish to Heaven he would transfer a little of his energy in that +direction to Elegiaes.” King jerked himself upright. “He is, with the +single exception of Stalky, the very vilest manufacturer of ‘barbarous +hexameters’ that I have ever dealt with.” + +“The work is combined in that study,” said the chaplain. “Stalky does +the mathematics, McTurk the Latin, and Beetle attends to their English +and French. At least, when he was in the sick-house last month--” + +“Malingering,” Prout interjected. + +“Quite possibly. I found a very distinct falling off in their ‘Roman +d’un Jeune Homme Pauvre’ translations.” + +“I think it is profoundly immoral,” said Prout. “I’ve always been +opposed to the study system.” + +“It would be hard to find any study where the boys don’t help each +other; but in Number Five the thing has probably been reduced to a +system,” said little Hartopp. “They have a system in most things.” + +“They confess as much,” said the Reverend John. “I’ve seen McTurk being +hounded up the stairs to elegise the ‘Elegy in a Churchyard,’ while +Beetle and Stalky went to punt-about.” + +“It amounts to systematic cribbing,” said Prout, his voice growing +deeper and deeper. + +“No such thing,” little Hartopp returned. “You can’t teach a cow the +violin.” + +“In intention it is cribbing.” + +“But we spoke under the seal of the confessional, didn’t we?” said the +Reverend John. + +“You say you’ve heard them arranging their work in this way, Gillett,” + Prout persisted. + +“Good Heavens! Don’t make me Queen’s evidence, my dear fellow. Hartopp +is equally incriminated. If they ever found out that I had sneaked, our +relations would suffer--and I value them.” + +“I think your attitude in this matter is weak,” said Prout, looking +round for support. “It would be really better to break up the study--for +a while--wouldn’t it?” + +“Oh, break it up by all means,” said Macrea. “We shall see then if +Gillett’s theory holds water.” + +“Be wise, Prout. Leave them alone, or calamity will overtake you; and +what is much more important, they will be annoyed with me. I am too fat, +alas! to be worried by bad boys. Where are you going?” + +“Nonsense! They would not dare---but I am going to think this out,” said +Prout. “It needs thought. In intention they cribbed, and I must think +out my duty.” + +“He’s perfectly capable of putting the boys on their honor. It’s _I_ +that am a fool.” The Reverend John looked round remorsefully. “Never +again will I forget that a master is not a man. Mark my words,” said the +Reverend John. “There will be trouble.” + + + But by the yellow Tiber + Was tumult and affright. + +Out of the blue sky (they were still rejoicing over the cat war) Mr. +Prout had dropped into Number Five, read them a lecture on the enormity +of cribbing, and bidden them return to the form-rooms on Monday. They +had raged, solo and chorus, all through the peaceful Sabbath, for their +sin was more or less the daily practice of all the studies. + +“What’s the good of cursing?” said Stalky at last. “We’re all in the +same boat. We’ve got to go back and consort with the house. A locker +in the form-room, and a seat at prep. in Number Twelve.” (He looked +regretfully round the cozy study which McTurk, their leader in matters +of Art, had decorated with a dado, a stencil, and cretonne hangings.) + +“Yes! Heffy lurchin’ into the form-rooms like a frowzy old retriever, +to see if we aren’t up to something. You know he never leaves his house +alone, these days,” said McTurk. “Oh, it will be giddy!” + +“Why aren’t you down watchin’ cricket? I like a robust, healthy boy. You +mustn’t frowst in a form-room. Why don’t you take an interest in your +house? Yah!” quoted Beetle. + +“Yes, why don’t we? Let’s! We’ll take an interest in the house. We’ll +take no end of interest in the house! He hasn’t had us in the form-rooms +for a year. We’ve learned a lot since then. Oh, we’ll make it a +be-autiful house before we’ve done! ‘Member that chap in ‘Eric’ or ‘St. +Winifred’s’--Belial somebody? I’m goin’ to be Belial,” said Stalky, with +an ensnaring grin. + +“Right O,” said Beetle, “and I’ll be Mammon. I’ll lend money at +usury--that’s what they do at all schools accordin’ to the B.O.P. Penny +a week on a shillin’. That’ll startle Heffy’s weak intellect. You can be +Lucifer, Turkey.” + +“What have I got to do?” McTurk also smiled. + +“Head conspiracies--and cabals--and boycotts. Go in for that ‘stealthy +intrigue’ that Heffy is always talkin’ about. Come on!” + +The house received them on their fall with the mixture of jest and +sympathy always extended to boys turned out of their study. The known +aloofness of the three made them more interesting. + +“Quite like old times, ain’t it?” Stalky selected a locker and flung in +his books. “We’ve come to sport with you, my young friends, for a while, +because our beloved house-master has hove us out of our diggin’s.” + +“‘Serve you jolly well right,” said Orrin, “you cribbers!” + +“This will never do,” said Stalky. “We can’t maintain our giddy +prestige, Orrin, de-ah, if you make these remarks.” + +They wrapped themselves lovingly about the boy, thrust him to the opened +window, and drew down the sash to the nape of his neck. With an equal +swiftness they tied his thumbs together behind his back with a piece of +twine, and then, because he kicked furiously, removed his shoes. There +Mr. Prout happened to find him a few minutes later, guillotined and +helpless, surrounded by a convulsed crowd who would not assist. + +Stalky, in an upper form-room, had gathered himself allies against +vengeance. Orrin presently tore up at the head of a boarding party, and +the form-room grew one fog of dust through which boys wrestled, stamped, +shouted, and yelled. A desk was carried away in the tumult, a knot of +warriors reeled into and split a door-panel, a window was broken, and +a gas-jet fell. Under cover of the confusion the three escaped to the +corridor, whence they called in and sent up passers-by to the fray. + +“Rescue, Kings! Kings! Kings! Number Twelve form-room! Rescue, +Prouts--Prouts! Rescue, Macreas! Rescue, Hartopps!” + +The juniors hurried out like bees aswarm, asking no questions, clattered +up the staircase, and added themselves to the embroilment. + +“Not bad for the first evening’s work,” said Stalky, rearranging his +collar. “I fancy Prout’ll be somewhat annoyed. We’d better establish an +alibi.” So they sat on Mr. King’s railings till prep. + +“You see,” quoth Stalky, as they strolled up to prep. with the ignoble +herd, “if you get the houses well mixed up an’ scufflin’, it’s even +bettin’ that some ass will start a real row. Hullo, Orrin, you look +rather metagrobolized.” + +“It was all your fault, you beast! You started it. We’ve got two hundred +lines apiece, and Heffy’s lookin’ for you. Just see what that swine +Malpas did to my eye!” + +“I like your saying we started it. Who called us cribbers? Can’t your +infant mind connect cause and effect yet? Some day you’ll find out that +it don’t pay to jest with Number Five.” + +“Where’s that shillin’ you owe me?” said Beetle suddenly. + +Stalky could not see Prout behind him, but returned the lead without a +quaver. “I only owed you ninepence, you old usurer.” + +“You’ve forgotten the interest,” said McTurk. “A halfpenny a week per +bob is Beetle’s charge. You must be beastly rich, Beetle.” + +“Well, Beetle lent me sixpence.” Stalky came to a full stop and made as +to work it out on his fingers. “Sixpence on the nineteenth, didn’t he?” + +“Yes; but you’ve forgotten you paid no interest on the other bob--the +one I lent you before.” + +“But you took my watch as security.” The game was developing itself +almost automatically. + +“Never mind. Pay me my interest, or I’ll charge you interest on +interest. Remember, I’ve got your note-of-hand!” shouted Beetle. + +“You are a cold-blooded Jew,” Stalky groaned. + +“Hush!” said McTurk very loudly indeed, and started as Prout came upon +them. + +“I didn’t see you in that disgraceful affair in the form-room just now,” + said he. + +“What, sir? We’re just come up from Mr. King’s,” said Stalky. “Please, +sir, what am I to do about prep.? They’ve broken the desk you told me to +sit at, and the form’s just swimming with ink.” + +“Find another seat--find another seat. D’you expect me to dry-nurse you? +I wish to know whether you are in the habit of advancing money to your +associates, Beetle?” + +“No, sir; not as a general rule, sir.” + +“It is a most reprehensible habit. I thought that my house, at least, +would be free from it. Even with my opinion of you, I hardly thought it +was one of your vices.” + +“There’s no harm in lending money, sir, is there?” + +“I am not going to bandy words with you on your notions of morality. How +much have you lent Corkran?” + +“I--I don’t quite know,” said Beetle. It is difficult to improvise a +going concern on the spur of the minute. + +“You seemed certain enough just now.” + +“I think it’s two and fourpence,” said McTurk, with a glance of cold +scorn at Beetle. In the hopelessly involved finances of the study there +was just that sum to which both McTurk and Beetle laid claim, as their +share in the pledging of Stalky’s second-best Sunday trousers. But +Stalky had maintained for two terms that the money was his “commission” + for effecting the pawn; and had, of course, spent it on a study “brew.” + +“Understand this, then. You are not to continue your operations as a +money-lender. Two and fourpence, you said, Corkran?” + +Stalky had said nothing, and continued so to do. + +“Your influence for evil is quite strong enough without buying a hold +over your companions.” He felt in his pockets, and (oh joy!) produced +a florin and fourpence. “Bring me what you call Corkran’s note-of-hand, +and be thankful that I do not carry the matter any further. The money +is stopped from your pocket-money, Corkran. The receipt to my study, at +once!” + +Little they cared! Two and fourpence in a lump is worth six weekly +sixpences any hungry day of the week. + +“But what the dooce is a note-of-hand?” said Beetle. “I only read about +it in a book.” + +“Now you’ve jolly well got to make one,” said Stalky. + +“Yes--but our ink don’t turn black till next day. S’pose he’ll spot +that?” + +“Not him. He’s too worried,” said McTurk. “Sign your name on a bit of +impot-paper, Stalky, and write, ‘I O U two and fourpence.’ Aren’t +you grateful to me for getting that out of Prout? Stalky’d never have +paid... Why, you ass!” + +Mechanically Beetle had handed over the money to Stalky as treasurer of +the study. The custom of years is not lightly broken. In return for +the document, Prout expounded to Beetle the enormity of money-lending, +which, like everything except compulsory cricket, corrupted houses and +destroyed good feeling among boys, made youth cold and calculating, +and opened the door to all evil. Finally, did Beetle know of any +other cases? If so, it was his duty as proof of repentance to let his +house-master know. No names need be mentioned. + +Beetle did not know--at least, he was not quite sure, sir. How could he +give evidence against his friends? The house might, of course--here he +feigned an anguished delicacy--be full of it. He was not in a position +to say. He had not met with any open competition in his trade; but if +Mr. Prout considered it was a matter that affected the honor of +the house (Mr. Prout did consider it precisely that), perhaps the +house-prefects would be better... + +He spun it out till half-way through prep. + +“And,” said the amateur Shylock, returning to the form-room and dropping +at Stalky’s side, “if he don’t think the house is putrid with it, I’m +several Dutch-men--that’s all... I’ve been to Mr. Prout’s study, sir.” + This to the prep.-master. “He said I could sit where I liked, sir... Oh, +he is just tricklin’ with emotion... Yes, sir, I’m only askin’ Corkran +to let me have a dip in his ink.” + +After prayers, on the road to the dormitories, Harrison and Craye, +senior house-prefects, zealous in their office, waylaid them with great +anger. “What have you been doing to Heffy this time, Beetle? He’s been +jawing us all the evening.” + +“What has His Serene Transparency been vexin’ you for?” said McTurk. + +“About Beetle lendin’ money to Stalky,” began Harrison; “and then Beetle +went and told him that there was any amount of money-lendin’ in the +house.” + +“No, you don’t,” said Beetle, sitting on a boot-basket. “That’s just +what I didn’t tell him. I spoke the giddy truth. He asked me if there +was much of it in the house; and I said I didn’t know.” + +“He thinks you’re a set of filthy Shylocks,” said McTurk. “It’s just as +well for you he don’t think you’re burglars. You know he never gets a +notion out of his conscientious old head.” + +“Well-meanin’ man. Did it all for the best.” Stalky curled gracefully +round the stair-rail. “Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the left +boot. Bad for the honor of the house--very.” + +“Shut up,” said Harrison. “You chaps always behave as if you were jawin’ +us when we come to jaw you.” + +“You’re a lot too cheeky,” said Craye. + +“I don’t quite see where the cheek comes in, except on your part, in +interferin’ with a private matter between me an’ Beetle after it has +been settled by Prout.” Stalky winked cheerfully at the others. + +“That’s the worst of clever little swots,” said McTurk, addressing the +gas. “They get made prefects before they have any tact, and then they +annoy chaps who could really help ‘em to look after the honor of the +house.” + +“We won’t trouble you to do that!” said Craye hotly. + +“Then what are you badgerin’ us for?” said Beetle. “On your own showing, +you’ve been so beastly slack, looking after the house, that Prout +believes it’s a nest of money-lenders. I’ve told him that I’ve lent +money to Stalky, and no one else. I don’t know whether he believes me, +but that finishes my case. The rest is your business.” + +“Now we find out,” Stalky’s voice rose, “that there is apparently an +organized conspiracy throughout the house. For aught we know, the +fags may be lendin’ and borrowin’ far beyond their means. We aren’t +responsible for it. We’re only the rank and file.” + +“Are you surprised we don’t wish to associate with the house?” said +McTurk, with dignity. “We’ve kept ourselves to ourselves in our study +till we were turned out, and now we find ourselves let in for for this +sort of thing. It’s simply disgraceful.” + +“Then you hector and bullyrag us on the stairs,” said Stalky, “about +matters that are your business entirely. You know we aren’t prefects.” + +“You threatened us with a prefect’s lickin’ just now,” said Beetle, +boldly inventing as he saw the bewilderment in the faces of the +enemy. “And if you expect you’ll gain anything from us by your way of +approachin’ us, you’re jolly well mistaken. That’s all. Good-night.” + +They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs. + +“But--but what the dickens have we done?” said Harrison, amazedly, to +Craye. + +“I don’t know. Only--it always happens that way when one has anything to +do with them. They’re so beastly plausible.” + +And Mr. Prout called the good boys into his study anew, and succeeded +in sinking both his and their innocent minds ten fathoms deeper in +blindfolded bedazement. He spoke of steps and measures, of tone and +loyalty in the house and to the house, and urged them to take up the +matter tactfully. + +So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any connection with any other +establishment. Beetle promptly went to his house-master, and wished +to know by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a matter already +settled between him and his house-master. In injured innocence no boy +excelled Beetle. + +Then it occurred to Prout that he might have been unfair to the culprit, +who had not striven to deny or palliate his offense. He sent for +Harrison and Craye, reprehending them very gently for the tone they had +adopted to a repentant sinner, and when they returned to their study, +they used the language of despair. They then made headlong inquisition +through the house, driving the fags to the edge of hysterics, and +unearthing, with tremendous pomp and parade, the natural and inevitable +system of small loans that prevails among small boys. + +“You see, Harrison, Thornton minor lent me a penny last Saturday, +because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at Keyte’s. +I didn’t know there was any harm in it. And Wray major borrowed twopence +from me when my uncle sent me a post-office order--I cashed it at +Keyte’s--for five bob; but he’ll pay me back before the holidays. We +didn’t know there was anything wrong in it.” + +They waded through hours of this kind of thing, but found no usury, +or anything approaching to Beetle’s gorgeous scale of interest. The +seniors--for the school had no tradition of deference to prefects +outside compulsory games--told them succinctly to go about their +business. They would not give evidence on any terms. Harrison was one +idiot, and Craye was another; but the greatest of all, they said, was +their house-master. + +When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its conscience, it breaks +into knots and coteries--small gatherings in the twilight, box-room +committees, and groups in the corridor. And when from group to group, +with an immense affectation of secrecy, three wicked boys steal, crying +“_Cave’_” when there is no need of caution, and whispering “Don’t tell!” + on the heels of trumpery confidences that instant invented, a very fine +air of plot and intrigue can be woven round such a house. + +At the end of a few days, it dawned on Prout that he moved in an +atmosphere of perpetual ambush. Mysteries hedged him on all sides, +warnings ran before his heavy feet, and countersigns were muttered +behind his attentive back. McTurk and Stalky invented many absurd and +idle phrases--catch-words that swept through the house as fire through +stubble. It was a rare jest, and the only practical outcome of the Usury +Commission, that one boy should say to a friend, with awful gravity, +“Do you think there’s much of it going on in the house?” The other +would reply, “Well, one can’t be too careful, you know.” The effect on +a house-master of humane conscience and good intent may be imagined. +Again, a man who has sincerely devoted himself to gaining the esteem of +his charges does not like to hear himself described, even at a distance, +as “Popularity Prout” by a dark and scowling Celt with a fluent tongue. +A rumor that stories--unusual stories--are told in the form-rooms, +between the lights, by a boy who does not command his confidence, +agitates such a man; and even elaborate and tender politeness--for the +courtesy wise-grown men offer to a bewildered child was the courtesy +that Stalky wrapped round Prout--restores not his peace of mind. + +“The tone of the house seems changed--changed for the worse,” said Prout +to Harrison and Craye. “Have you noticed it? I don’t for an instant +impute--” + +He never imputed anything; but, on the other hand, he never did anything +else, and, with the best intentions in the world, he had reduced the +house-prefects to a state as nearly bordering on nervous irritation +as healthy boys can know. Worst of all, they began at times to wonder +whether Stalky & Co. had not some truth in their often-repeated +assertions that Prout was a gloomy ass. + +“As you know, I am not the kind of man who puts himself out for every +little thing he hears. I believe in letting the house work out their own +salvation--with a light guiding hand on the reins, of course. But there +is a perceptible lack of reverence---a lower tone in matters that touch +the honor of the house, a sort of hardness.” + + Oh, Prout he is a nobleman, a nobleman, a nobleman! + Our Heffy is a nobleman-- + He does an awful lot, + Because his popularity + Oh, pop-u-pop-u-larity-- + His giddy popularity + Would suffer did he not! + +The study door stood ajar; and the song, borne by twenty clear voices, +came faint from a form-room. The fags rather liked the tune; the words +were Beetle’s. + +“That’s a thing no sensible man objects to,” said Prout with a lop-sided +smile; “but you know straws show which way the wind blows. Can you trace +it to any direct influence? I am speaking to you now as heads of the +house.” + +“There isn’t the least doubt of it,” said Harrison angrily. “I know +what you mean, sir. It all began when Number Five study came to the +form-rooms. There’s no use blinkin’ it, Craye. You know that, too.” + +“They make things rather difficult for us, sometimes,” said Craye. “It’s +more their manner than anything else, that Harrison means.” + +“Do they hamper you in the discharge of your duties, then?” + +“Well, no, sir. They only look on and grin--and turn up their noses +generally.” + +“Ah,” said Prout sympathetically. + +“I think, sir,” said Craye, plunging into the business boldly, “it would +be a great deal better if they were sent back to their study--better for +the house. They are rather old to be knocking about the form-rooms.” + +“They are younger than Orrin, or Flint, and a dozen others that I can +think of.” + +“Yes, sir; but that’s different, somehow. They’re rather influential. +They have a knack of upsettin’ things in a quiet way that one can’t take +hold of. At least, if one does--” + +“And you think they would be better in their own study again?” + +Emphatically Harrison and Craye were of that opinion. As Harrison said +to Craye, afterwards, “They’ve weakened our authority. They’re too big +to lick; they’ve made an exhibition of us over this usury business, +and we’re a laughing-stock to the rest of the school. I’m going up (for +Sandhurst, understood) next term. They’ve managed to knock me out of +half my work already with their--their lunacy. If they go back to their +study we may have a little peace.” + +“Hullo, Harrison.” McTurk ambled round the corner, with a roving eye on +all possible horizons. “Bearin’ up, old man? That’s right. Live it down! +Live it down!” + +“What d’you mean?” + +“You look a little pensive,” said McTurk. “Exhaustin’ job superintendin’ +the honor of the house, ain’t it? By the way, how are you off for +mares’-nests?” + +“Look here,” said Harrison, hoping for instant reward. “We’ve +recommended Prout to let you go back to your study.” + +“The dooce you have! And who under the sun are _you_ to interfere +between us and our house-master? Upon my Sam, you two try us very +hard--you do, indeed. Of course we don’t know how far you abuse your +position to prejudice us with Mr. Prout; but when you deliberately +stop me to tell me you’ve been makin’ arrangements behind our back--in +secret--with Prout--I--I don’t know really what we ought to do.” + +“That’s beastly unfair!” cried Craye. + +“It is.” McTurk had adopted a ghastly solemnity that sat well on his +long, lean face. “Hang it all! A prefect’s one thing and an usher’s +another; but you seem to combine ‘em. You recommend this--you recommend +that! _You_ say how and when we go back to our study!” + +“But--but--we thought you’d like it, Turkey. We did, indeed. You know +you’ll be ever so much more comfortable there.” Harrison’s voice was +almost tearful. + +McTurk turned away as though to hide his emotions. + +“They’re broke!” He hunted up Stalky and Beetle in a box-room. “They’re +sick! They’ve been beggin’ Heffy to let us go back to Number Five. Poor +devils! Poor little devils!” + +“It’s the olive branch,” was Stalky’s comment. “It’s the giddy white +flag, by gum! Come to think of it, we _have_ metagrobolized ‘em.” + +Just after tea that day, Mr. Prout sent for them to say that if they +chose to ruin their future by neglecting their work, it was entirely +their own affair. He wished them, however, to understand that their +presence in the form-rooms could not be tolerated one hour longer. +He personally did not care to think of the time he must spend in +eliminating the traces of their evil influences. How far Beetle had +pandered to the baser side of youthful imagination he would ascertain +later; and Beetle might be sure that if Mr. Prout came across any +soul-corrupting consequences-- + +“Consequences of what, sir?” said Beetle, genuinely bewildered this +time; and McTurk quietly kicked him on the ankle for being “fetched” + by Prout. Beetle, the house-master continued, knew very well what was +intended. Evil and brief had been their careers under his eye; and as +one standing _in loco parentis_ to their yet uncontaminated associates, +he was bound to take his precautions. The return of the study key closed +the sermon. + +“But what was the baser-side-of-imagination business?” said Beetle on +the stairs. + +“I never knew such an ass as you are for justifyin’ yourself,” said +McTurk. “I hope I jolly well skinned your ankle. Why do you let yourself +be drawn by everybody?” + +“Draws be blowed! I must have tickled him up in some way I didn’t know +about. If I’d had a notion of that before, of course I could have rubbed +it in better. It’s too late now. What a pity! ‘Baser side.’ What _was_ +he drivin’ at?” + +“Never mind,” said Stalky. “I knew we could make it a happy little +house. I said so, remember--but I swear I didn’t think we’d do it so +soon.” + + +“No,” said Prout most firmly in Common-room. “I maintain that Gillett is +wrong. True, I let them return to their study.” + +“With your known views on cribbing, too?” purred little Hartopp. “What +an immoral compromise!” + +“One moment,” said the Reverend John. “I--we--all of us have exercised +an absolutely heart-breaking discretion for the last ten days. Now we +want to know. Confess--have you known a happy minute since--” + +“As regards my house, I have not,” said Prout. “But you are entirely +wrong in your estimate of those boys. In justice to the others--in +self-defence--” + +“Ha! I said it would come to that,” murmured the Reverend John. + +“--I was forced to send them back. Their moral influence was +unspeakable--simply unspeakable.” + +And bit by bit he told his tale, beginning with Beetle’s usury, and +ending with the house-prefects’ appeal. + + “Beetle in the _ro’le_ of Shylock is new to me,” said King, with +twitching lips. “I heard rumors of it--” + +“Before?” said Prout. + +“No, after you had dealt with them; but I was careful not to inquire. I +never interfere with--” + +“I myself,” said Hartopp, “would cheerfully give him five shillings +if he could work out one simple sum in compound interest without three +gross errors.” + +“Why--why--why!” Mason, the mathematical master, stuttered, a fierce joy +on his face, “you’ve been had--precisely the same as me!” + +“And so you held an inquiry?” Little Hartopp’s voice drowned Mason’s ere +Prout caught the import of the sentence. + +“The boy himself hinted at the existence of a deal of it in the house,” + said Prout. + +“He is past master in that line,” said the chaplain. “But, as regards +the honor of the house--” + +“They lowered it in a week. I have striven to build it up for years. +My own house-prefects--and boys do not willingly complain of each +other--besought me to get rid of them. You say you have their +confidence, Gillett: they may tell you another tale. As far as I am +concerned, they may go to the devil in their own way. I’m sick and tired +of them,” said Prout bitterly. + +But it was the Reverend John, with a smiling countenance, who went to +the devil just after Number Five had cleared away a very pleasant little +brew (it cost them two and fourpence) and was settling down to prep. + +“Come in, Padre, come in,” said Stalky, thrusting forward the best +chair. “We’ve only met you official-like these last ten days.” + +“You were under sentence,” said the Reverend John. “I do not consort +with malefactors.” + +“Ah, but we’re restored again,” said McTurk. “Mr. Prout has relented.” + +“Without a stain on our characters,” said Beetle. “It was a painful +episode, Padre, most painful.” + +“Now, consider for a while, and perpend, _mes enfants_. It is about +your characters that I’ve called to-night. In the language of the +schools, what the dooce _have_ you been up to in Mr. Prout’s house? It +isn’t anything to laugh over. He says that you so lowered the tone of +the house he had to pack you back to your studies. Is that true?” + +“Every word of it, Padre.” + +“Don’t be flippant, Turkey. Listen to me. I’ve told you very often that +no boys in the school have a greater influence for good or evil than +you have. You know I don’t talk about ethics and moral codes, because I +don’t believe that the young of the human animal realizes what they mean +for some years to come. All the same, I don’t want to think you’ve been +perverting the juniors. Don’t interrupt, Beetle. Listen to me. Mr. Prout +has a notion that you have been corrupting your associates somehow or +other.” + +“Mr. Prout has so many notions, Padre,” said Beetle wearily. “Which one +is this?” + +“Well, he tells me that he heard you telling a story in the twilight in +the form-room, in a whisper. And Orrin said, just as he opened the door, +‘Shut up, Beetle; it’s too beastly.’ Now then?” + +“You remember Mrs. Oliphant’s ‘Beleaguered City’ that you lent me last +term?” said Beetle. + +The Padre nodded. + +“I got the notion out of that. Only, instead of a city, I made it the +Coll. in a fog--besieged by ghosts of dead boys, who hauled chaps out of +their beds in the dormitory. All the names are quite real. You tell it +in a whisper, you know with the names. Orrin didn’t like it one little +bit. None of ‘em have ever let me finish it. It gets just awful at the +end part.” + +“But why in the world didn’t you explain to Mr. Prout, instead of +leaving him under the impression--?” + +“Padre Sahib,” said McTurk, “it isn’t the least good explainin’ to Mr. +Prout. If he hasn’t one impression, he’s bound to have another.” + +“He’d do it with the best o’ motives. He’s _in loco parentis_,” purred +Stalky. + +“You young demons!” the Reverend John replied. “And am I to understand +that the---the usury business was another of your house-master’s +impressions?” + +“Well--we helped a little in that,” said Stalky. “I did owe Beetle two +and fourpence at least, Beetle says I did, but I never intended to pay +him. Then we started a bit of an argument on the stairs, and--and Mr. +Prout dropped into it accidental. That was how it was, Padre. He paid me +cash down like a giddy Dook (stopped it out of my pocket-money just the +same), and Beetle gave him my note-of-hand all correct. I don’t know +what happened after that.” + +“I was too truthful,” said Beetle. “I always am. You see, he was under +an impression, Padre, and I suppose I ought to have corrected that +impression; but of course I couldn’t be _quite_ certain that his +house wasn’t given over to money-lendin’, could I? I thought the +house-prefects might know more about it than I did. They ought to. +They’re giddy palladiums of public schools.” + +“They did, too--by the time they’d finished,” said McTurk. “As nice a +pair of conscientious, well-meanin’, upright, pure-souled boys as you’d +ever want to meet, Padre. They turned the house upside down--Harrison +and Craye---with the best motives in the world.” + +“They said so. ‘They said it very loud and clear. They went and shouted +in our ear,’” said Stalky. + +“My own private impression is that all three of you will infallibly be +hanged,” said the Reverend John. + +“Why, we didn’t do anything,” McTurk replied. “It was all Mr. Prout. Did +you ever read a book about Japanese wrestlers? My uncle---he’s in the +Navy--gave me a beauty once.” + +“Don’t try to change the subject, Turkey.” + +“I’m not, sir. I’m givin’ an illustration--same as a sermon. These +wrestler-chaps have got sort sort of trick that lets the other chap do +all the work. Than they give a little wriggle, and he upsets himself. +It’s called _shibbuwichee_ or _tokonoma_, or somethin’. Mr. Prout’s a +_shibbuwicher_. It isn’t our fault.” + +“Did you suppose we went round corruptin’ the minds of the fags?” said +Beetle. “They haven’t any, to begin with; and if they had, they’re +corrupted long ago. I’ve been a fag, Padre.” + +“Well, I fancied I knew the normal range of your iniquities; but if +you take so much trouble to pile up circumstantial evidence against +yourselves, you can’t blame any one if--” + +“We don’t blame any one, Padre. We haven’t said a word against Mr. +Prout, have we?” Stalky looked at the others. “We love him. He hasn’t a +notion how we love him.” + +“H’m! You dissemble your love very well. Have you ever thought who got +you turned out of your study in the first place?” + +“It was Mr. Prout turned us out,” said Stalky, with significance. + +“Well, I was that man. I didn’t mean it; but some words of mine, I’m +afraid, gave Mr. Prout the impression--” + +Number Five laughed aloud. + +“You see it’s just the same thing with you, Padre,” said McTurk. “He +is quick to get an impression, ain’t he? But you mustn’t think we don’t +love him, ‘cause we do. There isn’t an ounce of vice about him.” + +A double knock fell on the door. + +“The Head to see Number Five study in his study at once,” said the voice +of Foxy, the school sergeant. + +“Whew!” said the Reverend John. “It seems to me that there is a great +deal of trouble coming for some people.” + +“My word! Mr. Prout’s gone and told the Head,” said Stalky. “He’s a +moral double-ender. Not fair, luggin’ the Head into a house-row.” + +“I should recommend a copy-book on a--h’m--safe and certain part,” said +the Reverend John disinterestedly. + +“Huh! He licks across the shoulders, an’ it would slam like a beastly +barn-door,” said Beetle. “Good-night, Padre. We’re in for it.” + +Once more they stood in the presence of the Head--Belial, Mammon, and +Lucifer. But they had to deal with a man more subtle than them all. Mr. +Prout had talked to him, heavily and sadly, for half an hour; and the +Head had seen all that was hidden from the house-master. + +“You’ve been bothering Mr. Prout,” he said pensively. “House-masters +aren’t here to be bothered by boys more than is necessary. I don’t like +being bothered by these things. You are bothering _me_. That is a very +serious offense. You see it?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Well, now, I purpose to bother you, on personal and private grounds, +because you have broken into my time. You are much too big to lick, so +I suppose I shall have to mark my displeasure in some other way. Say, a +thousand lines apiece, a week’s gating, and a few things of that kind. +Much too big to lick, aren’t you?” + +“Oh, no, sir,” said Stalky cheerfully; for a week’s gating in the summer +term is serious. + +“Ve-ry good. Then we will do what we can. I wish you wouldn’t bother +me.” + +It was a fair, sustained, equable stroke, with a little draw to it, +but what they felt most was his unfairness in stopping to talk between +executions. Thus: “Among the--lower classes this would lay me open to +a charge of--assault. You should be more grateful for your--privileges +than you are. There is a limit--one finds it by experience, +Beetle--beyond which it is never safe to pursue private vendettas, +because--don’t move--sooner or later one comes--into collision with +the--higher authority, who has studied the animal. _Et ego_--McTurk, +please--_in Arcadia vixi_. There’s a certain flagrant injustice about +this that ought to appeal to--your temperament. And that’s all! You will +tell your house-master that you have been formally caned by me.” + +“My word!” said McTurk, wriggling his shoulder-blades all down the +corridor. “That was business! The Prooshan Bates has an infernal +straight eye.” + +“Wasn’t it wily of me to ask for the lickin’,” said Stalky, “instead of +those impots?” + +“Rot! We were in for it from the first. I knew the look of his old eye,” + said Beetle. “I was within an inch of blubbing.” + +“Well, I didn’t exactly smile,” Stalky confessed. + +“Let’s go down to the lavatory and have a look at the damage. One of us +can hold the glass and t’others can squint.” + +They proceeded on these lines for some ten minutes. The wales were very +red and very level. There was not a penny to choose between any of them +for thoroughness, efficiency, and a certain clarity of outline that +stamps the work of the artist. + +“What are you doing down there?” Mr. Prout was at the head of the +lavatory stairs, attracted by the noise of splashing. + +“We’ve only been caned by the Head, sir, and we’re washing off the +blood. The Head said we were to tell you. We were coming to report +ourselves in a minute, sir. (_Sotto voce_.) That’s a score for Heffy!” + +“Well, he deserves to score something, poor devil,” said McTurk, putting +on his shirt. “We’ve sweated a stone and a half off him since we began.” + +“But look here, why aren’t we wrathy with the Head? He said it was a +flagrant injustice. So it is!” said Beetle. + +“Dear man,” said McTurk, and vouchsafed no further answer. + +It was Stalky who laughed till he had to hold on by the edge of a basin. + +“You _are_ a funny ass! What’s that for?” said Beetle. + +“I’m--I’m thinking of the flagrant injustice of it!” + + + + +THE MORAL REFORMERS. + + +There was no disguising the defeat. The victory was to Prout, but they +grudged it not. If he had broken the rules of the game by calling in the +Head, they had had a good run for their money. + +The Reverend John sought the earliest opportunity of talking things +over. Members of a bachelor Common-room, of a school where masters’ +studies are designedly dotted among studies and form-rooms, can, if they +choose, see a great deal of their charges. Number Five had spent some +cautious years in testing the Reverend John. He was emphatically a +gentleman. He knocked at a study door before entering; he comported +himself as a visitor and not a strayed lictor; he never prosed, and he +never carried over into official life the confidences of idle hours. +Prout was ever an unmitigated nuisance; King came solely as an avenger +of blood; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, seldom forgot +his office; but the Reverend John was a guest desired and beloved by +Number Five. + +Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent briar between his +teeth, chin down in three folds on his clerical collar, and blowing like +an amiable whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it appeared to +them, and specially of that last interview with the Head--in the matter +of usury. + +“One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good,” + he said, twinkling and shaking all over; “and, as you say, you were +entirely in the right.” + +“Ra-ather, Padre! We could have proved it if he’d let us talk,” said +Stalky; “but he didn’t. The Head’s a downy bird.” + +“He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! Well, you worked hard enough for +it.” + +“But he’s awfully fair. He doesn’t lick a chap in the morning an’ preach +at him in the afternoon,” said Beetle. + +“He can’t; he ain’t in Orders, thank goodness,” said McTurk. Number Five +held the very strongest views on clerical head-masters, and were ever +ready to meet their pastor in argument. + +“Almost all other schools have clerical Heads,” said the Reverend John +gently. + +“It isn’t fair on the chaps,” Stalky replied. “Makes ‘em sulky. Of +course it’s different with you, sir. You belong to the school--same as +we do. I mean ordinary clergymen.” + +“Well, I am a most ordinary clergyman; and Mr. Hartopp’s in Orders, +too.” + +“Ye--es, but he took ‘em after he came to the Coll. We saw him go up for +his exam. That’s all right,” said Beetle. “But just think if the Head +went and got ordained!” + +“What would happen, Beetle?” + +“Oh, the Coll. ‘ud go to pieces in a year, sir. There’s no doubt o’ +that.” + +“How d’you know?” The Reverend John was smiling. + +“We’ve been here nearly six years now. There are precious few things +about the Coll. we don’t know,” Stalky replied. “Why, even you came the +term after I did, sir. I remember your asking our names in form your +first lesson. Mr. King, Mr. Prout, and the Head, of course, are the only +masters senior to us--in that way.” + +“Yes, we’ve changed a good deal--in Common-room.” + +“Huh!” said Beetle with a grunt. “They came here, an’ they went away to +get married. Jolly good riddance, too!” + +“Doesn’t our Beetle hold with matrimony?” + +“No, Padre; don’t make fun of me. I’ve met chaps in the holidays who’ve +got married house-masters. It’s perfectly awful! They have babies and +teething and measles and all that sort of thing right bung _in_ +the school; and the masters’ wives give tea-parties--tea-parties, +Padre!--and ask the chaps to breakfast.” + +“That don’t matter so much,” said Stalky. “But the house-masters let +their houses alone, and they leave everything to the prefects. Why, in +one school, a chap told me, there were big baize doors and a passage +about a mile long between the house and the master’s house. They could +do just what they pleased.” + +“Satan rebuking sin with a vengeance.” + +“Oh, larks are right enough; but you know what we mean, Padre. After a +bit it gets worse an’ worse. Then there’s a big bust-up and a row that +gets into the papers, and a lot of chaps are expelled, you know.” + +“Always the wrong un’s; don’t forget that. Have a cup of cocoa, Padre?” + said McTurk with the kettle. + +“No, thanks; I’m smoking. Always the wrong ‘uns? Pro-ceed, my Stalky.” + +“And then”--Stalky warmed to the work--“everybody says, ‘Who’d ha’ +thought it? Shockin’ boys! Wicked little kids!’ It all comes of havin’ +married house-masters, _I_ think.” + +“A Daniel come to judgment.” + +“But it does,” McTurk interrupted. “I’ve met chaps in the holidays, an’ +they’ve told me the same thing. It looks awfully pretty for one’s people +to see--a nice separate house with a nice lady in charge, an’ all that. +But it isn’t. It takes the house-masters off their work, and it gives +the prefects a heap too much power, an’--an’--it rots up everything. You +see, it isn’t as if we were just an ordinary school. We take crammers’ +rejections as well as good little boys like Stalky. We’ve got to do that +to make our name, of course, and we get ‘em into Sandhurst somehow or +other, don’t we?” + +“True, O Turk. Like a book thou talkest, Turkey.” + +“And so we want rather different masters, don’t you think so, to other +places? We aren’t like the rest of the schools.” + +“It leads to all sorts of bullyin’, too, a chap told me,” said Beetle. + +“Well, you _do_ need most of a single man’s time, I must say.” The +Reverend John considered his hosts critically. “But do you never feel +that the world--the Common-room--is too much with you sometimes?” + +“Not exactly--in summer, anyhow.” Stalky’s eye roved contentedly to the +window. “Our bounds are pretty big, too, and they leave us to ourselves +a good deal.” + +“For example, here am I sitting in your study, very much in your way, +eh?” + +“Indeed you aren’t, Padre. Sit down. Don’t go, sir. You know we’re glad +whenever you come.” + +There was no doubting the sincerity of the voices. The Reverend John +flushed a little with pleasure and refilled his briar. + +“And we generally know where the Common-room are,” said Beetle +triumphantly. “Didn’t you come through our lower dormitories last night +after ten, sir?” + +“I went to smoke a pipe with your house-master. No, I didn’t give him +any impressions. I took a short cut through your dormitories.” + +“I sniffed a whiff of ‘baccy, this mornin’. Yours is stronger than Mr. +Prout’s. _I_ knew,” said Beetle, wagging his head. + +“Good heavens!” said the Reverend John absently. It was some years +before Beetle perceived that this was rather a tribute to innocence than +observation. The long, light, blindless dormitories, devoid of inner +doors, were crossed at all hours of the night by masters visiting one +another; for bachelors sit up later than married folk. Beetle had never +dreamed that there might be a purpose in this steady policing. + +“Talking about bullying,” the Reverend John resumed, “you all caught it +pretty hot when you were fags, didn’t you?” + +“Well, we must have been rather awful little beasts,” said Beetle, +looking serenely over the gulf between eleven and sixteen. “My Hat, what +bullies they were then--Fairburn, ‘Gobby’ Maunsell, and all that gang!” + +“‘Member when ‘Gobby’ called us the Three Blind Mice, and we had to get +up on the lockers and sing while he buzzed ink-pots at us?” said Stalky. +“They _were_ bullies if you like!” + +“But there isn’t any of it now,” said McTurk soothingly. + +“That’s where you make a mistake. We’re all inclined to say that +everything is all right as long we aren’t ourselves hurt. I sometimes +wonder if it is extinct--bullying.” + +“Fags bully each other horrid; but the upper forms are supposed to be +swottin’ for exams. They’ve got something else to think about,” said +Beetle. + +“Why? What do you think?” Stalky was watching the chaplain’s face. + +“I have my doubts.” Then, explosively, “On my word, for three moderately +intelligent boys you aren’t very observant. I suppose you were too busy +making things warm for your house-master to see what lay under your +noses when you were in the form-rooms last week?” + +“What, sir? I--I swear we didn’t see anything,” said Beetle. + +“Then I’d advise you to look. When a little chap is whimpering in a +corner and wears his clothes like rags, and never does any work, and +is notoriously the dirtiest little ‘corridor-caution’ in the Coll., +something’s wrong somewhere.” + +“That’s Clewer,” said McTurk under his breath. + +“Yes, Clewer. He comes to me for his French. It’s his first term, and +he’s almost as complete a wreck as you were, Beetle. He’s not naturally +clever, but he has been hammered till he’s nearly an idiot.” + +“Oh, no. They sham silly to get off more tickings,” said Beetle. “_I_ +know that.” + +“I’ve never actually seen him knocked about,” said the Reverend John. + +“The genuine article don’t do that in public,” said Beetle. “Fairburn +never touched me when any one was looking on.” + +“You needn’t swagger about it, Beetle,” said McTurk. “We all caught it +in our time.” + +“But I got it worse than any one,” said Beetle. “If you want an +authority on bullyin’, Padre, come to me. Corkscrews--brush-drill +keys--head-knucklin’--arm-twistin’--rockin’--Ag Ags--and all the rest +of it.” + +“Yes. I do want you as an authority, or rather I want your authority to +stop it--all of you.” + +“What about Abana and Pharpar, Padre--Harrison and Craye? They are +Mr. Prout’s pets,” said McTurk a little bitterly. “We aren’t even +sub-prefects.” + +“I’ve considered that, but on the other hand, since most bullying is +mere thoughtlessness--” + +“Not one little bit of it, Padre,” said McTurk. “Bullies like bullyin’. +They mean it. They think it up in lesson and practise it in the +quarters.” + +“Never mind. If the thing goes up to the prefects it may make another +house-row. You’ve had one already. Don’t laugh. Listen to me. I ask +you--my own Tenth Legion--to take the thing up quietly. I want little +Clewer made to look fairly clean and decent--” + +“Blowed if _I_ wash him!” whispered Stalky. + +“Decent and self-respecting. As for the other boy, whoever he is, +you can use your influence”--a purely secular light flickered in the +chaplain’s eye--“in any way you please to--to dissuade him. That’s all. +I’ll leave it to you. Good-night, _mes enfants_.” + +“Well, what are we goin’ to do?” Number Five stared at each other. + +“Young Clewer would give his eyes for a place to be quiet in. _I_ know +that,” said Beetle. “If we made him a study-fag, eh?” + +“No!” said McTurk firmly. “He’s a dirty little brute, and he’d mess up +everything. Besides, we ain’t goin’ to have any beastly Erickin’. D’you +want to walk about with your arm round his neck?” + +“He’d clean out the jam-pots, anyhow; an’ the burnt-porridge +saucepan--it’s filthy now.” + +“Not good enough,” said Stalky, bringing up both heels with a crash on +the table. “If we find the merry jester who’s been bullyin’ him an’ make +him happy, that’ll be all right. Why didn’t we spot him when we were in +the form-rooms, though?” + +“Maybe a lot of fags have made a dead set at Clewer. They do that +sometimes.” + +“Then we’ll have to kick the whole of the lower school in our house--on +spec. Come on,” said McTurk. + +“Keep your hair on! We mustn’t make a fuss about the biznai. Whoever +it is he’s kept quiet or we’d have seen him,” said Stalky. “We’ll walk +round and sniff about till we’re sure.” + +They drew the house form-rooms, accounting for every junior and senior +against whom they had suspicions; investigated, at Beetle’s suggestion, +the lavatories and box-rooms, but without result. Everybody seemed to be +present save Clewer. + +“Rum!” said Stalky, pausing outside a study door. “Golly!” + +A thin piping mixed with tears came muffled through the panels. + + “‘As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping--’” + +“Louder, you young devil, or I’ll buzz a book at you!” + + “‘With a pitcher of milk--’ + Oh, Campbell, _please_ don’t! + ‘To the fair of--” + +A book crashed on something soft, and squeals arose. + +“Well, I never thought it was a study-chap, anyhow. That accounts for +our not spotting him,” said Beetle. “Sefton and Campbell are rather +hefty chaps to tackle. Besides, one can’t go into their study like a +form-room.” + +“What swine!” McTurk listened. “Where’s the fun of it? I suppose +Clewer’s faggin’ for them.” + +“They aren’t prefects. That’s one good job,” said Stalky, with his +war-grin. “Sefton and Campbell! Um! Campbell and Sefton! Ah! One of +‘em’s a crammer’s pup.” + +The two were precocious hairy youths between seventeen and eighteen, +sent to the school in despair by parents who hoped that six months’ +steady cram might, perhaps, jockey them into Sandhurst. Nominally they +were in Mr. Prout’s house; actually they were under the Head’s eye; +and since he was very careful never to promote strange new boys to +prefectships, they considered they had a grievance against the school. +Sefton had spent three months with a London crammer, and the tale of his +adventures there lost nothing in the telling. Campbell, who had a fine +taste in clothes and a fluent vocabulary, followed his lead in looking +down loftily on the rest of the world. This was only their second term, +and the school, used to what it profanely called “crammers’ pups,” had +treated them with rather galling reserve. But their whiskers--Sefton +owned a real razor--and their mustaches were beyond question impressive. + +“Shall we go in an’ dissuade ‘em?” McTurk asked. “I’ve never had much to +do with ‘em, but I’ll bet my hat Campbell’s a funk.” + +“No--o! That’s _oratio directa_,” said Stalky, shaking his head. “I like +_oratio obliqua_. ‘Sides, where’d our moral influence be then? Think o’ +that!” + +“Rot! What are you goin’ to do?” Beetle turned into Lower Number Nine +form-room, next door to the study. + +“Me?” The lights of war flickered over Stalky’s face. “Oh, I want to +jape with ‘em. Shut up a bit!” + +He drove his hands into his pockets and stared out of window at the sea, +whistling between his teeth. Then a foot tapped the floor; one shoulder +lifted; he wheeled, and began the short quick double-shuffle--the +war-dance of Stalky in meditation. Thrice he crossed the empty +form-room, with compressed lips and expanded nostrils, swaying to the +quick-step. Then he halted before the dumb Beetle and softly knuckled +his head, Beetle bowing to the strokes. McTurk nursed one knee and +rocked to and fro. They could hear Clewer howling as though his heart +would break. + +“Beetle is the sacrifice,” Stalky said at last, “I’m sorry for you, +Beetle. ‘Member Galton’s ‘Art of Travel’ [one of the forms had been +studying that pleasant work] an’ the kid whose bleatin’ excited the +tiger?” + +“Oh, curse!” said Beetle uneasily. It was not his first season as a +sacrifice. “Can’t you get on without me?” + +“‘Fraid not, Beetle, dear. You’ve got to be bullied by Turkey an’ me. +The more you howl, o’ course, the better it’ll be. Turkey, go an’ +covet a stump and a box-rope from somewhere. We’ll tie him up for a +kill--_a’ la_ Galton. ‘Member when ‘Molly’ Fairburn made us cock-fight +with our shoes off, an’ tied up our knees?” + +“But that hurt like sin.” + +“Course it did. What a clever chap you are, Beetle! Turkey’ll knock +you all over the place. ‘Member we’ve had a big row all round, an’ I’ve +trapped you into doin’ this. Lend us your wipe.” Beetle was trussed for +cock-fighting; but, in addition to the transverse stump between elbow +and knee, His knees were bound with a box-rope. In this posture, at a +push from Stalky he rolled over sideways, covering himself with dust. + +“Ruffle his hair, Turkey. Now you get down, too. ‘The bleatin’ of the +kid excites the tiger.’ You two are in such a sweatin’ wax with me that +you only curse. ‘Member that. I’ll tickle you up with a stump. You’ll +have to blub, Beetle.” + +“Right O! I’ll work up to it in half a shake,” said Beetle. + +“Now begin--and remember the bleatin’ o’ the kid.” + +“Shut up, you brutes! Let me up! You’ve nearly cut my knees off. Oh, you +_are_ beastly cads! _Do_ shut up. ‘Tisn’t a joke!” Beetle’s protest was, +in tone, a work of art. + +“Give it to him, Turkey! Kick him! Roll him over! Kill him! Don’t funk, +Beetle, you brute. Kick him again, Turkey.” + +“He’s not blubbin’ really. Roll up, Beetle, or I’ll kick you into the +fender,” roared McTurk. They made a hideous noise among them, and the +bait allured their quarry. + +“Hullo! What’s the giddy jest?” Sefton and Campbell entered to find +Beetle on his side, his head against the fender, weeping copiously, +while McTurk prodded him in the back with his toes. + +“It’s only Beetle,” Stalky explained. “He’s shammin’ hurt. I can’t get +Turkey to go for him properly.” Sefton promptly kicked both boys, and +his face lighted. “All right, I’ll attend to ‘em. Get up an’ cock-fight, +you two. Give me the stump. I’ll tickle ‘em. Here’s a giddy jest! Come +on, Campbell. Let’s cook ‘em.” + +Then McTurk turned on Stalky and called him very evil names. + +“You said you were goin’ to cock-fight too, Stalky. Come on!” + +“More ass you for believin’ me, then!” shrieked Stalky. + +“Have you chaps had a row?” said Campbell. “Row?” said Stalky. “Huh! I’m +only educatin’ them. D’you know anythin’ about cock-fighting, Seffy?” + +“Do I know? Why, at Maclagan’s, where I was crammin’ in town, we used +to cock-fight in his drawing-room, and little Maclagan daren’t say +anything. But we were just the same as men there, of course. Do I know? +_I_‘ll show you.” + +“Can’t I get up?” moaned Beetle, as Stalky sat on his shoulder. + +“Don’t jaw, you fat piffler. You’re going to fight Seffy.” + +“He’ll slay me!” + +“Oh, lug ‘em into our study,” said Campbell. “It’s nice an’ quiet in +there. I’ll cock-fight Turkey. This is an improvement on young Clewer.” + +“Right O! I move it’s shoes-off for them an’ shoes-on for us,” said +Sefton joyously, and the two were flung down on the study floor. Stalky +rolled them behind an arm-chair. “Now I’ll tie you two up an’ direct the +bull-fight. Golly, what wrists you have, Seffy. They’re too thick for a +wipe; got a box-rope?” said he. + +“Lots in the corner,” Sefton replied. “Hurry up! Stop blubbin’, you +brute, Beetle. We’re goin’ to have a giddy campaign. Losers have to sing +for the winners--sing odes in honor of the conqueror. You call yourself +a beastly poet, don’t you, Beetle? I’ll poet you.” + +He wriggled into position by Campbell’s side. Swiftly and scientifically +the stumps were thrust through the natural crooks, and the wrists +tied with well-stretched box-ropes to an accompaniment of insults from +McTurk, bound, betrayed, and voluble behind the chair. Stalky set away +Campbell and Sefton, and strode over to his allies, locking the door on +the way. + +“And that’s all right,” said he in a changed voice. + +“What the devil--?” Sefton began. Beetle’s false tears had ceased; +McTurk, smiling, was on his feet. Together they bound the knees and +ankles of the enemy even more straitly. + +Stalky took the arm-chair and contemplated the scene with his blandest +smile. A man trussed for cock-fighting is, perhaps, the most helpless +thing in the world. + +“‘The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger.’ Oh, you frabjous asses!” + He lay back and laughed till he could no more. The victims took in the +situation but slowly. “We’ll give you the finest lickin’ you ever had +in your young lives when we get up!” thundered Sefton from the floor. +“You’ll laugh the other side of your mouth before you’ve done. What the +deuce d’you mean by this?” + +“You’ll see in two shakes,” said McTurk. “Don’t swear like that. What we +want to know is, why you two hulkin’ swine have been bullyin’ Clewer?” + +“It’s none of your business.” + +“What did you bully Clewer for?” The question was repeated with +maddening iteration by each in turn. They knew their work. + +“Because we jolly well chose!” was the answer at last. “Let’s get up.” + Even then they could not realize the game. + +“Well, now we’re goin’ to bully you because we jolly well choose. We’re +goin’ to be just as fair to you as you were to Clewer. He couldn’t do +anything against you. You can’t do anything to us. Odd, ain’t it?” + +“Can’t we? You wait an’ see.” + +“Ah,” said Beetle reflectively, “that shows you’ve never been properly +jested with. A public lickin’ ain’t in it with a gentle jape. Bet a bob +you’ll weep an’ promise anything.” + +“Look here, young Beetle, we’ll half kill you when we get up. I’ll +promise you that, at any rate.” + +“You’re going to be half killed first, though. Did you give Clewer +Head-knuckles?” + +“Did you give Clewer Head-knuckles?” McTurk echoed. At the twentieth +repetition--no boy can stand the torture of one unvarying query, which +is the essence of bullying--came confession. + +“We did, confound you!” + +“Then you’ll be knuckled;” and knuckled they were, according to ancient +experience. Head-knuckling is no trifle; “Molly” Fairburn of the old +days could not have done better. + +“Did you give Clewer Brush-drill?” This time the question was answered +sooner, and Brush-drill was dealt out for the space of five minutes by +Stalky’s watch. They could not even writhe in their bonds. No brush is +employed in Brush-drill. + +“Did you give Clewer the Key?” + +“No; we didn’t. I swear we didn’t!” from Campbell, rolling in agony. + +“Then we’ll give it to you, so you can see what it would be like if you +had.” + +The torture of the Key--which has no key at all--hurts excessively. They +endured several minutes of it, and their language necessitated the gag. + +“Did you give Clewer Corkscrews?” + +“Yes. Oh, curse your silly souls! Let us alone, you cads.” + +They were corkscrewed, and the torture of the Corkscrew--this has +nothing to do with corkscrews--is keener than the torture of the Key. + +The method and silence of the attacks was breaking their nerves. Between +each new torture came the pitiless, dazing rain of questions, and when +they did not answer to the point, Isabella-colored handkerchiefs were +thrust into their mouths. + +“Now are those all the things you did to Clewer? Take out the gag, +Turkey, and let ‘em answer.” + +“Yes, I swear that was all. Oh, you’re killing us, Stalky!” cried +Campbell. + +“Pre-cisely what Clewer said to you. I heard him. Now we’re goin’ to +show you what real bullyin’ is. ‘What I don’t like about you, Sefton, +is, you come to the Coll. with your stick-up collars an’ patent-leather +boots, an’ you think you can teach us something about bullying. Do you +think you can teach us anything about bullying? Take out the gag and let +him answer.” + +“No!”--ferociously. + +“He says no. Rock him to sleep. Campbell can watch.” + +It needs three boys and two boxing-gloves to rock a boy to sleep. Again +the operation has nothing to do with its name. Sefton was “rocked” till +his eyes set in his head and he gasped and crowed for breath, sick and +dizzy. + +“My Aunt!” said Campbell, appalled, from his corner, and turned white. + +“Put him away,” said Stalky. “Bring on Campbell. Now this _is_ bullyin’. +Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, what did you bully Clewer for? Take out +his gag and let him answer.” + +“I--I don’t know. Oh, let me off! I swear I’ll make it _pax_. Don’t +‘rock’ me!” + +“‘The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger.’ He says he don’t know. Set +him up, Beetle. Give me the glove an’ put in the gag.” + +In silence Campbell was “rocked” sixty-four times. + +“I believe I’m goin’ to die!” he gasped. “He says he is goin’ to die. +Put him away. Now, Sefton! Oh, I forgot! Sefton, what did you bully +Clewer for?” + +The answer is unprintable; but it brought not the faintest flush to +Stalky’s downy cheek. + +“Make him an Ag Ag, Turkey!” + +And an Ag Ag was he made, forthwith. The hard-bought experience of +nearly eighteen years was at his disposal, but he did not seem to +appreciate it. + +“He says we are sweeps. Put him away! Now, Campbell! Oh, I forgot! I +say, Campbell, what did you bully Clewer for?” + +Then came the tears--scalding tears; appeals for mercy and abject +promises of peace. Let them cease the tortures and Campbell would never +lift hand against them. The questions began again--to an accompaniment +of small persuasions. + +“You seem hurt, Campbell. Are you hurt?” + +“Yes. Awfully!” + +“He says he is hurt. Are you broke?” + +“Yes, yes! I swear I am. Oh, stop!” + +“He says he is broke. Are you humble?” + +“Yes!” + +“He says he is humble. Are you devilish humble?” + +“Yes!” + +“He says he is devilish humble. Will you bully Clewer any more?” + +“No. No--ooh!” + +“He says he won’t bully Clewer. Or any one else?” + +“No. I swear I won’t.” + +“Or any one else. What about that lickin’ you and Sefton were goin’ to +give us?” + +“I won’t! I won’t! I swear I won’t!” + +“He says he won’t lick us. Do you esteem yourself to know anything about +bullyin’?” + +“No, I don’t!” + +“He says he doesn’t know anything about bullyin’. Haven’t we taught you +a lot?” + +“Yes--yes!” + +“He says we’ve taught him a lot. Aren’t you grateful?” + +“Yes!” + +“He says he is grateful. Put him away. Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, +what did you bully Clewer for?” + +He wept anew; his nerves being raw. “Because I was a bully. I suppose +that’s what you want me to say?” + +“He says he is a bully. Right he is. Put him in the corner. No more +japes for Campbell. Now, Sefton!” + +“You devils! You young devils!” This and much more as Sefton was punted +across the carpet by skilful knees. + +“‘The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger.’ We’re goin’ to make you +beautiful. Where does he keep his shaving things? [Campbell told.] +Beetle, get some water. Turkey, make the lather. We’re goin’ to shave +you, Seffy, so you’d better lie jolly still, or you’ll get cut. I’ve +never shaved any one before.” + +“Don’t! Oh, don’t! Please don’t!” + +“Gettin’ polite, eh? I’m only goin’ to take off one ducky little +whisker--” + +“I’ll--I’ll make it _pax_, if you don’t. I swear I’ll let you off your +lickin’ when I get up!” + +“_And_ half that mustache we’re so proud of. He says he’ll let us off +our lickin’. Isn’t he kind?” + +McTurk laughed into the nickel-plated shaving-cup, and settled Sefton’s +head between Stalky’s vise-like knees. + +“Hold on a shake,” said Beetle, “you can’t shave long hairs. You’ve got +to cut all that mustache short first, an’ then scrape him.” + +“Well, I’m not goin’ to hunt about for scissors. Won’t a match do? Chuck +us the match-box. He _is_ a hog, you know; we might as well singe him. +Lie still!” He lit a vesta, but checked his hand. “I only want to take +off half, though.” + +“That’s all right.” Beetle waved the brush. “I’ll lather up to the +middle--see? and you can burn off the rest.” + +The thin-haired first mustache of youth fluffed off in flame to the +lather-line in the centre of the lip, and Stalky rubbed away the +burnt stumpage with his thumb. It was not a very gentle shave, but it +abundantly accomplished its purpose. + +“Now the whisker on the other side. Turn him over!” Between match and +razor this, too, was removed. “Give him his shaving-glass. Take the gag +out. I want to hear what he’ll say.” + +But there were no words. Sefton gazed at the lop-sided wreck in horror +and despair. Two fat tears rolled down his cheek. + +“Oh, I forgot! I say, Sefton, what did you bully Clewer for?” + +“Leave me alone! Oh, you infernal bullies, leave me alone! Haven’t I had +enough?” + +“He says we must leave him alone,” said McTurk. + +“He says we are bullies, an’ we haven’t even begun yet,” said Beetle. +“You’re ungrateful, Seffy. Golly! You do look an atrocity and a half!” + +“He says he has had enough,” said Stalky. “He errs!” + +“Well, to work, to work!” chanted McTurk, waving a stump. “Come on, my +giddy Narcissus. Don’t fall in love with your own reflection!” + +“Oh, let him off,” said Campbell from his corner; “he’s blubbing, too.” + +Sefton cried like a twelve-year-old with pain, shame, wounded vanity, +and utter helplessness. + +“You’ll make it _pax_, Sefton, won’t you? You can’t stand up to those +young devils--” + +“Don’t be rude, Campbell, de-ah,” said McTurk, “or you’ll catch it +again!” + +“You _are_ devils, you know,” said Campbell. + +“What? for a little bullyin’--same as you’ve been givin’ Clewer! How +long have you been jestin’ with him?” said Stalky. “All this term?” + +“We didn’t always knock him about, though!” + +“You did when you could catch him,” said Beetle, cross-legged on the +floor, dropping a stump from time to time across Sefton’s instep. “Don’t +I know it!” + +“I--perhaps we did.” + +“And you went out of your way to catch him? Don’t I know it! Because he +was an awful little beast, eh? Don’t I know it! Now, you see, _you_‘re +awful beasts, and you’re gettin’ what he got--for bein’ a beast. Just +because we choose.” + +“We never really bullied him--like you’ve done us.” + +“Yah!” said Beetle. “They never really bully--‘Molly’ Fairburn didn’t. +Only knock ‘em about a little bit. That’s what they say. Only kick their +souls out of ‘em, and they go and blub in the box-rooms. Shove their +heads into the ulsters an’ blub. Write home three times a day--yes, +you brute, I’ve done that--askin’ to be taken away. You’ve never been +bullied properly, Campbell I’m sorry you made _pax_.” + +“I’m not!” said Campbell, who was a humorist in a way. “Look out, you’re +slaying Sefton!” + +In his excitement Beetle had used the stump unreflectingly, and Sefton +was now shouting for mercy. + +“An’ you!” he cried, wheeling where he sat. “You’ve never been bullied, +either. Where were you before you came here?” + +“I--I had a tutor.” + +“Yah! You would. You never blubbed in your life. But you’re blubbin’ +now, by gum. Aren’t you blubbin’?” + +“Can’t you see, you blind beast?” Sefton fell over sideways, tear-tracks +furrowing the dried lather. Crack came the cricket-stump on the curved +latter-end of him. + +“Blind, am I,” said Beetle, “and a beast? Shut up, Stalky. I’m goin’ to +jape a bit with our friend, _a’ la_ ‘Molly’ Fairburn. _I_ think I can +see. Can’t I see, Sefton?” + +“The point is well taken,” said McTurk, watching the strap at work. +“You’d better say that he sees, Seffy.” + +“You do--you can! I swear you do!” yelled Sefton, for strong arguments +were coercing him. + +“Aren’t my eyes lovely?” The stump rose and fell steadily throughout +this catechism. + +“Yes.” + +“A gentle hazel, aren’t they?” + +“Yes--oh, yes!” + +“What a liar you are! They’re sky-blue. Ain’t they sky-blue?” + +“Yes--oh, yes!” + +“You don’t know your mind from one minute to another. You must +learn--you must learn.” + +“What a bait you’re in!” said Stalky. “Keep your hair on, Beetle.” + +“I’ve had it done to me,” said Beetle. “Now--about my being a beast.” + +“_Pax_--oh, _pax_!” cried Sefton; “make it _pax_. I’ll give up! Let me +off! I’m broke! I can’t stand it!” + +“Ugh! Just when we were gettin’ our hand in!” grunted McTurk. + +“They didn’t let Clewer off, I’ll swear.” + +“Confess--apologize--quick!” said Stalky. + +From the floor Sefton made unconditional surrender, more abjectly even +than Campbell. He would never touch any one again. He would go softly all +the days of his life. + +“We’ve got to take it, I suppose?” said Stalky. “All right, Sefton. +You’re broke? Very good. Shut up, Beetle! But before we let you up, you +an’ Campbell will kindly oblige us with ‘Kitty of Coleraine’--_a’ la_ +Clewer.” + +“That’s not fair,” said Campbell; “we’ve surrendered.” + +“‘Course you have. Now you’re goin’ to do what we tell you--same as +Clewer would. If you hadn’t surrendered you’d ha’ been really bullied. +Havin’ surrendered--do you follow, Seffy?--you sing odes in honor of the +conquerors. Hurry up!” + +They dropped into chairs luxuriously. Campbell and Sefton looked at each +other, and, neither taking comfort from that view, struck up “Kitty of +Coleraine.” + +“Vile bad,” said Stalky, as the miserable wailing ended. “If you hadn’t +surrendered it would have been our painful duty to buzz books at you for +singin’ out o’ tune. Now then.” + +He freed them from their bonds, but for several minutes they could not +rise. Campbell was first on his feet, smiling uneasily. Sefton staggered +to the table, buried his head in his arms, and shook with sobs. There +was no shadow of fight in either--only amazement, distress, and shame. + +“Ca--can’t he shave clean before tea, please?” said Campbell. “It’s ten +minutes to bell.” + +Stalky shook his head. He meant to escort the half-shaved one to the +meal. + +McTurk yawned in his chair and Beetle mopped his face. They were all +dripping with excitement and exertion. + +“If I knew anything about it, I swear I’d give you a moral lecture,” + said Stalky severely. + +“Don’t jaw; they’ve surrendered,” said McTurk. “This moral suasion +biznai takes it out of a chap.” + +“Don’t you see how gentle we’ve been? We might have called Clewer in to +look at you,” said Stalky. “‘The bleatin’ of the tiger excites the kid.’ +But we didn’t. We’ve only got to tell a few chaps in Coll. about this +and you’d be hooted all over the shop. Your life wouldn’t be worth +havin’. But we aren’t goin’ to do that, either. We’re strictly moral +suasers, Campbell; so, unless you or Seffy split about this, no one +will.” + +“I swear you’re a brick,” said Campbell. “I suppose I was rather a brute +to Clewer.” + +“It looked like it,” said Stalky. “But I don’t think Seffy need come +into hall with cock-eye whiskers. Horrid bad for the fags if they saw +him. He can shave. Ain’t you grateful, Sefton?” + +The head did not lift. Sefton was deeply asleep. + +“That’s rummy,” said McTurk, as a snore mixed with a sob. “‘Cheek, _I_ +think; or else he’s shammin’.” + +“No, ‘tisn’t,” said Beetle. “‘When ‘Molly’ Fairburn had attended to me +for an hour or so I used to go bung off to sleep on a form sometimes. +Poor devil! But he called me a beastly poet, though.” + +“Well, come on.” Stalky lowered his voice. “Good-by, Campbell. ‘Member, +if you don’t talk, nobody will.” + +There should have been a war-dance, but that all three were so utterly +tired that they almost went to sleep above the tea-cups in their study, +and slept till prep. + + +“A most extraordinary letter. Are all parents incurably mad? What do you +make of it?” said the Head, handing a closely written eight pages to the +Reverend John. + +“‘The only son of his mother, and she a widow.’ That is the least +reasonable sort.” The chaplain read with pursed lips. “If half +those charges are true he should be in the sick-house; whereas he is +disgustingly well. Certainly he has shaved. I noticed that.” + +“Under compulsion, as his mother points out. How delicious! How +salutary!” + +“You haven’t to answer her. It isn’t often I don’t know what has +happened in the school; but this is beyond me.” + +“If you asked me I should say seek not to propitiate. When one is forced +to take crammers’ pups--” + +“He was perfectly well at extra-tuition--with me--this morning,” said +the Head, absently. “Unusually well behaved, too.” + +“--they either educate the school, or the school, as in this case, +educates them. I prefer our own methods,” the chaplain concluded. + +“You think it was that?” A lift of the Head’s eye-brow. + +“I’m sure of it! And nothing excuses his trying to give the College a +bad name.” + +“That’s the line I mean to take with him,” the Head answered. + +The Augurs winked. + + +A few days later the Reverend John called on Number Five. “Why haven’t +we seen you before, Padre?” said they. + +“I’ve been watching times and seasons and events and men--and boys,” he +replied. “I am pleased with my Tenth Legion. I make them my compliments. +Clewer was throwing ink-balls in form this morning, instead of doing his +work. He is now doing fifty lines for--unheard-of audacity.” + +“You can’t blame us, sir,” said Beetle. “You told us to remove +the--er--pressure. That’s the worst of a fag.” + +“I’ve known boys five years his senior throw ink-balls, Beetle. To such +an one have I given two hundred lines--not so long ago. And now I come +to think of it, were those lines ever shown up?” + +“Were they, Turkey?’ said Beetle unblushingly. + +“Don’t you think Clewer looks a little cleaner, Padre?” Stalky +interrupted. + +“We’re no end of moral reformers,” said McTurk. + +“It was all Stalky, but it was a lark,” said Beetle. + +“I have noticed the moral reform in several quarters. Didn’t I tell you +you had more influence than any boys in the Coll. if you cared to use +it?” + +“It’s a trifle exhaustin’ to use frequent--our kind of moral suasion. +Besides, you see, it only makes Clewer cheeky.” + +“I wasn’t thinking of Clewer; I was thinking of--the other people, +Stalky.” + +“Oh, we didn’t bother much about the other people,” said McTurk. “Did +we?” + +“But _I_ did--from the beginning.” + +“Then you knew, sir?” + +A downward puff of smoke. “Boys educate each other, they say, more than +we can or dare. If I had used one half of the moral suasion you may or +may not have employed--” + +“With the best motives in the world. Don’t forget our pious motives, +Padre,” said McTurk. + +“I suppose I should be now languishing in Bideford jail, shouldn’t I? +Well, to quote the Head, in a little business which we have agreed to +forget, that strikes me as flagrant injustice... What are you laughing +at, you young sinners? Isn’t it true? I will not stay to be shouted at. +What I looked into this den of iniquity for was to find out if any one +cared to come down for a bathe off the Ridge. But I see you won’t.” + +“Won’t we, though! Half a shake, Padre Sahib, till we get our towels, +and _nous sommes avec vous_!” + + + + +A LITTLE PREP. + + +Easter term was but a month old when Stettson major, a day-boy, +contracted diphtheria, and the Head was very angry. He decreed a new and +narrower set of bounds--the infection had been traced to an out-lying +farmhouse--urged the prefects severely to lick all trespassers, and +promised extra attentions from his own hand. There were no words bad +enough for Stettson major, quarantined at his mother’s house, who had +lowered the school-average of health. This he said in the gymnasium +after prayers. Then he wrote some two hundred letters to as many anxious +parents and guardians, and bade the school carry on. The trouble did not +spread, but, one night, a dog-cart drove to the Head’s door, and in the +morning the Head had gone, leaving all things in charge of Mr. King, +senior house-master. The Head often ran up to town, where the school +devoutly believed he bribed officials for early proofs of the Army +Examination papers; but this absence was unusually prolonged. + +“Downy old bird!” said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in the +study. “He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under a false +name.” + +“What for?” Beetle entered joyously into the libel. + +“Forty shillin’s or a month for hackin’ the chucker-out of the Pavvy on +the shins. Bates always has a spree when he goes to town. Wish he +was back, though. I’m about sick o’ King’s ‘whips an’ scorpions’ an’ +lectures on public-school spirit--yah!--and scholarship!” + +“‘Crass an’ materialized brutality of the middle-classes--readin’ solely +for marks. Not a scholar in the whole school,’” McTurk quoted, pensively +boring holes in the mantel-piece with a hot poker. + +“That’s rather a sickly way of spending an afternoon. Stinks too. +Let’s come out an’ smoke. Here’s a treat.” Stalky held up a long Indian +cheroot. “‘Bagged it from my pater last holidays. I’m a bit shy of it +though; it’s heftier than a pipe. We’ll smoke it palaver-fashion. Hand +it round, eh? Let’s lie up behind the old harrow on the Monkey-farm +Road.” + +“Out of bounds. Bounds beastly strict these days, too. Besides, we shall +cat.” Beetle sniffed the cheroot critically. “It’s a regular Pomposo +Stinkadore.” + +“You can; I shan’t. What d’you say, Turkey?” + +“Oh, may’s well, I s’pose.” + +“Chuck on your cap, then. It’s two to one. Beetle, out you come!” + +They saw a group of boys by the notice-board in the corridor; little +Foxy, the school sergeant, among them. + +“More bounds, I expect,” said Stalky. “Hullo, Foxibus, who are you in +mournin’ for?” There was a broad band of crape round Foxy’s arm. + +“He was in my old regiment,” said Foxy, jerking his head towards the +notices, where a newspaper cutting was thumb-tacked between call-over +lists. + +“By gum!” quoth Stalky, uncovering as he read. “It’s old +Duncan--Fat-Sow Duncan--killed on duty at something or other Kotal. +‘_Rallyin’ his men with conspicuous gallantry._’ He would, of course. +‘_The body was recovered_.’ That’s all right. They cut ‘em up sometimes, +don’t they, Foxy?” + +“Horrid,” said the sergeant briefly. + +“Poor old Fat-Sow! I was a fag when he left. How many does that make to +us, Foxy?” + +“Mr. Duncan, he is the ninth. He come here when he was no bigger +than little Grey tertius. My old regiment, too. Yiss, nine to us, Mr. +Corkran, up to date.” + +The boys went out into the wet, walking swiftly. + +“Wonder how it feels--to be shot and all that,” said Stalky, as they +splashed down a lane. “Where did it happen, Beetle?” + +“Oh, out in India somewhere. We’re always rowin’ there. But look here, +Stalky, what _is_ the good o’ sittin’ under a hedge an’ cattin’? It’s +be-eastly cold. It’s be-eastly wet, and we’ll be collared as sure as a +gun.” + +“Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess yet?” + Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats. They +pushed through a dripping hedge, landed among water-logged clods, and +sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputterings +of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between +closed forefinger and thumb. + +“Good job we hadn’t one apiece, ain’t it?” said Stalky, shivering +through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before +them, and they followed his example... + +“I told you,” moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. “Oh, Stalky, you are +a fool!” + +“_Je cat_, _tu cat_, _il cat_. _Nous cattons_!” McTurk handed up his +contribution and lay hopelessly on the cold iron. + +“Something’s wrong with the beastly thing. I say, Beetle, have you been +droppin’ ink on it?” + +But Beetle was in no case to answer. Limp and empty, they sprawled +across the harrow, the rust marking their ulsters in red squares and the +abandoned cheroot-end reeking under their very cold noses. Then--they +had heard nothing--the Head himself stood before them--the Head who +should have been in town bribing examiners--the Head fantastically +attired in old tweeds and a deer-stalker! + +“Ah,” he said, fingering his mustache. “Very good. I might have guessed +who it was. You will go back to the College and give my compliments to +Mr. King and ask him to give you an extra-special licking. You will then +do me five hundred lines. I shall be back to-morrow. Five hundred lines +by five o’clock to-morrow. You are also gated for a week. This is not +exactly the time for breaking bounds. Extra-special, please.” + +He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had come. There was a +murmur of women’s voices in the deep lane. + +“Oh, you Prooshan brute!” said McTurk as the voices died away. “Stalky, +it’s all your silly fault.” + +“Kill him! Kill him!” gasped Beetle. + +“I ca-an’t. I’m going to cat again... I don’t mind that, but King’ll +gloat over us horrid. Extra-special, ooh!” + +Stalky made no answer--not even a soft one. They went to College and +received that for which they had been sent. King enjoyed himself most +thoroughly, for by virtue of their seniority the boys were exempt from +his hand, save under special order. Luckily, he was no expert in the +gentle art. + +“‘Strange, how desire doth outrun performance,’” said Beetle +irreverently, quoting from some Shakespeare play that they were cramming +that term. They regained their study and settled down to the imposition. + +“You’re quite right, Beetle.” Stalky spoke in silky and propitiating +tones. “Now, if the Head had sent us up to a prefect, we’d have got +something to remember!” + +“Look here,” McTurk began with cold venom, “we aren’t goin’ to row you +about this business, because it’s too bad for a row; but we want you +to understand you’re jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. You’re a plain +ass.” + +“How was I to know that the Head ‘ud collar us? What was he doin’ in +those ghastly clothes, too?” + +“Don’t try to raise a side-issue,” Beetle grunted severely. + +“Well, it was all Stettson major’s fault. If he hadn’t gone an’ got +diphtheria ‘twouldn’t have happened. But don’t you think it rather +rummy--the Head droppin’ on us that way?” + +“Shut up! You’re dead!” said Beetle. “We’ve chopped your spurs off your +beastly heels. We’ve cocked your shield upside down and---and I don’t +think you ought to be allowed to brew for a month.” + +“Oh, stop jawin’ at me. I want--” + +“Stop? Why--why, we’re gated for a week.” McTurk almost howled as the +agony of the situation overcame him. “A lickin’ from King, five hundred +lines, _and_ a gatin’. D’you expect us to kiss you, Stalky, you beast?” + +“Drop rottin’ for a minute. I want to find out about the Head bein’ +where he was.” + +“Well, you have. You found him quite well and fit. Found him makin’ love +to Stettson major’s mother. That was her in the lane--I heard her. And +so we were ordered a lickin’ before a day-boy’s mother. Bony old widow, +too,” said McTurk. “Anything else you’d like to find out?” + +“I don’t care. I swear I’ll get even with him some day,” Stalky growled. + +“Looks like it,” said McTurk. “Extra-special, week’s gatin’ and five +hundred... and now you’re goin’ to row about it! Help scrag him, +Beetle!” Stalky had thrown his Virgil at them. + +The Head returned next day without explanation, to find the lines +waiting for him and the school a little relaxed under Mr. King’s +viceroyalty. Mr. King had been talking at and round and over the boys’ +heads, in a lofty and promiscuous style, of public-school spirit and the +traditions of ancient seats; for he always improved an occasion. Beyond +waking in two hundred and fifty young hearts a lively hatred of all +other foundations, he accomplished little--so little, indeed, that when, +two days after the Head’s return, he chanced to come across Stalky & +Co., gated but ever resourceful, playing marbles in the corridor, he +said that he was not surprised--not in the least surprised. This was +what he had expected from persons of their _morale_. + +“But there isn’t any rule against marbles, sir. Very interestin’ game,” + said Beetle, his knees white with chalk and dust. Then he received +two hundred lines for insolence, besides an order to go to the nearest +prefect for judgment and slaughter. + +This is what happened behind the closed doors of Flint’s study, and +Flint was then Head of the Games:-- + +“Oh, I say, Flint. King has sent me to you for playin’ marbles in the +corridor an’ shoutin’ ‘alley tor’ an’ ‘knuckle down.’” + +“What does he suppose I have to do with that?” was the answer. + +“Dunno. Well?” Beetle grinned wickedly. “What am I to tell him? He’s +rather wrathy about it.” + +“If the Head chooses to put a notice in the corridor forbiddin’ marbles, +I can do something; but I can’t move on a house-master’s report. He +knows that as well as I do.” + +The sense of this oracle Beetle conveyed, all unsweetened, to King, who +hastened to interview Flint. + +Now Flint had been seven and a half years at the College, counting six +months with a London crammer, from whose roof he had returned, homesick, +to the Head for the final Army polish. There were four or five other +seniors who had gone through much the same mill, not to mention +boys, rejected by other establishments on account of a certain +overwhelmingness, whom the Head had wrought into very fair shape. It was +not a Sixth to be handled without gloves, as King found. + +“Am I to understand it is your intention to allow board-school games +under your study windows, Flint? If so, I can only say--” He said much, +and Flint listened politely. + +“Well, sir, if the Head sees fit to call a prefects’ meeting we are +bound to take the matter up. But the tradition of the school is that the +prefects can’t move in any matter affecting the whole school without the +Head’s direct order.” + +Much more was then delivered, both sides a little losing their temper. + +After tea, at an informal gathering of prefects in his study, Flint +related the adventure. + +“He’s been playin’ for this for a week, and now he’s got it. You know as +well as I do that if he hadn’t been gassing at us the way he has, that +young devil Beetle wouldn’t have dreamed of marbles.” + +“We know that,” said Perowne, “but that isn’t the question. On +Flint’s showin’ King has called the prefects names enough to justify +a first-class row. Crammers’ rejections, ill-regulated hobble-de-hoys, +wasn’t it? Now it’s impossible for prefects--” + +“Rot,” said Flint. “King’s the best classical cram we’ve got; and +‘tisn’t fair to bother the Head with a row. He’s up to his eyes with +extra-tu and Army work as it is. Besides, as I told King, we _aren’t_ a +public school. We’re a limited liability company payin’ four per cent. +My father’s a shareholder, too.” + +“What’s that got to do with it?” said Venner, a red-headed boy of +nineteen. + +“Well, seems to me that we should be interferin’ with ourselves. We’ve +got to get into the Army or--get out, haven’t we? King’s hired by the +Council to teach us. All the rest’s gumdiddle. Can’t you see?” + +It might have been because he felt the air was a little thunderous that +the Head took his after-dinner cheroot to Flint’s study; but he so +often began an evening in a prefect’s room that nobody suspected when he +drifted in pensively, after the knocks that etiquette demanded. + +“Prefects’ meeting?” A cock of one wise eye-brow. + +“Not exactly, sir; we’re just talking things over. Won’t you take the +easy chair?” + +“Thanks. Luxurious infants, you are.” He dropped into Flint’s big +half-couch and puffed for a while in silence. “Well, since you’re all +here, I may confess that I’m the mute with the bowstring.” + +The young faces grew serious. The phrase meant that certain of their +number would be withdrawn from all further games for extra-tuition. It +might also mean future success at Sandhurst; but it was present ruin for +the First Fifteen. + +“Yes, I’ve come for my pound of flesh. I ought to have had you out +before the Exeter match; but it’s our sacred duty to beat Exeter.” + +“Isn’t the Old Boys’ match sacred, too, sir?” said Perowne. The Old +Boys’ match was the event of the Easter term. + +“We’ll hope they aren’t in training. Now for the list. First I want +Flint. It’s the Euclid that does it. You must work deductions with me. +Perowne, extra mechanical drawing. Dawson goes to Mr. King for extra +Latin, and Venner to me for German. Have I damaged the First Fifteen +much?” He smiled sweetly. + +“Ruined it, I’m afraid, sir,” said Flint. “Can’t you let us off till the +end of the term?” + +“Impossible. It will be a tight squeeze for Sandhurst this year.” + +“And all to be cut up by those vile Afghans, too,” said Dawson. +“Wouldn’t think there’d be so much competition, would you?” + +“Oh, that reminds me. Crandall is coming down with the Old Boys--I’ve +asked twenty of them, but we shan’t get more than a weak team. I don’t +know whether he’ll be much use, though. He was rather knocked about, +recovering poor old Duncan’s body.” + +“Crandall major--the Gunner?” Perowne asked. + +“No, the minor--‘Toffee’ Crandall--in a native infantry regiment. He was +almost before your time, Perowne.” + +“The papers didn’t say anything about him. We read about Fat-Sow, of +course. What’s Crandall done, sir?” + +“I’ve brought over an Indian paper that his mother sent me. It was +rather a--hefty, I think you say--piece of work. Shall I read it?” The +Head knew how to read. When he had finished the quarter-column of close +type everybody thanked him politely. + +“Good for the old Coll.!” said Perowne. “Pity he wasn’t in time to save +Fat-Sow, though. That’s nine to us, isn’t it, in the last three years?” + +“Yes... And I took old Duncan off all games for extra-tu five years ago +this term,” said the Head. “By the way, who do you hand over the Games +to, Flint?” + +“Haven’t thought yet. Who’d you recommend, sir?” + +“No, thank you. I’ve heard it casually hinted behind my back that the +Prooshan Bates is a downy bird, but he isn’t going to make himself +responsible for a new Head of the Games. Settle it among yourselves. +Good-night.” + +“And that’s the man,” said Flint, when the door shut, “that you want to +bother with a dame’s school row.” + +“I was only pullin’ your fat leg,” Perowne returned, hastily. “You’re so +easy to draw, Flint.” + +“Well, never mind that. The Head’s knocked the First Fifteen to bits, +and we’ve got to pick up the pieces, or the Old Boys will have a +walk-over. Let’s promote all the Second Fifteen and make Big Side play +up. There’s heaps of talent somewhere that we can polish up between now +and the match.” + +The case was represented so urgently to the school that even Stalky +and McTurk, who affected to despise football, played one Big-Side game +seriously. They were forthwith promoted ere their ardor had time to +cool, and the dignity of their Caps demanded that they should keep some +show of virtue. The match-team was worked at least four days out of +seven, and the school saw hope ahead. + +With the last week of the term the Old Boys began to arrive, and their +welcome was nicely proportioned to their worth. Gentlemen cadets from +Sandhurst and Woolwich, who had only left a year ago, but who carried +enormous side, were greeted with a cheerful “Hullo! What’s the Shop +like?” from those who had shared their studies. Militia subalterns had +more consideration, but it was understood they were not precisely of the +true metal. Recreants who, failing for the Army, had gone into business +or banks were received for old sake’s sake, but in no way made too much +of. But when the real subalterns, officers and gentlemen full-blown--who +had been to the ends of the earth and back again and so carried no +side--came on the scene strolling about with the Head, the school +divided right and left in admiring silence. And when one laid hands on +Flint, even upon the Head of the Games crying, “Good Heavens! What do +you mean by growing in this way? You were a beastly little fag when I +left,” visible haloes encircled Flint. They would walk to and fro in +the corridor with the little red school-sergeant, telling news of old +regiments; they would burst into form-rooms sniffing the well-remembered +smells of ink and whitewash; they would find nephews and cousins in the +lower forms and present them with enormous wealth; or they would invade +the gymnasium and make Foxy show off the new stock on the bars. + +Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was father-confessor +and agent-general to them all; for what they shouted in their unthinking +youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhood--to wit, that the +Prooshan Bates was “a downy bird.” Young blood who had stumbled into an +entanglement with a pastry-cook’s daughter at Plymouth; experience who +had come into a small legacy but mistrusted lawyers; ambition halting +at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that would lead him farthest; +extravagance pursued by the money-lender; arrogance in the thick of a +regimental row--each carried his trouble to the Head; and Chiron showed +him, in language quite unfit for little boys, a quiet and safe way +round, out, or under. So they overflowed his house, smoked his cigars, +and drank his health as they had drunk it all the earth over when two or +three of the old school had foregathered. + +“Don’t stop smoking for a minute,” said the Head. “The more you’re out +of training the better for us. I’ve demoralized the First Fifteen with +extra-tu.” + +“Ah, but we’re a scratch lot. Have you told ‘em we shall need a +substitute even if Crandall can play?” said a Lieutenant of Engineers +with a D.S.O. to his credit. + +“He wrote me he’d play, so he can’t have been much hurt. He’s coming +down to-morrow morning.” + +“Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor Duncan’s body?” The Head +nodded. “Where are you going to put him? We’ve turned you out of house +and home already, Head Sahib.” This was a Squadron Commander of Bengal +Lancers, home on leave. + +“I’m afraid he’ll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know old boys +can claim that privilege. Yes, I think little Crandall minor must bed +down there once more.” + +“Bates Sahib “--a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head’s +neck--“you’ve got something up your sleeve. Confess! I know that +twinkle.” + +“Can’t you see, you cuckoo?” a Submarine Miner interrupted. “Crandall +goes up to the dormitory as an object-lesson, for moral effect and so +forth. Isn’t that true, Head Sahib?” + +“It is. You know too much, Purvis. I licked you for that in ‘79.” + +“You did, sir, and it’s my private belief you chalked the cane.” + +“N-no. But I’ve a very straight eye. Perhaps that misled you.” + +That opened the flood-gates of fresh memories, and they all told tales +out of school. + +When Crandall minor that was--Lieutenant R. Crandall of an ordinary +Indian regiment--arrived from Exeter on the morning of the match, he +was cheered along the whole front of the College, for the prefects +had repeated the sense of that which the Head had read them in Flint’s +study. When Prout’s house understood that he would claim his Old Boy’s +right to a bed for one night, Beetle ran into King’s house next door +and executed a public “gloat” up and down the enemy’s big form-room, +departing in a haze of ink-pots. + +“What d’you take any notice of those rotters for?” said Stalky, +playing substitute for the Old Boys, magnificent in black jersey, white +knickers, and black stockings. “I talked to _him_ up in the dormitory +when he was changin’. Pulled his sweater down for him. He’s cut about +all over the arms--horrid purply ones. He’s goin’ to tell us about it +to-night. I asked him to when I was lacin’ his boots.” + +“Well, you _have_ got cheek,” said Beetle, enviously. + +“Slipped out before I thought. But he wasn’t a bit angry. He’s no end of +a chap. I swear, I’m goin’ to play up like beans. Tell Turkey!” + +The technique of that match belongs to a bygone age. Scrimmages were +tight and enduring; hacking was direct and to the purpose; and around +the scrimmage stood the school, crying, “Put down your heads and shove!” + Toward the end everybody lost all sense of decency, and mothers of +day-boys too close to the touch-line heard language not included in the +bills. No one was actually carried off the field, but both sides felt +happier when time was called, and Beetle helped Stalky and McTurk into +their overcoats. The two had met in the many-legged heart of things, +and, as Stalky said, had “done each other proud.” As they swaggered +woodenly behind the teams--substitutes do not rank as equals of hairy +men--they passed a pony-carriage near the wall, and a husky voice cried, +“Well played. Oh, played indeed!” It was Stettson major, white-checked +and hollow-eyed, who had fought his way to the ground under escort of an +impatient coachman. + +“Hullo, Stettson,” said Stalky, checking. “Is it safe to come near you +yet?” + +“Oh, yes. I’m all right. They wouldn’t let me out before, but I had to +come to the match. Your mouth looks pretty plummy.” + +“Turkey trod on it accidental-done-a-purpose. Well, I’m glad you’re +better, because we owe you something. You and your membranes got us into +a sweet mess, young man.” + +“I heard of that,” said the boy, giggling. “The Head told me.” + +“Dooce he did! When?” + +“Oh, come on up to Coll. My shin’ll stiffen if we stay jawin’ here.” + +“Shut up, Turkey. I want to find out about this. Well?” + +“He was stayin’ at our house all the time I was ill.” + +“What for? Neglectin’ the Coll. that way? ‘Thought he was in town.” + +“I was off my head, you know, and they said I kept on callin’ for him.” + +“Cheek! You’re only a day-boy.” + +“He came just the same, and he about saved my life. I was all bunged up +one night--just goin’ to croak, the doctor said--and they stuck a tube +or somethin’ in my throat, and the Head sucked out the stuff.” + +“Ugh! ‘Shot if _I_ would!” + +“He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the doctor said. So he stayed +on at our house instead of going back. I’d ha’ croaked in another twenty +minutes, the doctor says.” + +Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up and nearly ran over +the three. + +“My Hat!” said Beetle. “That’s pretty average heroic.” + +“Pretty average!” McTurk’s knee in the small of his back cannoned him +into Stalky, who punted him back. “You ought to be hung!” + +“And the Head ought to get the V.C.,” said Stalky. “Why, he might have +been dead _and_ buried by now. But he wasn’t. But he didn’t. Ho! ho! He +just nipped through the hedge like a lusty old blackbird. Extra-special, +five hundred lines, an’ gated for a week--all sereno!” + +“I’ve read o’ somethin’ like that in a book,” said Beetle. “Gummy, what +a chap! Just think of it!” + +“I’m thinking,” said McTurk; and he delivered a wild Irish yell that +made the team turn round. + +“Shut your fat mouth,” said Stalky, dancing with impatience. “Leave it +to your Uncle Stalky, and he’ll have the Head on toast. If you say +a word, Beetle, till I give you leave, I swear I’ll slay you. +_Habeo Capitem crinibus minimis._ I’ve got him by the short hairs! Now +look as if nothing had happened.” + +There was no need of guile. The school was too busy cheering the drawn +match. It hung round the lavatories regardless of muddy boots while the +team washed. It cheered Crandall minor whenever it caught sight of him, +and it cheered more wildly than ever after prayers, because the Old Boys +in evening dress, openly twirling their mustaches, attended, and +instead of standing with the masters, ranged themselves along the +wall immediately before the prefects; and the Head called them over, +too--majors, minors, and tertiuses, after their old names. + +“Yes, it’s all very fine,” he said to his guests after dinner, “but the +boys are getting a little out of hand. There will be trouble and sorrow +later, I’m afraid. You’d better turn in early, Crandall. The dormitory +will be sitting up for you. I don’t know to what dizzy heights you may +climb in your profession, but I do know you’ll never get such absolute +adoration as you’re getting now.” + +“Confound the adoration. I want to finish my cigar, sir.” + +“It’s all pure gold. Go where glory waits, Crandall--minor.” + +The setting of that apotheosis was a ten-bed attic dormitory, +communicating through doorless openings with three others. The gas +flickered over the raw pine washstands. There was an incessant +whistling of drafts, and outside the naked windows the sea beat on the +Pebbleridge. + +“Same old bed--same old mattress, I believe,” said Crandall, yawning. +“Same old everything. Oh, but I’m lame! I’d no notion you chaps could +play like this.” He caressed a battered shin. “You’ve given us all +something to remember you by.” + +It needed a few minutes to put them at their ease; and, in some way they +could not understand, they were more easy when Crandall turned round and +said his prayers--a ceremony he had neglected for some years. + +“Oh, I _am_ sorry. I’ve forgotten to put out the gas.” + +“Please don’t bother,” said the prefect of the dormitory. “Worthington +does that.” + +A nightgowned twelve-year-old, who had been waiting to show off, leaped +from his bed to the bracket and back again, by way of a washstand. + +“How d’you manage when he’s asleep?” said Crandall, chuckling. + +“Shove a cold cleek down his neck.” + +“It was a wet sponge when I was junior in the dormitory... Hullo! What’s +happening?” + +The darkness had filled with whispers, the sound of trailing rugs, bare +feet on bare boards, protests, giggles, and threats such as: + +“Be quiet, you ass!... Squattez-vous on the floor, then!... I swear you +aren’t going to sit on _my_ bed!... Mind the tooth-glass,” etc. + +“Sta--Corkran said,” the prefect began, his tone showing his sense of +Stalky’s insolence, “that perhaps you’d tell us about that business with +Duncan’s body.” + +“Yes--yes--yes,” ran the keen whispers. “Tell us” + +“There’s nothing to tell. What on earth are you chaps hoppin’ about in +the cold for?” + +“Never mind us,” said the voices. “Tell about Fat-Sow.” + +So Crandall turned on his pillow and spoke to the generation he could +not see. + +“Well, about three months ago he was commanding a treasure-guard--a cart +full of rupees to pay troops with--five thousand rupees in silver. He +was comin’ to a place called Fort Pearson, near Kalabagh.” + +“I was born there,” squeaked a small fag. “It was called after my +uncle.” + +“Shut up--you and your uncle! Never mind him, Crandall.” + +“Well, ne’er mind. The Afridis found out that this treasure was on the +move, and they ambushed the whole show a couple of miles before he got +to the fort, and cut up the escort. Duncan was wounded, and the escort +hooked it. There weren’t more than twenty Sepoys all told, and there +were any amount of Afridis. As things turned out, I was in charge at +Fort Pearson. Fact was, I’d heard the firing and was just going to see +about it, when Duncan’s men came up. So we all turned back together. +They told me something about an officer, but I couldn’t get the hang of +things till I saw a chap under the wheels of the cart out in the open, +propped up on one arm, blazing away with a revolver. You see, the escort +had abandoned the cart, and the Afridis--they’re an awfully suspicious +gang--thought the retreat was a trap--sort of draw, you know--and the +cart was the bait. So they had left poor old Duncan alone. ‘Minute they +spotted how few we were, it was a race across the flat who should reach +old Duncan first. We ran, and they ran, and we won, and after a little +hackin’ about they pulled off. I never knew it was one of us till I was +right on top of him. There are heaps of Duncans in the service, and of +course the name didn’t remind me. He wasn’t changed at all hardly. He’d +been shot through the lungs, poor old man, and he was pretty thirsty. +I gave him a drink and sat down beside him, and--funny thing, too--he +said, ‘Hullo, Toffee!’ and I said, ‘Hullo, Fat-Sow! hope you aren’t +hurt,’ or something of the kind. But he died in a minute or two--never +lifted his head off my knees... I say, you chaps out there will get your +death of cold. Better go to bed.” + +“All right. In a minute. But your cuts--your cuts. How did you get +wounded?” + +“That was when we were taking the body back to the Fort. They came on +again, and there was a bit of a scrimmage.” + +“Did you kill any one?” + +“Yes. Shouldn’t wonder. Good-night.” + +“Good-night. Thank you, Crandall. Thanks awf’ly, Crandall. Good-night.” + +The unseen crowds withdrew. His own dormitory rustled into bed and lay +silent for a while. + +“I say, Crandall”--Stalky’s voice was tuned to a wholly foreign +reverence. + +“Well, what?” + +“Suppose a chap found another chap croaking with diphtheria--all bunged +up with it--and they stuck a tube in his throat and the chap sucked the +stuff out, what would you say?” + +“Um,” said Crandall, reflectively. “I’ve only heard of one case, and +that was a doctor. He did it for a woman.” + +“Oh, this wasn’t a woman. It was just a boy.” + +“Makes it all the finer, then. It’s about the bravest thing a man can +do. Why?” + +“Oh, I heard of a chap doin’ it. That’s all.” + +“Then he’s a brave man.” + +“Would _you_ funk it?” + +“Ra-ather. Anybody would. Fancy dying of diphtheria in cold blood.” + +“Well--ah! Er! Look here!” The sentence ended in a grunt, for Stalky had +leaped out of bed and with McTurk was sitting on the head of Beetle, who +would have sprung the mine there and then. + +Next day, which was the last of the term and given up to a few wholly +unimportant examinations, began with wrath and war. Mr. King had +discovered that nearly all his house--it lay, as you know, next door but +one to Prout’s in the long range of buildings--had unlocked the doors +between the dormitories and had gone in to listen to a story told by +Crandall. He went to the Head, clamorous, injured, appealing; for +he never approved of allowing so-called young men of the world to +contaminate the morals of boyhood. Very good, said the Head, he would +attend to it. + +“Well, I’m awf’ly sorry,” said Crandall guiltily. “I don’t think I told +‘em anything they oughtn’t to hear. Don’t let them get into trouble on +my account.” + +“Tck!” the Head answered, with the ghost of a wink. “It isn’t the boys +that make trouble; it’s the masters. However, Prout and King don’t +approve of dormitory gatherings on this scale, and one must back up the +house-masters. Moreover, it’s hopeless to punish two houses only, so +late in the term. We must be fair and include everybody. Let’s see. They +have a holiday task for the Easters, which, of course, none of them +will ever look at. We will give the whole school, except prefects and +study-boys, regular prep. to-night; and the Common-room will have to +supply a master to take it. We must be fair to all.” + +“Prep. on the last night of the term. Whew!” said Crandall, thinking of +his own wild youth. “I fancy there will be larks.” + +The school, frolicking among packed trunks, whooping down the corridor, +and “gloating” in form-rooms, received the news with amazement and rage. +No school in the world did prep. on the last night of the term. This +thing was monstrous, tyrannical, subversive of law, religion, and +morality. They would go into the form-rooms, and they would take their +degraded holiday task with them, but--here they smiled and speculated +what manner of man the Common-room would send up against them. The lot +fell on Mason, credulous and enthusiastic, who loved youth. No other +master was anxious to take that “prep.,” for the school lacked the +steadying influence of tradition; and men accustomed to the ordered +routine of ancient foundations found it occasionally insubordinate. The +four long form-rooms, in which all below the rank of study-boys worked, +received him with thunders of applause. Ere he had coughed twice they +favored him with a metrical summary of the marriage laws of Great +Britain, as recorded by the High Priest of the Israelites and commented +on by the leader of the host. The lower forms reminded him that it was +the last day, and that therefore he must “take it all in play.” When he +dashed off to rebuke them, the Lower Fourth and Upper Third began with +one accord to be sick, loudly and realistically. Mr. Mason tried, of all +vain things under heaven, to argue with them, and a bold soul at a +back desk bade him “take fifty lines for not ‘olding up ‘is ‘and before +speaking.” As one who prided himself upon the perfection of his English +this cut Mason to the quick, and while he was trying to discover the +offender, the Upper and Lower Second, three form-rooms away, turned out +the gas and threw ink-pots. It was a pleasant and stimulating “prep.” + The study-boys and prefects heard the echoes of it far off, and the +Common-room at dessert smiled. + +Stalky waited, watch in hand, till half-past eight. “If it goes on much +longer the Head will come up,” said he. “We’ll tell the studies first, +and then the dorm-rooms. Look sharp!” + +He allowed no time for Beetle to be dramatic or McTurk to drawl. They +poured into study after study, told their tale, and went again so soon +as they saw they were understood, waiting for no comment; while the +noise of that unholy “prep.” grew and deepened. By the door of Flint’s +study they met Mason flying towards the corridor.--“He’s gone to fetch +the Head. Hurry up! Come on!” They broke into Number Twelve form-room +abreast and panting. + +“The Head! The Head! The Head!” That call stilled the tumult for a +minute, and Stalky, leaping to a desk, shouted, “He went and sucked the +diphtheria stuff out of Stettson major’s throat when we thought he was +in town. Stop rotting, you asses! Stettson major would have croaked if +the Head hadn’t done it. The Head might have died himself. Crandall +says it’s the bravest thing any livin’ man can do, and I”--his voice +cracked--“the Head don’t know we know!” + +McTurk and Beetle, jumping from desk to desk, drove the news home among +the junior forms. There was a pause, and then, Mason behind him, the +Head entered. It was in the established order of things that no boy +should speak or move under his eye. He expected the hush of awe. He was +received with cheers--steady, ceaseless cheering. Being a wise man, he +went away, and the forms were silent and a little frightened. + +“It’s all right,” said Stalky. “He can’t do much. ‘Tisn’t as if you’d +pulled the desks up like we did when old Carleton took prep. once. Keep +it up! Hear ‘em cheering in the studies!” He rocketed out with a yell, +to find Flint and the prefects lifting the roof off the corridor. + +When the Head of a limited liability company, paying four per cent., is +cheered on his saintly way to prayers, not only by four form-rooms of +boys waiting punishment, but by his trusted prefects, he can either +ask for an explanation or go his road with dignity, while the senior +house-master glares like an excited cat and points out to a white and +trembling mathematical master that certain methods--not his, thank +God---usually produce certain results. Out of delicacy the Old Boys +did not attend that call-over; and it was to the school drawn up in the +gymnasium that the Head spoke icily. + +“It is not often that I do not understand you; but I confess I do not +to-night. Some of you, after your idiotic performances at prep., seem to +think me a fit person to cheer. I am going to show you that I am not.” + +Crash--crash--crash--came the triple cheer that disproved it, and the +Head glowered under the gas. “That is enough. You will gain nothing. The +little boys (the Lower School did not like that form of address) will do +me three hundred lines apiece in the holidays. I shall take no further +notice of them. The Upper School will do me one thousand lines apiece in +the holidays, to be shown up the evening of the day they come back. And +further--” + +“Gummy, what a glutton!” Stalky whispered. + +“For your behavior towards Mr. Mason I intend to lick the whole of the +Upper School to-morrow when I give you your journey-money. This will +include the three study-boys I found dancing on the form-room desks when +I came up. Prefects will stay after call-over.” + +The school filed out in silence, but gathered in groups by the gymnasium +door waiting what might befall. + +“And now, Flint,” said the Head, “will you be good enough to give me +some explanation of your conduct?” + +“Well, sir,” said Flint desperately, “if you save a chap’s life at the +risk of your own when he’s dyin’ of diphtheria, and the Coll. finds it +out, wha-what can you expect, sir?” + +“Um, I see. Then that noise was not meant for--ah, cheek. I can connive +at immorality, but I cannot stand impudence. However, it does not excuse +their insolence to Mr. Mason. I’ll forego the lines this once, remember; +but the lickings hold good.” + +When this news was made public, the school, lost in wonder and +admiration, gasped at the Head as he went to his house. Here was a man +to be reverenced. On the rare occasions when he caned he did it +very scientifically, and the execution of a hundred boys would be +epic--immense. + +“It’s all right, Head Sahib. _We_ know,” said Crandall, as the Head +slipped off his gown with a grunt in his smoking-room. “I found out just +now from our substitute. He was gettin’ my opinion of your performance +last night in the dormitory. I didn’t know then that it was you he was +talkin’ about. Crafty young animal. Freckled chap with eyes---Corkran, I +think his name is.” + +“Oh, I know _him_, thank you,” said the Head, and reflectively. “Ye-es, +I should have included them even if I hadn’t seen ‘em.” + +“If the old Coll. weren’t a little above themselves already, we’d chair +you down the corridor,” said the Engineer. “Oh, Bates, how could you? +You might have caught it yourself, and where would we have been, then?” + +“I always knew you were worth twenty of us any day. Now I’m sure of it,” + said the Squadron Commander, looking round for contradictions. + +“He isn’t fit to manage a school, though. Promise you’ll never do it +again, Bates Sahib. We--we can’t go away comfy in our minds if you take +these risks,” said the Gunner. + +“Bates Sahib, you aren’t ever goin’ to cane the whole Upper School, are +you?” said Crandall. + +“I can connive at immorality, as I said, but I can’t stand impudence. +Mason’s lot is quite hard enough even when I back him. Besides, the +men at the golf-club heard them singing ‘Aaron and Moses.’ I shall have +complaints about that from the parents of day-boys. Decency must be +preserved.” + +“We’re coming to help,” said all the guests. + + +The Upper School were caned one after the other, their overcoats over +their arms, the brakes waiting in the road below to take them to the +station, their journey-money on the table. The Head began with Stalky, +McTurk, and Beetle. He dealt faithfully by them. + +“And here’s your journey-money. Good-by, and pleasant holidays.” + +“Good-by. Thank you, sir. Good-by.” + +They shook hands. “Desire don’t outrun performance--much--this mornin’. +We got the cream of it,” said Stalky. “Now wait till a few chaps come +out, and we’ll really cheer him.” + +“Don’t wait on our account, please,” said Crandall, speaking for the Old +Boys. “We’re going to begin now.” + +It was very well so long as the cheering was confined to the corridor, +but when it spread to the gymnasium, when the boys awaiting their +turn cheered, the Head gave it up in despair, and the remnant flung +themselves upon him to shake hands. Then they seriously devoted +themselves to cheering till the brakes were hustled off the premises in +dumb-show. + +“Didn’t I say I’d get even with him?” said Stalky on the box-seat, as +they swung into the narrow Northam street. “Now all together--takin’ +time from your Uncle Stalky: + + It’s a way we have in the Army, + It’s a way we have in the Navy, + It’s a way we have at the Public Schools, + Which nobody can deny!” + + + + +THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. + + +It was winter and bitter cold of mornings. Consequently Stalky and +Beetle--McTurk being of the offensive type that makes ornate toilet +under all circumstances--drowsed till the last moment before turning out +to call-over in the gas-lit gymnasium. It followed that they were often +late; and since every unpunctuality earned them a black mark, and since +three black marks a week meant defaulters’ drill, equally it followed +that they spent hours under the Sergeant’s hand. Foxy drilled the +defaulters with all the pomp of his old parade-ground. “Don’t think it’s +any pleasure to me” (his introduction never varied). “I’d much sooner +be smoking a quiet pipe in my own quarters--but I see we ‘ave the Old +Brigade on our ‘ands this afternoon. If I only ‘ad you regular, Muster +Corkran,” said he, dressing the line. + +“You’ve had me for nearly six weeks, you old glutton. Number off from +the right!” + +“Not _quite_ so previous, please. I’m taking this drill. Left, +half--turn! Slow--march.” Twenty-five sluggards, all old offenders, +filed into the gymnasium. “Quietly provide yourselves with the requisite +dumb-bells; returnin’ quietly to your place. Number off from the right, +in a low voice. Odd numbers one pace to the front. Even numbers stand +fast. Now, leanin’ forward from the ‘ips, takin’ your time from me.” + +The dumb-bells rose and fell, clashed and were returned as one. The boys +were experts at the weary game. + +“Ve-ry good. I shall be sorry when any of you resume your ‘abits of +punctuality. Quietly return dumb-bells. We will now try some simple +drill.” + +“Ugh! I know that simple drill.” + +“It would he ‘ighly to your discredit if you did not, Muster Corkran. +_At_ the same time, it is not so easy as it looks.” + +“Bet you a bob, I can drill as well as you, Foxy.” + +“We’ll see later. Now try to imagine you ain’t defaulters at all, but +an ‘arf company on parade, me bein’ your commandin’ officer. There’s +no call to laugh. If you’re lucky, most of you will ‘ave to take drills +‘arf your life. Do me a little credit. You’ve been at it long enough, +goodness knows.” + +They were formed into fours, marched, wheeled, and countermarched, the +spell of ordered motion strong on them. As Foxy said, they had been at +it a long time. + +The gymnasium door opened, revealing McTurk in charge of an old +gentleman. + +The Sergeant, leading a wheel, did not see. “Not so bad,” he murmured. +“Not ‘arf so bad. The pivot-man of the wheel _honly_ marks time, Muster +Swayne. Now, Muster Corkran, you say you know the drill? Oblige me by +takin’ over the command and, reversin’ my words step by step, relegate +them to their previous formation.” + +“What’s this? What’s this?” cried the visitor authoritatively. + +“A--a little drill, sir,” stammered Foxy, saying nothing of first +causes. + +“Excellent--excellent. I only wish there were more of it,” he chirruped. +“Don’t let me interrupt. You were just going to hand over to someone, +weren’t you?” + +He sat down, breathing frostily in the chill air. “I shall muck it. I +know I shall,” whispered Stalky uneasily; and his discomfort was not +lightened by a murmur from the rear rank that the old gentleman was +General Collinson, a member of the College Board of Council. + +“Eh--what?” said Foxy. + +“Collinson, K.C.B.--He commanded the Pompadours--my father’s old +regiment,” hissed Swayne major. + +“Take your time,” said the visitor. “_I_ know how it feels. Your first +drill--eh?” + +“Yes, sir.” He drew an unhappy breath. “‘Tention. Dress!” The echo of +his own voice restored his confidence. + +The wheel was faced about, flung back, broken into fours, and restored +to line without a falter. The official hour of punishment was long +passed, but no one thought of that. They were backing up Stalky--Stalky +in deadly fear lest his voice should crack. + +“He does you credit, Sergeant,” was the visitor’s comment. “A good +drill--and good material to drill. Now, it’s an extraordinary thing: +I’ve been lunching with your head-master and he never told me you had a +cadet-corps in the College.” + +“We ‘aven’t, sir. This is only a little drill,” said the Sergeant. + +“But aren’t they keen on it?” said McTurk, speaking for the first time, +with a twinkle in his deep-set eyes. + +“Why aren’t you in it, though, Willy?” + +“Oh, I’m not punctual enough,” said McTurk. “The Sergeant only takes the +pick of us.” + +“Dismiss! Break off!” cried Foxy, fearing an explosion in the ranks. +“I--I ought to have told you, sir, that--” + +“But you should have a cadet-corps.” The General pursued his own line of +thought. “You _shall_ have a cadet-corps, too, if my recommendation +in Council is any use. I don’t know when I’ve been so pleased. Boys +animated by a spirit like yours should set an example to the whole +school.” + +“They do,” said McTurk. + +“Bless my soul! Can it be so late? I’ve kept my fly waiting half an +hour. Well, I must run away. Nothing like seeing things for one’s self. +Which end of the buildings does one get out at? Will you show me, Willy? +Who was that boy who took the drill?” + +“Corkran, I think his name is.” + +“You ought to know him. That’s the kind of boy you should cultivate. +Evidently an unusual sort. A wonderful sight. Five and twenty boys, who, +I dare say, would much sooner be playing cricket”--(it was the depth +of winter; but grown people, especially those who have lived long in +foreign parts, make these little errors, and McTurk did not correct +him)--“drilling for the sheer love of it. A shame to waste so much good +stuff; but I think I can carry my point.” + +“An’ who’s your friend with the white whiskers?” demanded Stalky, on +McTurk’s return to the study. + +“General Collinson. He comes over to shoot with my father sometimes. +Rather a decent old bargee, too. He said I ought to cultivate your +acquaintance, Stalky.” + +“Did he tip you?” McTurk exhibited a blessed whole sovereign. + +“Ah,” said Stalky, annexing it, for he was treasurer. “We’ll have a +hefty brew. You’d pretty average cool cheek, Turkey, to jaw about our +keenness an’ punctuality.” + +“Didn’t the old boy know we were defaulters?” said Beetle. + +“Not him. He came down to lunch with the Head. I found him pokin’ about +the place on his own hook afterwards, an’ I thought I’d show him the +giddy drill. When I found he was so pleased, I wasn’t goin’ to damp his +giddy ardor. He mightn’t ha’ given me the quid if I had.” + +“Wasn’t old Foxy pleased? Did you see him get pink behind the ears?” + said Beetle. “It was an awful score for him. Didn’t we back him +up beautifully? Let’s go down to Keyte’s and get some cocoa and +sassingers.” + +They overtook Foxy, speeding down to retail the adventure to Keyte, who +in his time had been Troop Sergeant-Major in a cavalry regiment, and +now, war-worn veteran, was local postmaster and confectioner. + +“You owe us something,” said Stalky, with meaning. + +“I’m ‘ighly grateful, Muster Corkran. I’ve ‘ad to run against you pretty +hard in the way o’ business, now and then, but I will say that outside +o’ business--bounds an’ smokin’, an’ such like--I don’t wish to have a +more trustworthy young gentleman to ‘elp me out of a hole. The way +you ‘andled the drill was beautiful, though I say it. Now, if you come +regular henceforward--” + +“But he’ll have to be late three times a week,” said Beetle. “You can’t +expect a chap to do that--just to please you, Foxy.” + +“Ah, that’s true. Still, if you could manage it--and you, Muster +Beetle--it would give you a big start when the cadet-corps is formed. I +expect the General will recommend it.” + +They raided Keyte’s very much at their own sweet will, for the old man, +who knew them well, was deep in talk with Foxy. “I make what we’ve +taken seven and six,” Stalky called at last over the counter; “but you’d +better count for yourself.” + +“No--no. I’d take your word any day, Muster Corkran.--In the Pompadours, +was he, Sergeant? We lay with them once at Umballa, I think it was.” + +“I don’t know whether this ham-and-tongue tin is eighteen pence or one +an’ four.” + +“Say one an’ fourpence, Muster Corkran... Of course, Sergeant, if it was +any use to give my time, I’d be pleased to do it, but I’m too old. I’d +like to see a drill again.” + +“Oh, come on, Stalky,” cried McTurk. “He isn’t listenin’ to you. Chuck +over the money.” + +“I want the quid changed, you ass. Keyte! Private Keyte! Corporal Keyte! +Terroop-Sergeant-Major Keyte, will you give me change for a quid?” + +“Yes--yes, of course. Seven an’ six.” He stared abstractedly, pushed the +silver over, and melted away into the darkness of the back room. + +“Now those two’ll jaw about the Mutiny till tea-time,” said Beetle. + +“Old Keyte was at Sobraon,” said Stalky. “Hear him talk about that +sometimes! Beats Foxy hollow.” + + +The Head’s face, inscrutable as ever, was bent over a pile of letters. + +“What do you think?” he said at last to the Reverend John Gillett. + +“It’s a good idea. There’s no denying that--an estimable idea.” + +“We concede that much. Well?” + +“I have my doubts about it--that’s all. The more I know of boys the less +do I profess myself capable of following their moods; but I own I shall +be very much surprised if the scheme takes. It--it isn’t the temper of +the school. We prepare for the Army.” + +“My business--in _this_ matter--is to carry out the wishes of the +Council. They demand a volunteer cadet-corps. A volunteer cadet-corps +will be furnished. I have suggested, however, that we need not embark +upon the expense of uniforms till we are drilled. General Collinson is +sending us fifty lethal weapons--cut-down Sniders, he calls them--all +carefully plugged.” + +“Yes, that is necessary in a school that uses loaded saloon-pistols to +the extent we do.” The Reverend John smiled. + +“Therefore there will be no outlay except the Sergeant’s time.” + +“But if he fails you will be blamed.” + +“Oh, assuredly. I shall post a notice in the corridor this afternoon, +and--” + +“I shall watch the result.” + + +“Kindly keep your ‘ands off the new arm-rack.” Foxy wrestled with a +turbulent crowd in the gymnasium. “Nor it won’t do even a condemned +Snider any good to be continual snappin’ the lock, Mr. Swayne.--Yiss, +the uniforms will come later, when we’re more proficient; at present we +will confine ourselves to drill. I am ‘ere for the purpose o’ takin’ the +names o’ those willin’ to join.--Put down that Snider, Muster Hogan!” + +“What are you goin’ to do, Beetle?” said a voice. + +“I’ve had all the drill _I_ want, thank you.” + +“What! After all you’ve learned? Come on! Don’t be a scab! They’ll make +you corporal in a week,” cried Stalky. + +“I’m not goin’ up for the Army.” Beetle touched his spectacles. + +“Hold on a shake, Foxy,” said Hogan. “Where are you goin’ to drill us?” + +“Here--in the gym--till you are fit an’ capable to be taken out on the +road.” The Sergeant threw a chest. + +“For all the Northam cads to look at? Not good enough, Foxibus.” + +“Well, we won’t make a point of it. You learn your drill first, an’ +later we’ll see.” + +“Hullo,” said Ansell of Macrea’s, shouldering through the mob. “What’s +all this about a giddy cadet-corps?” + +“It will save you a lot o’ time at Sandburst,” the Sergeant replied +promptly. “You’ll be dismissed your drills early if you go up with a +good groundin’ before’and.” + +“Hm! ‘Don’t mind learnin’ my drill, but I’m not goin’ to ass about the +country with a toy Snider. Perowne, what are you goin’ to do? Hogan’s +joinin’.” + +“Don’t know whether I’ve the time,” said Perowne. “I’ve got no end of +extra-tu as it is.” + +“Well, call this extra-tu,” said Ansell. “‘Twon’t take us long to mug up +the drill.” + +“Oh, that’s right enough, but what about marchin’ in public?” said +Hogan, not foreseeing that three years later he should die in the +Burmese sun-light outside Minhla Fort. + +“Afraid the uniform won’t suit your creamy complexion?” McTurk asked +with a villainous sneer. + +“Shut up, Turkey. You aren’t goin’ up for the Army.” + +“No, but I’m goin’ to send a substitute. Hi! Morrell an’ Wake! You two +fags by the arm-rack, you’ve got to volunteer.” + +Blushing deeply--they had been too shy to apply before--the youngsters +sidled towards the Sergeant. + +“But I don’t want the little chaps--not at first,” said the +Sergeant disgustedly. “I want--I’d like some of the Old Brigade the +defaulters--to stiffen ‘em a bit.” + +“Don’t be ungrateful, Sergeant. They’re nearly as big as you get ‘em +in the Army now.” McTurk read the papers of those years and could be +trusted for general information, which he used as he used his “tweaker.” + Yet he did not know that Wake minor would be a bimbashi of the Egyptian +Army ere his thirtieth year. + +Hogan, Swayne, Stalky, Perowne, and Ansell were deep in consultation by +the vaulting-horse, Stalky as usual laying down the law. The Sergeant +watched them uneasily, knowing that many waited on their lead. + +“Foxy don’t like my recruits,” said McTurk, in a pained tone, to Beetle. +“You get him some.” + +Nothing loath, Beetle pinioned two more fags--each no taller than a +carbine. “Here you are, Foxy. Here’s food for powder. Strike for your +hearths an’ homes, you young brutes--an’ be jolly quick about it.” + +“Still he isn’t happy,” said McTurk. + + “For the way we have with our Army + Is the way we have with our Navy.” + +Here Beetle joined in. They had found the poem in an old volume of +“Punch,” and it seemed to cover the situation: + + “An’ both of ‘em led to adversity, + Which nobody can deny!” + +“You be quiet, young gentlemen. If you can’t ‘elp--don’t ‘inder.” Foxy’s +eye was still on the council by the horse. Carter, White, and Tyrrell, +all boys of influence, had joined it. The rest fingered the rifles +irresolutely. “Wait a shake,” cried Stalky. “Can’t we turn out those +rotters before we get to work?” + +“Certainly,” said Foxy. “Any one wishful to join will stay ‘ere. Those +who do not so intend will go out, quietly closin’ the door be’ind ‘em.” + +Half a dozen of the earnest-minded rushed at them, and they had just +time to escape into the corridor. + +“Well, why don’t you join?” Beetle asked, resettling his collar. + +“Why didn’t you?” + +“What’s the good? We aren’t goin’ up for the Army. Besides, I know the +drill--all except the manual, of course. ‘Wonder what they’re doin’ +inside?” + +“Makin’ a treaty with Foxy. Didn’t you hear Stalky say: ‘That’s what +we’ll do--an’ if he don’t like it he can lump it’? They’ll use Foxy for +a cram. Can’t you see, you idiot? They’re goin’ up for Sandhurst or the +Shop in less than a year. They’ll learn their drill an’ then they’ll +drop it like a shot. D’you suppose chaps with their amount of extra-tu +are takin’ up volunteerin’ for fun?” + +“Well, I don’t know. I thought of doin’ a poem about it--rottin’ ‘em, +you know--‘The Ballad of the Dogshooters’--eh?” + +“I don’t think you can, because King’ll be down on the corps like a +cartload o’ bricks. He hasn’t been consulted, he’s sniffin’ round the +notice-board now. Let’s lure him.” They strolled up carelessly towards +the honse-master--a most meek couple. + +“How’s this?” said King with a start of feigned surprise. “Methought you +would be learning to fight for your country.” + +“I think the company’s full, sir,” said McTurk. + +“It’s a great pity,” sighed Beetle. + +“Forty valiant defenders, have we, then? How noble! What devotion! +I presume that it is possible that a desire to evade their normal +responsibilities may be at the bottom of this zeal. Doubtless they will +be accorded special privileges, like the Choir and the Natural History +Society--one must not say Bug-hunters.” + +“Oh, I suppose so, sir,” said McTurk, cheerily. “The Head hasn’t said +anything about it yet, but he will, of course.” + +“Oh, sure to.” + +“It is just possible, my Beetle,” King wheeled on the last speaker, +“that the house-masters--a necessary but somewhat neglected factor in +our humble scheme of existence--may have a word to say on the matter. +Life, for the young at least, is not all weapons and munitions of war. +Education is incidentally one of our aims.” + +“What a consistent pig he is,” cooed McTurk, when they were out of +earshot. “One always knows where to have him. Did you see how he rose to +that draw about the Head and special privileges?” + +“Confound him, he might have had the decency to have backed the scheme. +I could do such a lovely ballad, rottin’ it; and now I’ll have to be a +giddy enthusiast. It don’t bar our pulling Stalky’s leg in the study, +does it?” + +“Oh, no; but in the Coll. we must be pro-cadet-corps like anything. +Can’t you make up a giddy epigram, _a’ la Catullus_, about King +objectin’ to it?” Beetle was at this noble task when Stalky returned all +hot from his first drill. + +“Hullo, my ramrod-bunger!” began McTurk. “Where’s your dead dog? Is it +Defence or Defiance?” + +“Defiance,” said Stalky, and leaped on him at that word. “Look here, +Turkey, you mustn’t rot the corps. We’ve arranged it beautifully. Foxy +swears he won’t take us out into the open till we say we want to go.” + +“_Dis_-gustin’ exhibition of immature infants apin’ the idiosyncrasies +of their elders. Snff!” + +“Have you drawn King, Beetle?” Stalky asked in a pause of the scuffle. + +“Not exactly; but that’s his genial style.” + +“Well, listen to your Uncle Stalky--who is a great man. Moreover +and subsequently, Foxy’s goin’ to let us drill the corps in +turn--_privatim et seriatim_--so that we’ll all know how to handle a +half company anyhow. _Ergo_, an’ _propter hoc_, when we go to the Shop +we shall be dismissed drill early; thus, my beloved ‘earers, combinin’ +education with wholesome amusement.” + +“I knew you’d make a sort of extra-tu of it, you cold-blooded brute,” + said McTurk. “Don’t you want to die for your giddy country?” + +“Not if I can jolly well avoid it. So you mustn’t rot the corps.” + +“We’d decided on that, years ago,” said Beetle, scornfully. “King’ll do +the rottin’.” + +“Then you’ve got to rot King, my giddy poet. Make up a good catchy +Limerick, and let the fags sing it.” + +“Look here, you stick to volunteerin’, and don’t jog the table.” + +“He won’t have anything to take hold of,” said Stalky, with dark +significance. + +They did not know what that meant till, a few days later, they proposed +to watch the corps at drill. They found the gymnasium door locked and a +fag on guard. “This is sweet cheek,” said McTurk, stooping. + +“Mustn’t look through the key-hole,” said the sentry. + +“I like that. Why, Wake, you little beast, I made you a volunteer.” + +“Can’t help it. My orders are not to allow any one to look.” + +“S’pose we do?” said McTurk. “S’pose we jolly well slay you?” + +“My orders are, I am to give the name of anybody who interfered with +me on my post, to the corps, an’ they’d deal with him after drill, +accordin’ to martial law.” + +“What a brute Stalky is!” said Beetle. They never doubted for a moment +who had devised that scheme. + +“You esteem yourself a giddy centurion, don’t you?” said Beetle, +listening to the crash and rattle of grounded arms within. + +“My orders are, not to talk except to explain my orders--they’ll lick me +if I do.” + +McTurk looked at Beetle. The two shook their heads and turned away. + +“I swear Stalky _is_ a great man,” said Beetle after a long pause. “One +consolation is that this sort of secret-society biznai will drive King +wild.” + +It troubled many more than King, but the members of the corps were muter +than oysters. Foxy, being bound by no vow, carried his woes to Keyte. + +“I never come across such nonsense in my life. They’ve tiled the lodge, +inner and outer guard, all complete, and then they get to work, keen as +mustard.” + +“But what’s it all for?” asked the ex-Troop Sergeant-Major. + +“To learn their drill. You never saw anything like it. They begin after +I’ve dismissed ‘em--practisin’ tricks; but out into the open they will +_not_ come--not for ever so. The ‘ole thing is pre-posterous. If you’re +a cadet-corps, _I_ say, be a cadet-corps, instead o’ hidin’ be’ind +locked doors.” + +“And what do the authorities say about it?” + +“That beats me again.” The Sergeant spoke fretfully. “I go to the ‘Ead +an’ ‘e gives me no help. There’s times when I think he’s makin’ fun o’ +me. I’ve never been a Volunteer-sergeant, thank God--but I’ve always had +the consideration to pity ‘em. I’m glad o’ that.” + +“I’d like to see ‘em,” said Keyte. “From your statements, Sergeant, I +can’t get at what they’re after.” + +“Don’t ask me, Major! Ask that freckle-faced young Corkran. He’s their +generalissimo.” + +One does not refuse a warrior of Sobraon, or deny the only pastry-cook +within bounds. So Keyte came, by invitation, leaning upon a stick, +tremulous with old age, to sit in a corner and watch. + +“They shape well. They shape uncommon well,” he whispered between +evolutions. + +“Oh, this isn’t what they’re after. Wait till I dismiss ‘em.” + +At the “break-off” the ranks stood fast. Perowne fell out, faced them, +and, refreshing his memory by glimpses at a red-bound, metal-clasped +book, drilled them for ten minutes. (This is that Perowne who was shot +in Equatorial Africa by his own men.) Ansell followed him, and Hogan +followed Ansell. All three were implicitly obeyed. Then Stalky laid +aside his Snider, and, drawing a long breath, favored the company with a +blast of withering invective. + +“‘Old ‘ard, Muster Corkran. That ain’t in any drill,” cried Foxy. + +“All right, Sergeant. You never know what you may have to say to your +men.--For pity’s sake, try to stand up without leanin’ against each +other, you blear-eyed, herrin’-gutted gutter-snipes. It’s no pleasure to +me to comb you out. That ought to have been done before you came here, +you--you militia broom-stealers.” + +“The old touch--the old touch. _We_ know it,” said Keyte, wiping his +rheumy eyes. “But where did he pick it up?” + +“From his father--or his uncle. Don’t ask me! Half of ‘em must have been +born within earshot o’ the barracks.” (Foxy was not far wrong in his +guess.) “I’ve heard more back-talk since this volunteerin’ nonsense +began than I’ve heard in a year in the service.” + +“There’s a rear-rank man lookin’ as though his belly were in the +pawn-shop. Yes, you, Private Ansell,” and Stalky tongue-lashed the +victim for three minutes, in gross and in detail. + +“Hullo!” He returned to his normal tone. “First blood to me. You +flushed, Ansell. You wriggled.” + +“Couldn’t help flushing,” was the answer. “Don’t think I wriggled, +though.” + +“Well, it’s your turn now.” Stalky resumed his place in the ranks. + +“Lord, Lord! It’s as good as a play,” chuckled the attentive Keyte. +Ansell, too, had been blessed with relatives in the service, and slowly, +in a lazy drawl--his style was more reflective than Stalky’s--descended +the abysmal depths of personality. + +“Blood to me!” he shouted triumphantly. “You couldn’t stand it, either.” + Stalky was a rich red, and his Snider shook visibly. + +“I didn’t think I would,” he said, struggling for composure, “but after +a bit I got in no end of a bait. Curious, ain’t it?” + +“Good for the temper,” said the slow-moving Hogan, as they returned arms +to the rack. + +“Did you ever?” said Foxy, hopelessly, to Keyte. + +“I don’t know much about volunteers, but it’s the rummiest show I ever +saw. I can see what they’re gettin’ at, though. Lord! how often I’ve +been told off an’ dressed down in my day! They shape well--extremely +well they shape.” + +“If I could get ‘em out into the open, there’s nothing I couldn’t do +with ‘em, Major. Perhaps when the uniforms come down, they’ll change +their mind.” + +Indeed it was time that the corps made some concession to the curiosity +of the school. Thrice had the guard been maltreated and thrice had the +corps dealt out martial law to the offender. The school raged. What was +the use, they asked, of a cadet-corps which none might see? Mr. King +congratulated them on their invisible defenders, and they could not +parry his thrusts. Foxy was growing sullen and restive. A few of the +corps expressed openly doubts as to the wisdom of their course; and the +question of uniforms loomed on the near horizon. If these were issued, +they would be forced to wear them. + +But, as so often happens in this life, the matter was suddenly settled +from without. + +The Head had duly informed the Council that their recommendation had +been acted upon, and that, so far as he could learn, the boys were +drilling. He said nothing of the terms on which they drilled. Naturally, +General Collinson was delighted and told his friends. One of his friends +rejoiced in a friend, a Member of Parliament--a zealous, an intelligent, +and, above all, a patriotic person, anxious to do the most good in the +shortest possible time. But we cannot answer, alas! for the friends of +our friends. If Collinson’s friend had introduced him to the General, +the latter would have taken his measure and saved much. But the friend +merely spoke of his friend; and since no two people in the world see eye +to eye, the picture conveyed to Collinson was inaccurate. Moreover, the +man was an M.P., an impeccable Conservative, and the General had the +English soldier’s lurking respect for any member of the Court of Last +Appeal. He was going down into the West country, to spread light in +somebody’s benighted constituency. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if, armed +with the General’s recommendation, he, taking the admirable and newly +established cadet-corps for his text, spoke a few words--“Just talked +to the boys a little--eh? You know the kind of thing that would be +acceptable; and he’d be the very man to do it. The sort of talk that +boys understand, you know.” + +“They didn’t talk to ‘em much in my time,” said the General, +suspiciously. + +“Ah! but times change--with the spread of education and so on. The boys +of to-day are the men of to-morrow. An impression in youth is likely to +be permanent. And in these times, you know, with the country going to +the dogs?” + +“You’re quite right.” The island was then entering on five years of Mr. +Gladstone’s rule; and the General did not like what he had seen of it. +He would certainly write to the Head, for it was beyond question that +the boys of to-day made the men of to-morrow. That, if he might say so, +was uncommonly well put. + +In reply, the Head stated that he should be delighted to welcome Mr. +Raymond Martin, M.P., of whom he had heard so much; to put him up for +the night, and to allow him to address the school on any subject that +he conceived would interest them. If Mr. Martin had not yet faced an +audience of this particular class of British youth, the Head had no +doubt that he would find it an interesting experience. + +“And I don’t think I am very far wrong in that last,” he confided to the +Reverend John. “Do you happen to know anything of one Raymond Martin?” + +“I was at College with a man of that name,” the chaplain replied. +“He was without form and void, so far as I remember, but desperately +earnest.” + +“He will address the Coll. on ‘Patriotism’ next Saturday.” + +“If there is one thing our boys detest more than another it is having +their Saturday evenings broken into. Patriotism has no chance beside +‘brewing.’” + +“Nor art either. D’you remember our ‘Evening with Shakespeare’?” + The Head’s eyes twinkled. “Or the humorous gentleman with the magic +lantern?” + + +“An’ who the dooce is this Raymond Martin, M.P.?” demanded Beetle, when +he read the notice of the lecture in the corridor. “Why do the brutes +always turn up on a Saturday?” + +“Ouh! Reomeo, Reomeo. Wherefore art thou Reomeo?” said McTurk over his +shoulder, quoting the Shakespeare artiste of last term. “Well, he won’t +be as bad as _her_, I hope. Stalky, are you properly patriotic? Because +if you ain’t, this chap’s goin’ to make you.” + +“Hope he won’t take up the whole of the evening. I suppose we’ve got to +listen to him.” + +“Wouldn’t miss him for the world,” said McTurk. “A lot of chaps thought +that Romeo-Romeo woman was a bore. _I_ didn’t. I liked her! ‘Member +when she began to hiccough in the middle of it? P’raps he’ll hiccough. +Whoever gets into the Gym first, bags seats for the other two.” + + +There was no nervousness, but a brisk and cheery affability about Mr. +Raymond Martin, M.P., as he drove up, watched by many eyes, to the +Head’s house. + +“Looks a bit of a bargee,” was McTurk’s comment. “Shouldn’t be surprised +if he was a Radical. He rowed the driver about the fare. I heard him.” + +“That was his giddy patriotism,” Beetle explained. After tea they joined +the rush for seats, secured a private and invisible corner, and began +to criticise. Every gas-jet was lit. On the little dais at the far end +stood the Head’s official desk, whence Mr. Martin would discourse, and a +ring of chairs for the masters. + +Entered then Foxy, with official port, and leaned something like a +cloth rolled round a stick against the desk. No one in authority was yet +present, so the school applauded, crying: “What’s that, Foxy? What are +you stealin’ the gentleman’s brolly for?--We don’t birch here. We cane! +Take away that bauble!--Number off from the right”--and so forth, till +the entry of the Head and the masters ended all demonstrations. + +“One good job--the Common-room hate this as much as we do. Watch King +wrigglin’ to get out of the draft.” + +“Where’s the Raymondiferous Martin? Punctuality, my beloved ‘earers, is +the image o’ war--” + +“Shut up. Here’s the giddy Dook. Golly, what a dewlap!” Mr. Martin, +in evening dress, was undeniably throaty--a tall, generously designed, +pink-and-white man. Still, Beetle need not have been coarse. + +“Look at his back while he’s talkin’ to the Head. Vile bad form to turn +your back on the audience! He’s a Philistine--a Bopper--a Jebusite--an’ +a Hivite.” McTurk leaned back and sniffed contemptuously. + +In a few colorless words, the Head introduced the speaker and sat +down amid applause. When Mr. Martin took the applause to himself, they +naturally applauded more than ever. It was some time before he could +begin. He had no knowledge of the school--its tradition or heritage. He +did not know that the last census showed that eighty per cent. of the +boys had been born abroad--in camp, cantonment, or upon the high seas; +or that seventy-five per cent. were sons of officers in one or other of +the services--Willoughbys, Paulets, De Castros, Maynes, Randalls, after +their kind--looking to follow their fathers’ profession. The Head might +have told him this, and much more; but, after an hour-long dinner in his +company, the Head decided to say nothing whatever. Mr. Raymond Martin +seemed to know so much already. + +He plunged into his speech with a long-drawn, rasping “Well, boys,” + that, though they were not conscious of it, set every young nerve ajar. +He supposed they knew--hey?--what he had come down for? It was not often +that he had an opportunity to talk to boys. He supposed that boys were +very much the same kind of persons--some people thought them rather +funny persons--as they had been in his youth. + +“This man,” said McTurk, with conviction, “is _the_ Gadarene Swine.” + +But they must remember that they would not always be boys. They would +grow up into men, because the boys of to-day made the men of to-morrow, +and upon the men of to-morrow the fair fame of their glorious native +land depended. + +“If this goes on, my beloved ‘earers, it will be my painful duty to rot +this bargee.” Stalky drew a long breath through his nose. + +“Can’t do that,” said McTurk. “He ain’t chargin’ anything for his +Romeo.” + +And so they ought to think of the duties and responsibilities of the +life that was opening before them. Life was not all--he enumerated a few +games, and, that nothing might be lacking to the sweep and impact of his +fall, added “marbles.” “Yes, life was not,” he said, “all marbles.” + +There was one tense gasp--among the juniors almost a shriek--of +quivering horror, he was a heathen--an outcast---beyond the extremest +pale of toleration--self-damned before all men. Stalky bowed his head in +his hands. McTurk, with a bright and cheerful eye, drank in every word, +and Beetle nodded solemn approval. + +Some of them, doubtless, expected in a few years to have the honor of a +commission from the Queen, and to wear a sword. Now, he himself had had +some experience of these duties, as a Major in a volunteer regiment, +and he was glad to learn that they had established a volunteer corps in +their midst. The establishment of such an establishment conduced to a +proper and healthy spirit, which, if fostered, would be of great benefit +to the land they loved and were so proud to belong to. Some of those now +present expected, he had no doubt--some of them anxiously looked +forward to leading their men against the bullets of England’s foes; +to confronting the stricken field in all the pride of their youthful +manhood. + +Now the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, +she being made for one end only by blind Nature, but man for several. +With a large and healthy hand, he tore down these veils, and trampled +them under the well-intentioned feet of eloquence. In a raucous voice, +he cried aloud little matters, like the hope of Honor and the dream of +Glory, that boys do not discuss even with their most intimate equals, +cheerfully assuming that, till he spoke, they had never considered these +possibilities. He pointed them to shining goals, with fingers which +smudged out all radiance on all horizons. He profaned the most secret +places of their souls with outcries and gesticulations, he bade them +consider the deeds of their ancestors in such a fashion that they were +flushed to their tingling ears. Some of them--the rending voice cut a +frozen stillness--might have had relatives who perished in defence of +their country. They thought, not a few of them, of an old sword in a +passage, or above a breakfast-room table, seen and fingered by stealth +since they could walk. He adjured them to emulate those illustrious +examples; and they looked all ways in their extreme discomfort. + +Their years forbade them even to shape their thoughts clearly to +themselves. They felt savagely that they were being outraged by a fat +man who considered marbles a game. + +And so he worked towards his peroration--which, by the way, he used +later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors--while they +sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many, many words, he +reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. +This--this was the concrete symbol of their land--worthy of all honor +and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to +worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them--a +large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colors, and waited for the +thunder of applause that should crown his effort. + +They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before--down +at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high when a +brig went ashore on Braunton Sands; above the roof of the Golf-club, and +in Keyte’s window, where a certain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in +paper on each box. But the College never displayed it; it was no part +of the scheme of their lives; the Head had never alluded to it; their +fathers had not declared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred +and apart. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, +who waved that horror before their eyes? Happy thought! Perhaps he was +drunk. + +The Head saved the situation by rising swiftly to propose a vote of +thanks, and at his first motion, the school clapped furiously, from a +sense of relief. + +“And I am sure,” he concluded, the gaslight full on his face, “that you +will all join me in a very hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Raymond Martin +for the most enjoyable address he has given us.” + +To this day we shall never know the rights of the case. The Head +vows that he did no such thing; or that, if he did, it must have been +something in his eye; but those who were present are persuaded that +he winked, once, openly and solemnly, after the word “enjoyable.” Mr. +Raymond Martin got his applause full tale. As he said, “Without vanity, +I think my few words went to their hearts. I never knew boys could cheer +like that.” + +He left as the prayer-bell rang, and the boys lined up against the wall. +The flag lay still unrolled on the desk, Foxy regarding it with pride, +for he had been touched to the quick by Mr. Martin’s eloquence. The +Head and the Common-room, standing back on the dais, could not see the +glaring offence, but a prefect left the line, rolled it up swiftly, and +as swiftly tossed it into a glove and foil locker. + +Then, as though he had touched a spring, broke out the low murmur of +content, changing to quick-volleyed hand-clapping. + +They discussed the speech in the dormitories. There was not one +dissentient voice. Mr. Raymond Martin, beyond question, was born in a +gutter, and bred in a board-school, where they played marbles. He was +further (I give the barest handful from great store) a Flopshus Cad, +an Outrageous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper (this was Stalky’s +contribution), and several other things which it is not seemly to put +down. + +The volunteer cadet-corps fell in next Monday, depressedly, with a face +of shame. Even then, judicious silence might have turned the corner. + +Said Foxy: “After a fine speech like what you ‘eard night before last, +you ought to take ‘old of your drill with _re_-newed activity. I don’t +see how you can avoid comin’ out an’ marchin’ in the open now.” + +“Can’t we get out of it, then, Foxy?” Stalky’s fine old silky tone +should have warned him. + +“No, not with his giving the flag so generously. He told me before he +left this morning that there was no objection to the corps usin’ it as +their own. It’s a handsome flag.” + +Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead silence, and fell out. His +example was followed by Hogan and Ansell. Perowne hesitated. “Look here, +oughtn’t we--?” he began. + +“I’ll get it out of the locker in a minute,” said the Sergeant, his back +turned. “Then we can--” + +“Come on!” shouted Stalky. “What the devil are you waiting for? Dismiss! +Break off.” + +“Why--what the--where the--?” + +The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as boy +after boy fell out. + +“I--I don’t know that I shan’t have to report this to the Head,” he +stammered. + +“Report, then, and be damned to you,” cried Stalky, white to the lips, +and ran out. + + +“Rummy thing!” said Beetle to McTurk. “I was in the study, doin’ a +simply lovely poem about the Jelly-Bellied Flag-Flapper, an’ Stalky +came in, an’ I said ‘Hullo!’ an’ he cursed me like a bargee, and then +he began to blub like anything. Shoved his head on the table and howled. +Hadn’t we better do something?” + +McTurk was troubled. “P’raps he’s smashed himself up somehow.” + +They found him, with very bright eyes, whistling between his teeth. + +“Did I take you in, Beetle? I thought I would. Wasn’t it a good draw? +Didn’t you think I was blubbin’? Didn’t I do it well? Oh, you fat old +ass!” And he began to pull Beetle’s ears and checks, in the fashion that +was called “milking.” + +“I knew you were blubbin’,” Beetle replied, composedly. “Why aren’t you +at drill?” + +“Drill! What drill?” + +“Don’t try to be a clever fool. Drill in the Gym.” + +“‘Cause there isn’t any. The volunteer cadet-corps is broke +up--disbanded--dead--putrid--corrupt---stinkin’. An’ if you look at me +like that, Beetle, I’ll slay you too... Oh, yes, an’ I’m goin’ to be +reported to the Head for swearin’.” + + + + +THE LAST TERM. + + +It was within a few days of the holidays, the term-end examinations, +and, more important still, the issue of the College paper which Beetle +edited. He had been cajoled into that office by the blandishments of +Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study law. Once installed, he +discovered, as others have done before him, that his duty was to do +the work while his friends criticized. Stalky christened it the +“Swillingford Patriot,” in pious memory of Sponge--and McTurk compared +the output unfavorably with Ruskin and De Quincey. Only the Head took +an interest in the publication, and his methods were peculiar. He gave +Beetle the run of his brown-bound, tobacco-scented library; prohibiting +nothing, recommending nothing. There Beetle found a fat arm-chair, a +silver inkstand, and unlimited pens and paper. There were scores and +scores of ancient dramatists; there were Hakluyt, his voyages; French +translations of Muscovite authors called Pushkin and Lermontoff; little +tales of a heady and bewildering nature, interspersed with unusual +songs--Peacock was that writer’s name; there was Borrow’s “Lavengro”; +an odd theme, purporting to be a translation of something, called a +“Ruba’iyat,” which the Head said was a poem not yet come to its own; +there were hundreds of volumes of verse---Crashaw; Dryden; Alexander +Smith; L. E. L.; Lydia Sigourney; Fletcher and a purple island; Donne; +Marlowe’s “Faust “; and--this made McTurk (to whom Beetle conveyed it) +sheer drunk for three days--Ossian; “The Earthly Paradise”; “Atalanta in +Calydon”; and Rossetti--to name only a few. Then the Head, drifting in +under pretense of playing censor to the paper, would read here a +verse and here another of these poets, opening up avenues. And, slow +breathing, with half-shut eyes above his cigar, would he speak of great +men living, and journals, long dead, founded in their riotous youth; +of years when all the planets were little new-lit stars trying to find +their places in the uncaring void, and he, the Head, knew them as young +men know one another. So the regular work went to the dogs, Beetle being +full of other matters and meters, hoarded in secret and only told to +McTurk of an afternoon, on the sands, walking high and disposedly round +the wreck of the Armada galleons, shouting and declaiming against the +long-ridged seas. + +Thanks in large part to their house-master’s experienced distrust, the +three for three consecutive terms had been passed over for promotion to +the rank of prefect--an office that went by merit, and carried with it +the honor of the ground-ash, and liberty, under restrictions, to use it. + +“_But_,” said Stalky, “come to think of it, we’ve done more giddy +jesting with the Sixth since we’ve been passed over than any one else in +the last seven years.” + +He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of +stick-up collars, which custom decreed could be worn only by the Sixth. +And the Sixth saw those collars and said no word. “Pussy,” Abanazar, or +Dick Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded in five minutes +or... But the Sixth of that term was made up mostly of young but +brilliantly clever boys, pets of the house-masters, too anxious for +their dignity to care to come to open odds with the resourceful three. +So they crammed their caps at the extreme back of their heads, +instead of a trifle over one eye as the Fifth should, and rejoiced +in patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous made-up ties on +Sundays--no man rebuking. McTurk was going up for Cooper’s Hill, and +Stalky for Sandhurst, in the spring; and the Head had told them both +that, unless they absolutely collapsed during the holidays, they were +safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head seldom erred in an estimate of +form. + +He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him much good advice, not +one word of which did Beetle remember when he dashed up to the study, +white with excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It demanded a +great belief. + +“You begin on a hundred a year?” said McTurk unsympathetically. “Rot!” + +“And my passage out! It’s all settled. The Head says he’s been breaking +me in for this for ever so long, and I never knew--I never knew. One +don’t begin with writing straight off, y’know. Begin by filling in +telegrams and cutting things out o’ papers with scissors.” + +“Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you’ll make of it,” said Stalky. +“But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my dearly +beloved ‘earers--though not prefects.” + +“Not half bad years, either,” said McTurk. “I shall be sorry to leave +the old Coll.; shan’t you?” + +They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebbleridge in the clear +winter light. “Wonder where we shall all be this time next year?” said +Stalky absently. + +“This time five years,” said McTurk. + +“Oh,” said Beetle, “my leavin’s between ourselves. The Head hasn’t told +any one. I know he hasn’t, because Prout grunted at me to-day that if +I were more reasonable--yah!--I might be a prefect next term. I s’ppose +he’s hard up for his prefects.” + +“Let’s finish up with a row with the Sixth,” suggested McTurk. + +“Dirty little schoolboys!” said Stalky, who already saw himself a +Sandhurst cadet. “What’s the use?” + +“Moral effect,” quoth McTurk. “Leave an imperishable tradition, and all +the rest of it.” + +“Better go into Bideford an’ pay up our debts,” said Stalky. “I’ve got +three quid out of my father--_ad hoc_. Don’t owe more than thirty bob, +either. Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say you want to +correct the ‘Swillingford Patriot.’” + +“Well, I do,” said Beetle. “It’ll be my last issue, and I’d like it to +look decent. I’ll catch him before he goes to his lunch.” + +Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace released from +five o’clock call-over, and all the afternoon lay before them. So also +unluckily did King, who never passed without witticisms. But brigades of +Kings could not have ruffled Beetle that day. + +“Aha! Enjoying the study of light literature, my friends,” said he, +rubbing his hands. “Common mathematics are not for such soaring minds as +yours, are they?” + +(“One hundred a year,” thought Beetle, smiling into vacancy.) + +“Our open incompetence takes refuge in the flowery paths of inaccurate +fiction. But a day of reckoning approaches, Beetle mine. I myself have +prepared a few trifling foolish questions in Latin prose which can +hardly be evaded even by your practised acts of deception. Ye-es, Latin +prose. I think, if I may say so--but we shall see when the papers are +set--‘Ulpian serves your need.’ Aha! ‘_Elucescebat_, quoth our friend.’ +We shall see! We shall see!” + +Still no sign from Beetle. He was on a steamer, his passage paid into +the wide and wonderful world--a thousand leagues beyond Lundy Island. + +King dropped him with a snarl. + +“He doesn’t know. He’ll go on correctin’ exercises an’ jawin’ an’ +showin’ off before the little boys next term--and next.” Beetle hurried +after his companions up the steep path of the furze-clad hill behind the +College. + +They were throwing pebbles on the top of the gasometer, and the grimy +gas-man in change bade them desist. They watched him oil a turncock sunk +in the ground between two furze-bushes. + +“Cokey, what’s that for?” said Stalky. + +“To turn the gas on to the kitchens,” said Cokey. “If so be I +didn’t turn her on, yeou young gen’lemen ‘ud be larnin’ your book by +candlelight.” + +“Um!” said Stalky, and was silent for at least a minute. + +“Hullo! Where are you chaps going?” A bend of the lane brought them +face to face with Tulke, senior prefect of King’s house--a smallish, +white-haired boy, of the type that must be promoted on account of +its intellect, and ever afterwards appeals to the Head to support its +authority when zeal has outrun discretion. + +The three took no sort of notice. They were on lawful pass. Tulke +repeated his question hotly, for he had suffered many slights from +Number Five study, and fancied that he had at last caught them tripping. + +“What the devil is that to you?” Stalky replied with his sweetest smile. + +“Look here, I’m not goin’--I’m not goin’ to be sworn at by the Fifth!” + sputtered Tulke. + +“Then cut along and call a prefects’ meeting,” said McTurk, knowing +Tulke’s weakness. + +The prefect became inarticulate with rage. + +“Mustn’t yell at the Fifth that way,” said Stalky. “It’s vile bad form.” + +“Cough it up, ducky!” McTurk said calmly. + +“I--I want to know what you chaps are doing out of bounds?” This with an +important flourish of his ground-ash. + +“Ah,” said Stalky. “Now we’re gettin’ at it. Why didn’t you ask that +before?” + +“Well, I ask it now. What are you doing?” + +“We’re admiring you, Tulke,” said Stalky. “We think you’re no end of a +fine chap, don’t we?” + +“We do! We do!” A dog-cart with some girls in it swept round the corner, +and Stalky promptly kneeled before Tulke in the attitude of prayer; so +Tulke turned a color. + +“I’ve reason to believe--” he began. + +“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” shouted Beetle, after the manner of Bideford’s town +crier, “Tulke has reason to believe! Three cheers for Tulke!” + +They were given. “It’s all our giddy admiration,” said Stalky. “You know +how we love you, Tulke. We love you so much we think you ought to go +home and die. You’re too good to live, Tulke.” + +“Yes,” said McTurk. “Do oblige us by dyin’. Think how lovely you’d look +stuffed!” + +Tulke swept up the road with an unpleasant glare in his eye. + +“That means a prefects’ meeting--sure pop,” said Stalky. “Honor of the +Sixth involved, and all the rest of it. Tulke’ll write notes all this +afternoon, and Carson will call us up after tea. They daren’t overlook +that.” + +“Bet you a bob he follows us!” said McTurk. “He’s King’s pet, and it’s +scalps to both of ‘em if we’re caught out. We must be virtuous.” + +“Then I move we go to Mother Yeo’s for a last gorge. We owe her about +ten bob, and Mary’ll weep sore when she knows we’re leaving,” said +Beetle. + +“She gave me an awful wipe on the head last time--Mary,” said Stalky. + +“She does if you don’t duck,” said McTurk. “But she generally kisses one +back. Let’s try Mother Yeo.” + +They sought a little bottle-windowed half dairy, half restaurant, a +dark-brewed, two-hundred-year-old house, at the head of a narrow side +street. They had patronized it from the days of their fagdom, and were +very much friends at home. + +“We’ve come to pay our debts, mother,” said Stalky, sliding his arm +round the fifty-six-inch waist of the mistress of the establishment. “To +pay our debts and say good-by--and--and we’re awf’ly hungry.” + +“Aie!” said Mother Yeo, “makkin’ love to me! I’m shaamed of ‘ee.” + +“‘Rackon us wouldn’t du no such thing if Mary was here,” said McTurk, +lapsing into the broad North Devon that the boys used on their +campaigns. + +“Who’m takin’ my name in vain?” The inner door opened, and Mary, +fair-haired, blue-eyed, and apple-checked, entered with a bowl of cream +in her hands. McTurk kissed her. Beetle followed suit, with exemplary +calm. Both boys were promptly cuffed. + +“Niver kiss the maid when ‘e can kiss the mistress,” said Stalky, +shamelessly winking at Mother Yeo, as he investigated a shelf of jams. + +“Glad to see one of ‘ee don’t want his head slapped no more?” said Mary +invitingly, in that direction. + +“Neu! Reckon I can get ‘em give me,” said Stalky, his back turned. + +“Not by me--yeou little masterpiece!” + +“Niver asked ‘ee. There’s maids to Northam. Yiss--an’ Appledore.” An +unreproducible sniff, half contempt, half reminiscence, rounded the +retort. + +“Aie! Yeou won’t niver come to no good end. Whutt be ‘baout, smellin’ +the cream?” + +“‘Tees bad,” said Stalky. “Zmell ‘un.” + +Incautiously Mary did as she was bid. + +“Bidevoor kiss.” + +“Niver amiss,” said Stalky, taking it without injury. + +“Yeou--yeou--yeou--” Mary began, bubbling with mirth. + +“They’m better to Northam--more rich, laike an’ us gets them give back +again,” he said, while McTurk solemnly waltzed Mother Yeo out of breath, +and Beetle told Mary the sad news, as they sat down to clotted cream, +jam, and hot bread. + +“Yiss. Yeou’ll niver zee us no more, Mary. We’re goin’ to be passons an’ +missioners.” + +“Steady the Buffs!” said McTurk, looking through the blind. “Tulke has +followed us. He’s comin’ up the street now.” + +“They’ve niver put us out o’ bounds,” said Mother Yeo. “Bide yeou still, +my little dearrs.” She rolled into the inner room to make the score. + +“Mary,” said Stalky, suddenly, with tragic intensity. “Do ‘ee lov’ me, +Mary?” + +“Iss--fai! Talled ‘ee zo since yeou was zo high!” the damsel replied. + +“Zee ‘un comin’ up street, then?” Stalky pointed to the unconscious +Tulke. “He’ve niver been kissed by no sort or manner o’ maid in hees +borned laife, Mary. Oh, ‘tees shaamful!” + +“Whutt’s to do with me? ‘Twill come to ‘un in the way o’ nature, I +rackon.” She nodded her head sagaciously. “You niver want me to kiss +un--sure-_ly_?” + +“Give ‘ee half-a-crown if ‘ee will,” said Stalky, exhibiting the coin. + +Half-a-crown was much to Mary Yeo, and a jest was more; but + +“Yeu’m afraid,” said McTurk, at the psychological moment. + +“Aie!” Beetle echoed, knowing her weak point. “There’s not a maid to +Northam ‘ud think twice. An’ yeou such a fine maid, tu!” + +McTurk planted one foot firmly against the inner door lest Mother Yeo +should return inopportunely, for Mary’s face was set. It was then that +Tulke found his way blocked by a tall daughter of Devon--that county of +easy kisses, the pleasantest under the sun. He dodged aside politely. +She reflected a moment, and laid a vast hand upon his shoulder. + +“Where be ‘ee gwaine tu, my dearr?” said she. + +Over the handkerchief he had crammed into his mouth Stalky could see the +boy turn scarlet. + +“Gie I a kiss! Don’t they larn ‘ee manners to College?” + +Tulke gasped and wheeled. Solemnly and conscientiously Mary kissed him +twice, and the luckless prefect fled. + +She stepped into the shop, her eyes full of simple wonder. “Kissed ‘un?” + said Stalky, handing over the money. + +“Iss, fai! But, oh, my little body, he’m no Colleger. ‘Zeemed tu-minded +to cry, like.” + +“Well, we won’t. Yell couldn’t make us cry that way,” said McTurk. +“Try.” + +Whereupon Mary cuffed them all round. + +As they went out with tingling ears, said Stalky generally, “Don’t think +there’ll be much of a prefects’ meeting.” + +“Won’t there, just!” said Beetle. “Look here. If he kissed her--which +is our tack--he is a cynically immoral hog, and his conduct is blatant +indecency. _Confer orationes Regis furiosissimi_, when he collared me +readin’ ‘Don Juan.’” + +“‘Course he kissed her,” said McTurk. “In the middle of the street. With +his house-cap on!” + +“Time, 3.57 p.m. Make a note o’ that. What d’you mean, Beetle?” said +Stalky. + +“Well! He’s a truthful little beast. He may say he was kissed.” + +“And then?” + +“Why, then!” Beetle capered at the mere thought of it. “Don’t you see? +The corollary to the giddy proposition is that the Sixth can’t protect +‘emselves from outrages an’ ravishin’s. Want nursemaids to look after +‘em! We’ve only got to whisper that to the Coll. Jam for the Sixth! Jam +for us! Either way it’s jammy!” + +“By Gum!” said Stalky. “Our last term’s endin’ well. Now you cut along +an’ finish up your old rag, and Turkey and me will help. We’ll go in the +back way. No need to bother Randall.” + +“Don’t play the giddy garden-goat, then?” Beetle knew what help meant, +though he was by no means averse to showing his importance before his +allies. The little loft behind Randall’s printing office was his own +territory, where he saw himself already controlling the “Times.” Here, +under the guidance of the inky apprentice, he had learned to find his +way more or less circuitously about the case, and considered himself an +expert compositor. + +The school paper in its locked formes lay on a stone-topped table, a +proof by the side; but not for worlds would Beetle have corrected from +the mere proof. With a mallet and a pair of tweezers, he knocked out +mysterious wedges of wood that released the forme, picked a letter here +and inserted a letter there, reading as he went along and stopping much +to chuckle over his own contributions. + +“You won’t show off like that,” said McTurk, “when you’ve got to do it +for your living. Upside down and backwards, isn’t it? Let’s see if I can +read it.” + +“Get out!” said Beetle. “Go and read those formes in the rack there, if +you think you know so much.” + +“Formes in a rack! What’s that? Don’t be so beastly professional.” + +McTurk drew off with Stalky to prowl about the office. They left little +unturned. + +“Come here a shake, Beetle. What’s this thing?” aid Stalky, in a few +minutes. “Looks familiar.” + +Said Beetle, after a glance: “It’s King’s Latin prose exam. paper. +_In--In Varrem: actio prima_. What a lark!” + +“Think o’ the pure-souled, high-minded boys who’d give their eyes for a +squint at it!” said McTurk. + +“No, Willie dear,” said Stalky; “that would be wrong and painful to our +kind teachers. You wouldn’t crib, Willie, would you?” + +“Can’t read the beastly stuff, anyhow,” was the reply. “Besides, we’re +leavin’ at the end o’ the term, so it makes no difference to us.” + +“‘Member what the Considerate Bloomer did to Spraggon’s account of the +Puffin’ton Hounds? We must sugar Mr. King’s milk for him,” said Stalky, +all lighted from within by a devilish joy. “Let’s see what Beetle can do +with those forceps he’s so proud of.” + +“Don’t see now you can make Latin prose much more cock-eye than it is, +but we’ll try,” said Beetle, transposing an _aliud_ and _Asiae_ from two +sentences. “Let’s see! We’ll put that full-stop a little further on, +and begin the sentence with the next capital. Hurrah! Here’s three lines +that can move up all in a lump.” + +“‘One of those scientific rests for which this eminent huntsman is so +justly celebrated.’” Stalky knew the Puffington run by heart. + +“Hold on! Here’s a _vol_--_voluntate quidnam_ all by itself,” said +McTurk. + +“I’ll attend to her in a shake. _Quidnam_ goes after _Dolabella_.” + +“Good old Dolabella,” murmured Stalky. “Don’t break him. Vile prose +Cicero wrote, didn’t he? He ought to be grateful for--” + +“Hullo!” said McTurk, over another forme. “What price a giddy ode? +_Qui_--_quis_--oh, it’s _Quis multa gracilis_, o’ course.” + +“Bring it along. We’ve sugared the milk here,” said Stalky, after a few +minutes’ zealous toil. “Never thrash your hounds unnecessarily.” + +“_Quis munditiis_? I swear that’s not bad,” began Beetle, plying the +tweezers. “Don’t that interrogation look pretty? _Heu quoties fidem_! +That sounds as if the chap were anxious an’ excited. _Cui flavam religas +in rosa_--Whose flavor is relegated to a rose. _Mutatosque Deos flebit +in antro_.” + +“Mute gods weepin’ in a cave,” suggested Stalky. “‘Pon my Sam, Horace +needs as much lookin’ after as--Tulke.” + +They edited him faithfully till it was too dark to see. + + +“‘Aha! Elucescebat, quoth our friend.’ Ulpian serves my need, does it? +If King can make anything out of _that_, I’m a blue-eyed squatteroo,” + said Beetle, as they slid out of the loft window into a back alley of +old acquaintance and started on a three-mile trot to the College. But +the revision of the classics had detained them too long. They halted, +blown and breathless, in the furze at the back of the gasometer, the +College lights twinkling below, ten minutes at least late for tea and +lock-up. + +“It’s no good,” puffed McTurk. “Bet a bob Foxy is waiting for defaulters +under the lamp by the Fives Court. It’s a nuisance, too, because the +Head gave us long leave, and one doesn’t like to break it.” + +“‘Let me now from the bonded ware’ouse of my knowledge,’” began Stalky. + +“Oh, rot! Don’t Jorrock. Can we make a run for it?” snapped McTurk. + +“‘Bishops’ boots Mr. Radcliffe also condemned, an’ spoke ‘ighly in favor +of tops cleaned with champagne an’ abricot jam.’ Where’s that thing +Cokey was twiddlin’ this afternoon?” + +They heard him groping in the wet, and presently beheld a great miracle. +The lights of the Coastguard cottages near the sea went out; the +brilliantly illuminated windows of the Golf-club disappeared, and were +followed by the frontages of the two hotels. Scattered villas dulled, +twinkled, and vanished. Last of all, the College lights died also. They +were left in the pitchy darkness of a windy winter’s night. + +“‘Blister my kidneys. It _is_ a frost. The dahlias are dead!’” said +Stalky. “Bunk!” + +They squattered through the dripping gorse as the College hummed like +an angry hive and the dining-rooms chorused, “Gas! gas! gas!” till they +came to the edge of the sunk path that divided them from their study. +Dropping that ha-ha like bullets, and rebounding like boys, they dashed +to their study, in less than two minutes had changed into dry trousers +and coat, and, ostentatiously slippered, joined the mob in the +dining-hall, which resembled the storm-centre of a South American +revolution. + +“‘Hellish dark and smells of cheese.’” Stalky elbowed his way into +the press, howling lustily for gas. “Cokey must have gone for a walk. +Foxy’ll have to find him.” + +Prout, as the nearest house-master, was trying to restore order, for +rude boys were flicking butter-pats across chaos, and McTurk had turned +on the fags’ tea-urn, so that many were parboiled and wept with an +unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke into the school song, +the “Vive la Compagnie,” to the accompaniment of drumming knife-handles; +and the junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks and raided one another’s +victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high condition, seeking for more +light, are truly earnest inquirers. + +When a most vile smell of gas told them that supplies had been renewed, +Stalky, waistcoat unbuttoned, sat gorgedly over what might have been +his fourth cup of tea. “And that’s all right,” he said. “Hullo! ‘Ere’s +Pomponius Ego!” + +It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, straight-minded soul, +and a pillar of the First Fifteen, who crossed over from the prefects’ +table and in a husky, official voice invited the three to attend in his +study in half an hour. “Prefects’ meetin’! Prefects’ meetin’!” hissed +the tables, and they imitated barbarically the actions and effects of +the ground-ash. + +“How are we goin’ to jest with ‘em?” said Stalky, turning half-face to +Beetle. “It’s your play this time!” + +“Look here,” was the answer, “all I want you to do is not to laugh. I’m +goin’ to take charge o’ young Tulke’s immorality--_a’ la_ King, and it’s +goin’ to be serious. If you can’t help laughin’ don’t look at me, or +I’ll go pop.” + +“I see. All right,” said Stalky. + +McTurk’s lank frame stiffened in every muscle and his eyelids dropped +half over his eyes. That last was a war-signal. + +The eight or nine seniors, their faces very set and sober, were ranged +in chairs round Carson’s severely Philistine study. Tulke was not +popular among them, and a few who had had experience of Stalky and +Company doubted that he might, perhaps, have made an ass of himself. But +the dignity of the Sixth was to be upheld. So Carson began hurriedly: +“Look here, you chaps, I’ve--we’ve sent for you to tell you you’re a +good deal too cheeky to the Sixth--have been for some time--and--and +we’ve stood about as much as we’re goin’ to, and it seems you’ve been +cursin’ and swearin’ at Tulke on the Bideford road this afternoon, and +we’re goin’ to show you you can’t do it. That’s all.” + +“Well, that’s awfully good of you,” said Stalky, “but we happen to have +a few rights of our own, too. You can’t, just because you happen to +be made prefects, haul up seniors and jaw ‘em on spec., like a +house-master. We aren’t fags, Carson. This kind of thing may do for +Davies Tertius, but it won’t do for us.” + +“It’s only old Prout’s lunacy that we weren’t prefects long ago. You +know that,” said McTurk. “You haven’t any tact.” + +“Hold on,” said Beetle. “A prefects’ meetin’ has to be reported to the +Head. I want to know if the Head backs Tulke in this business?” + +“Well--well, it isn’t exactly a prefects’ meeting,” said Carson. “We +only called you in to warn you.” + +“But all the prefects are here,” Beetle insisted. “Where’s the +difference?” + +“My Gum!” said Stalky. “Do you mean to say you’ve just called us in for +a jaw--after comin’ to us before the whole school at tea an’ givin’ ‘em +the impression it was a prefects’ meeting? ‘Pon my Sam, Carson, you’ll +get into trouble, you will.” + +“Hole-an’-corner business--hole-an’-corner business,” said McTurk, +wagging his head. “Beastly suspicious.” + +The Sixth looked at each other uneasily. Tulke had called three +prefects’ meetings in two terms, till the Head had informed the Sixth +that they were expected to maintain discipline without the recurrent +menace of his authority. Now, it seemed that they had made a blunder at +the outset, but any right-minded boy would have sunk the legality and +been properly impressed by the Court. Beetle’s protest was distinct +“cheek.” + +“Well, you chaps deserve a lickin’,” cried one Naughten incautiously. +Then was Beetle filled with a noble inspiration. + +“For interferin’ with Tulke’s amours, eh?” Tulke turned a rich sloe +color. “Oh, no, you don’t!” Beetle went on. “You’ve had your innings. +We’ve been sent up for cursing and swearing at you, and we’re goin’ to +be let off with a warning! _Are_ we? Now then, you’re going to catch +it.” + +“I--I--I” Tulke began. “Don’t let that young devil start jawing.” + +“If you’ve anything to say you must say it decently,’’ said Carson. + +“Decently? I will. Now look here. When we went into Bideford we met this +ornament of the Sixth--is that decent enough?--hanging about on the +road with a nasty look in his eye. We didn’t know _then_ why he was so +anxious to stop us, _but_ at five minutes to four, when we were in Yeo’s +shop, we saw Tulke in broad daylight, with his house-cap on, kissin’ an’ +huggin’ a woman on the pavement. Is that decent enough for you?” + +“I didn’t--I wasn’t.” + +“We saw you!” said Beetle. “And now--I’ll be decent, Carson--you sneak +back with her kisses” (not for nothing had Beetle perused the later +poets) “hot on your lips and call prefects’ meetings, which aren’t +prefects’ meetings, to uphold the honor of the Sixth.” A new and +heaven-cleft path opened before him that instant. “And how do we know,” + he shouted--“how do we know how many of the Sixth are mixed up in this +abominable affair?” + +“Yes, that’s what we want to know,” said McTurk, with simple dignity. + +“We meant to come to you about it quietly, Carson, but you would have +the meeting,” said Stalky sympathetically. + +The Sixth were too taken aback to reply. So, carefully modelling +his rhetoric on King, Beetle followed up the attack, surpassing and +surprising himself, “It--it isn’t so much the cynical immorality of the +biznai, as the blatant indecency of it, that’s so awful. As far as we +can see, it’s impossible for us to go into Bideford without runnin’ up +against some prefect’s unwholesome amours. There’s nothing to snigger +over, Naughten. I don’t pretend to know much about these things--but it +seems to me a chap must be pretty far dead in sin” (that was a quotation +from the school chaplain) “when he takes to embracing his paramours” + (that was Hakluyt) “before all the city” (a reminiscence of Milton). +“He might at least have the decency--you’re authorities on decency, +I believe--to wait till dark. But he didn’t. You didn’t! Oh, Tulke. +You--you incontinent little animal!” + +“Here, shut up a minute. What’s all this about, Tulke?” said Carson. + +“I--look here. I’m awfully sorry. I never thought Beetle would take this +line.” + +“Because--you’ve--no decency--you--thought--I hadn’t,” cried Beetle all +in one breath. + +“Tried to cover it all up with a conspiracy, did you?” said Stalky. + +“Direct insult to all three of us,” said McTurk. “A most filthy mind you +have, Tulke.” + +“I’ll shove you fellows outside the door if you go on like this,” said +Carson angrily. + +“That proves it’s a conspiracy,” said Stalky, with the air of a virgin +martyr. + +“I--I was goin’ along the street--I swear I was,” cried Tulke, “and--and +I’m awfully sorry about it--a woman came up and kissed me. I swear I +didn’t kiss her.” + +There was a pause, filled by Stalky’s long, liquid whistle of contempt, +amazement, and derision. + +“On my honor,” gulped the persecuted one. “Oh, do stop him jawing.” + +“Very good,” McTurk interjected. “We are compelled, of course, to accept +your statement.” + +“Confound it!” roared Naughten. “You aren’t head-prefect here, McTurk.” + +“Oh, well,” returned the Irishman, “you know Tulke better than we do. I +am only speaking for ourselves. _We_ accept Tulke’s word. But all I can +say is that if I’d been collared in a similarly disgustin’ situation, +and had offered the same explanation Tulke has, I--I wonder what you’d +have said. However, it seems on Tulke’s word of honor--” + +“And Tulkus--beg pardon--_kiss_, of course---Tulkiss is an honorable +man,” put in Stalky. + +“--that the Sixth can’t protect ‘emselves from bein’ kissed when they +go for a walk!” cried Beetle, taking up the running with a rush. “Sweet +business, isn’t it? Cheerful thing to tell the fags, ain’t it? We aren’t +prefects, of course, but we aren’t kissed very much. Don’t think that +sort of thing ever enters our heads; does it, Stalky?” + +“Oh, no!” said Stalky, turning aside to hide his emotions. McTurk’s face +merely expressed lofty contempt and a little weariness. + +“Well, you seem to know a lot about it,” interposed a prefect. + +“Can’t help it--when you chaps shove it under our noses.” Beetle dropped +into a drawling parody of King’s most biting colloquial style--the +gentle rain after the thunder-storm. “Well, it’s all very sufficiently +vile and disgraceful, isn’t it? I don’t know who comes out of it +worst: Tulke, who happens to have been caught; or the other fellows who +haven’t. And we--” here he wheeled fiercely on the other two--“we’ve +got to stand up and be jawed by them because we’ve disturbed their +intrigues.” + +“Hang it! I only wanted to give you a word of warning,” said Carson, +thereby handing himself bound to the enemy. + +“Warn? You?” This with the air of one who finds loathsome gifts in his +locker. “Carson, would you be good enough to tell us what conceivable +thing there is that you are entitled to warn us about after this +exposure? Warn? Oh, it’s a little too much! Let’s go somewhere where +it’s clean.” + +The door banged behind their outraged innocence. + +“Oh, Beetle! Beetle! Beetle! Golden Beetle!” sobbed Stalky, hurling +himself on Beetle’s panting bosom as soon as they reached the study. +“However did you do it?” + +“Dear-r man” said McTurk, embracing Beetle’s head with both arms, while +he swayed it to and fro on the neck, in time to this ancient burden-- + + “Pretty lips--sweeter than--cherry or plum. + Always look--jolly and--never look glum; + Seem to say--Come away. Kissy!--come, come! + Yummy-yum! Yummy-yum! Yummy-yum-yum!” + +“Look out. You’ll smash my gig-lamps,” puffed Beetle, emerging. “Wasn’t +it glorious? Didn’t I ‘Eric’ ‘em splendidly? Did you spot my cribs +from King? Oh, blow!” His countenance clouded. “There’s one adjective +I didn’t use--obscene. Don’t know how I forgot that. It’s one of King’s +pet ones, too.” + +“Never mind. They’ll be sendin’ ambassadors round in half a shake to +beg us not to tell the school. It’s a deuced serious business for them,” + said McTurk. “Poor Sixth--poor old Sixth!” + +“Immoral young rips,” Stalky snorted. “What an example to pure-souled +boys like you and me!” + +And the Sixth in Carson’s study sat aghast, glowering at Tulke, who was +on the edge of tears. “Well,” said the head-prefect acidly. “You’ve made +a pretty average ghastly mess of it, Tulke.” + +“Why--why didn’t you lick that young devil Beetle before he began +jawing?” Tulke wailed. + +“I knew there’d be a row,” said a prefect of Prout’s house. “But you +would insist on the meeting, Tulke.” + +“Yes, and a fat lot of good it’s done us,” said Naughten. “They come in +here and jaw our heads off when we ought to be jawin’ them. Beetle talks +to us as if we were a lot of blackguards and--and all that. And +when they’ve hung us up to dry, they go out and slam the door like a +house-master. All your fault, Tulke.” + +“But I didn’t kiss her.” + +“You ass! If you’d said you _had_ and stuck to it, it would have been +ten times better than what you did,” Naughten retorted. “Now they’ll +tell the whole school--and Beetle’ll make up a lot of beastly rhymes and +nick-names.” + +“But, hang it, she kissed me!” Outside of his work, Tulke’s mind moved +slowly. + +“I’m not thinking of you. I’m thinking of us. I’ll go up to their study +and see if I can make ‘em keep quiet!” + +“Tulke’s awf’ly cut up about this business,” Naughten began, +ingratiatingly, when he found Beetle. + +“Who’s kissed him this time?” + +“--and I’ve come to ask you chaps, and especially you, Beetle, not to +let the thing be known all over the school. Of course, fellows as senior +as you are can easily see why.” + +“Um!” said Beetle, with the cold reluctance of one who foresees an +unpleasant public duty. “I suppose I must go and talk to the Sixth +again.” + +“Not the least need, my dear chap, I assure you,” said Naughten hastily. +“I’ll take any message you care to send.” + +But the chance of supplying the missing adjective was too tempting. So +Naughten returned to that still undissolved meeting, Beetle, white, icy, +and aloof, at his heels. + +“There seems,” he began, with laboriously crisp articulation, “there +seems to be a certain amount of uneasiness among you as to the steps +we may think fit to take in regard to this last revelation of +the--ah--obscene. If it is any consolation to you to know that we have +decided--for the honor of the school, you understand--to keep our mouths +shut as to these--ah--obscenities, you--ah--have it.” + +He wheeled, his head among the stars, and strode statelily back to his +study, where Stalky and McTurk lay side by side upon the table wiping +their tearful eyes--too weak to move. + + +The Latin prose paper was a success beyond their wildest dreams. +Stalky and McTurk were, of course, out of all examinations (they did +extra-tuition with the Head), but Beetle attended with zeal. + +“This, I presume, is a par-ergon on your part,” said King, as he dealt +out the papers. “One final exhibition ere you are translated to loftier +spheres? A last attack on the classics? It seems to confound you +already.” + +Beetle studied the print with knit brows. “I can’t make head or tail of +it,” he murmured. “What does it mean?” + +“No, no!” said King, with scholastic coquetry. “We depend upon you +to give us the meaning. This is an examination, Beetle mine, not a +guessing-competition. You will find your associates have no difficulty +in--” + +Tulke left his place and laid the paper on the desk. King looked, read, +and turned a ghastly green. + +“Stalky’s missing a heap,” thought Beetle. “Wonder how King’ll get out +of it!” + +“There seems,” King began with a gulp, “a certain modicum of truth +in our Beetle’s remark. I am--er--inclined to believe that the worthy +Randall must have dropped this in ferule--if you know what that means. +Beetle, you purport to be an editor. Perhaps you can enlighten the form +as to formes.” + +“What, sir! Whose form! I don’t see that there’s any verb in this +sentence at all, an’--an’--the Ode is all different, somehow.” + +“I was about to say, before you volunteered your criticism, that an +accident must have befallen the paper in type, and that the printer +reset it by the light of nature. No--” he held the thing at arm’s +length--“our Randall is not an authority on Cicero or Horace.” + +“Rather mean to shove it off on Randall,” whispered Beetle to his +neighbor. “King must ha’ been as screwed as an owl when he wrote it +out.” + +“But we can amend the error by dictating it.” + +“No, sir.” The answer came pat from a dozen throats at once. “That cuts +the time for the exam. Only two hours allowed, sir. ‘Tisn’t fair. It’s +a printed-paper exam. How’re we goin’ to be marked for it! It’s all +Randall’s fault. It isn’t our fault, anyhow. An exam.’s an exam.,” etc., +etc. + +Naturally Mr. King considered this was an attempt to undermine his +authority, and, instead of beginning dictation at once, delivered a +lecture on the spirit in which examinations should be approached. As the +storm subsided, Beetle fanned it afresh. + +“Eh? What? What was that you were saying to MacLagan?” + +“I only said I thought the papers ought to have been looked at before +they were given out, sir.” + +“Hear, hear!” from a back bench. Mr. King wished to know whether Beetle +took it upon himself personally to conduct the traditions of the school. +His zeal for knowledge ate up another fifteen minutes, during which the +prefects showed unmistakable signs of boredom. + +“Oh, it was a giddy time,” said Beetle, afterwards, in dismantled Number +Five. “He gibbered a bit, and I kept him on the gibber, and then he +dictated about a half of Dolabella & Co.” + +“Good old Dolabella! Friend of mine. Yes?” said Stalky, pensively. + +“Then we had to ask him how every other word was spelt, of course, and +he gibbered a lot more. He cursed me and MacLagan (Mac played up like a +trump) and Randall, and the ‘materialized ignorance of the unscholarly +middle classes,’ ‘lust for mere marks,’ and all the rest. It was what +you might call a final exhibition--a last attack--a giddy par-ergon.” + +“But o’ course he was blind squiffy when he wrote the paper. I hope you +explained that?” said Stalky. + +“Oh, yes. I told Tulke so. I said an immoral prefect an’ a drunken +house-master were legitimate inferences. Tulke nearly blubbed. He’s +awfully shy of us since Mary’s time.” + +Tulke preserved that modesty till the last moment--till the +journey-money had been paid, and the boys were filling the brakes that +took them to the station. Then the three tenderly constrained him to +wait a while. + +“You see, Tulke, you may be a prefect,” said Stalky, “but I’ve left the +Coll. Do you see, Tulke, dear?” + +“Yes, I see. Don’t bear malice, Stalky.” + +“Stalky? Curse your impudence, you young cub,” shouted Stalky, +magnificent in top-hat, stiff collar, spats, and high-waisted, +snuff-colored ulster. “I want you to understand that _I’m_ Mister +Corkran, an’ you’re a dirty little schoolboy.” + +“Besides bein’ frabjously immoral,” said McTurk. “Wonder you aren’t +ashamed to foist your company on pure-minded boys like us.” + +“Come on, Tulke,’ cried Naughten, from the prefects’ brake. + +“Yes, we’re comin’. Shove up and make room, you Collegers. You’ve all +got to be back next term, with your ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘Oh, sir,’ an’ ‘No +sir’ an’ ‘Please sir’; but before we say good-by we’re going to tell you +a little story. Go on, Dickie” (this to the driver); “we’re quite ready. +Kick that hat-box under the seat, an’ don’t crowd your Uncle Stalky.” + +“As nice a lot of high-minded youngsters as you’d wish to see,” said +McTurk, gazing round with bland patronage. “A trifle immoral, but +then--boys will be boys. It’s no good tryin’ to look stuffy, Carson. +_Mister_ Corkran will now oblige with the story of Tulke an’ Mary Yeo!” + + + + +SLAVES OF THE LAMP. + +Part II. + + +That very Infant who told the story of the capture of Boh Na Ghee +[_A Conference_ _of the Powers_: “Many Inventions”] to Eustace Cleaver, +novelist, inherited an estateful baronetcy, with vast revenues, resigned +the service, and became a landholder, while his mother stood guard over +him to see that he married the right girl. But, new to his position, he +presented the local volunteers with a full-sized magazine-rifle range, +two miles long, across the heart of his estate, and the surrounding +families, who lived in savage seclusion among woods full of pheasants, +regarded him as an erring maniac. The noise of the firing disturbed +their poultry, and Infant was cast out from the society of J.P.’s and +decent men till such time as a daughter of the county might lure him +back to right thinking. He took his revenge by filling the house +with choice selections of old schoolmates home on leave--affable +detrimentals, at whom the bicycle-riding maidens of the surrounding +families were allowed to look from afar. I knew when a troop-ship was in +port by the Infant’s invitations. Sometimes he would produce old friends +of equal seniority; at others, young and blushing giants whom I had left +small fags far down in the Lower Second; and to these Infant and the +elders expounded the whole duty of man in the Army. + +“I’ve had to cut the service,” said the Infant; “but that’s no reason +why my vast stores of experience should be lost to posterity.” He was +just thirty, and in that same summer an imperious wire drew me to his +baronial castle: “Got good haul; ex _Tamar_. Come along.” + +It was an unusually good haul, arranged with a single eye to my benefit. +There was a baldish, broken-down captain of Native Infantry, shivering +with ague behind an indomitable red nose--and they called him Captain +Dickson. There was another captain, also of Native Infantry, with a fair +mustache; his face was like white glass, and his hands were fragile, but +he answered joyfully to the cry of Tertius. There was an enormously +big and well-kept man, who had evidently not campaigned for years, +clean-shaved, soft-voiced, and cat-like, but still Abanazar for all that +he adorned the Indian Political Service; and there was a lean Irishman, +his face tanned blue-black with the suns of the Telegraph Department. +Luckily the baize doors of the bachelors’ wing fitted tight, for we +dressed promiscuously in the corridor or in each other’s rooms, talking, +calling, shouting, and anon waltzing by pairs to songs of Dick Four’s +own devising. + +There were sixty years of mixed work to be sifted out between us, +and since we had met one another from time to time in the quick +scene-shifting of India--a dinner, camp, or a race-meeting here; a +dak-bungalow or railway station up country somewhere else--we had never +quite lost touch. Infant sat on the banisters, hungrily and enviously +drinking it in. He enjoyed his baronetcy, but his heart yearned for the +old days. + +It was a cheerful babel of matters personal, provincial, and imperial, +pieces of old call-over lists, and new policies, cut short by the roar +of a Burmese gong, and we went down not less than a quarter of a mile of +stairs to meet Infant’s mother, who had known us all in our school-days +and greeted us as if those had ended a week ago. But it was +fifteen years since, with tears of laughter, she had lent me a gray +princess-skirt for amateur theatricals. + +That was a dinner from the “Arabian Nights,” served in an eighty-foot +hall full of ancestors and pots of flowering roses, and, what was more +impressive, heated by steam. When it was ended and the little mother had +gone away--(“You boys want to talk, so I shall say good-night now”)--we +gathered about an apple-wood fire, in a gigantic polished steel grate, +under a mantel-piece ten feet high, and the Infant compassed us about +with curious liqueurs and that kind of cigarette which serves best to +introduce your own pipe. + +“Oh, bliss!” grunted Dick Four from a sofa, where he had been packed +with a rug over him. “First time I’ve been warm since I came home.” + +We were all nearly on top of the fire, except Infant, who had been long +enough at home to take exercise when he felt chilled. This is a grisly +diversion, but much affected by the English of the Island. + +“If you say a word about cold tubs and brisk walks,” drawled McTurk, +“I’ll kill you, Infant. I’ve got a liver, too. ‘Member when we used +to think it a treat to turn out of our beds on a Sunday +morning--thermometer fifty-seven degrees if it was summer--and bathe off +the Pebbleridge? Ugh!” + +“‘Thing I don’t understand,” said Tertius, “was the way we chaps used to +go down into the lavatories, boil ourselves pink, and then come up with +all our pores open into a young snow-storm or a black frost. Yet none of +our chaps died, that I can remember.” + +“Talkin’ of baths,” said McTurk, with a chuckle, “‘member our bath in +Number Five, Beetle, the night Rabbits-Eggs rocked King? What wouldn’t +I give to see old Stalky now! He is the only one of the two Studies not +here.” + +“Stalky is the great man of his Century,” said Dick Four. + +“How d’you know?” I asked. + +“How do I know?” said Dick Four, scornfully. “If you’ve ever been in a +tight place with Stalky you wouldn’t ask.” + +“I haven’t seen him since the camp at Pindi in ‘87,” I said. “He was +goin’ strong then--about seven feet high and four feet through.” + +“Adequate chap. Infernally adequate,” said Tertius, pulling his mustache +and staring into the fire. + +“Got dam’ near court-martialed and broke in Egypt in ‘84,” the Infant +volunteered. “I went out in the same trooper with him--as raw as he was. +Only _I_ showed it, and Stalky didn’t.” + +“What was the trouble?” said McTurk, reaching forward absently to twitch +my dress-tie into position. + +“Oh, nothing. His colonel trusted him to take twenty Tommies out to +wash, or groom camels, or something at the back of Suakin, and Stalky +got embroiled with Fuzzies five miles in the interior. He conducted a +masterly retreat and wiped up eight of ‘em. He knew jolly well he’d +no right to go out so far, so he took the initiative and pitched in a +letter to his colonel, who was frothing at the mouth, complaining of the +‘paucity of support accorded to him in his operations.’ Gad, it might +have been one fat brigadier slangin’ another! Then he went into the +Staff Corps.” + +“That--is--entirely--Stalky,” said Abanazar from his arm-chair. + +“You’ve come across him, too?” I said. + +“Oh, yes,” he replied in his softest tones. “I was at the tail of +that--that epic. Don’t you chaps know?” + +We did not--Infant, McTurk, and I; and we called for information very +politely. + +“‘Twasn’t anything,” said Tertius. “We got into a mess up in the +Khye-Kheen Hills a couple o’ years ago, and Stalky pulled us through. +That’s all.” + +McTurk gazed at Tertius with all an Irishman’s contempt for the +tongue-tied Saxon. + +“Heavens!” he said. “And it’s you and your likes govern Ireland. +Tertius, aren’t you ashamed?” + +“Well, I can’t tell a yarn. I can chip in when the other fellow starts +_bukhing_. Ask him.” He pointed to Dick Four, whose nose gleamed +scornfully over the rug. + +“I knew you wouldn’t,” said Dick Four. “Give me a whiskey and soda. I’ve +been drinking lemon-squash and ammoniated quinine while you chaps were +bathin’ in champagne, and my head’s singin’ like a top.” + +He wiped his ragged mustache above the drink; and, his teeth chattering +in his head, began: “You know the Khye-Kheen-Malot expedition, when +we scared the souls out of ‘em with a field force they daren’t fight +against? Well, both tribes--there was a coalition against us--came in +without firing a shot; and a lot of hairy villains, who had no more +power over their men than I had, promised and vowed all sorts of things. +On that very slender evidence, Pussy dear--” + +“I was at Simla,” said Abanazar, hastily. + +“Never mind, you’re tarred with the same brush. On the strength of +those tuppenny-ha’penny treaties, your asses of Politicals reported the +country as pacified, and the Government, being a fool, as usual, began +road-makin’--dependin’ on local supply for labor. ‘Member _that_, Pussy? +‘Rest of our chaps who’d had no look-in during the campaign didn’t think +there’d be any more of it, and were anxious to get back to India. But +I’d been in two of these little rows before, and I had my suspicions. +I engineered myself, _summa ingenio_, into command of a road-patrol--no +shovellin’, only marching up and down genteelly with a guard. They’d +withdrawn all the troops they could, but I nucleused about forty +Pathans, recruits chiefly, of my regiment, and sat tight at the +base-camp while the road-parties went to work, as per Political survey.” + +“Had some rippin’ sing-songs in camp, too,” said Tertius. + +“My pup”--thus did Dick Four refer to his subaltern--“was a pious +little beast. He didn’t like the sing-songs, and so he went down with +pneumonia. I rootled round the camp, and found Tertius gassing about as +a D.A.Q.M.G., which, God knows, he isn’t cut out for. There were six +or eight of the old Coll. at base-camp (we’re always in force for a +frontier row), but I’d heard of Tertius as a steady old hack, and I told +him he had to shake off his D.A.Q.M.G. breeches and help _me_. Tertius +volunteered like a shot, and we settled it with the authorities, and out +we went--forty Pathans, Tertius, and me, looking up the road-parties. +Macnamara’s--‘member old Mac, the Sapper, who played the fiddle so +damnably at Umballa?--Mac’s party was the last but one. The last was +Stalky’s. He was at the head of the road with some of his pet Sikhs. Mac +said he believed he was all right.” + +“Stalky _is_ a Sikh,” said Tertius. “He takes his men to pray at the +Durbar Sahib at Amritzar, regularly as clockwork, when he can.” + +“Don’t interrupt, Tertius. It was about forty miles beyond Mac’s before +I found him; and my men pointed out gently, but firmly, that the country +was risin’. What kind o’ country, Beetle? Well, _I_‘m no word-painter, +thank goodness, but _you_ might call it a hellish country! When we +weren’t up to our necks in snow, we were rolling down the khud. The +well-disposed inhabitants, who were to supply labor for the road-making +(don’t forget that, Pussy dear), sat behind rocks and took pot-shots +at us. ‘Old, old story! We all legged it in search of Stalky. I had a +feeling that he’d be in good cover, and about dusk we found him and his +road-party, as snug as a bug in a rug, in an old Malot stone fort, with +a watch-tower at one corner. It overhung the road they had blasted +out of the cliff fifty feet below; and under the road things went down +pretty sheer, for five or six hundred feet, into a gorge about half a +mile wide and two or three miles long. There were chaps on the other +side of the gorge scientifically gettin’ our range. So I hammered on +the gate and nipped in, and tripped over Stalky in a greasy, bloody old +poshteen, squatting on the ground, eating with his men. I’d only seen +him for half a minute about three months before, but I might have met +him yesterday. He waved his hand all sereno. + +“‘Hullo, Aladdin! Hullo, Emperor!’ he said. ‘You’re just in time for the +performance.’” + +“I saw his Sikhs looked a bit battered. ‘Where’s your command? Where’s +your subaltern?’ I said. + +“‘Here--all there is of it,’ said Stalky. ‘If you want young Everett, +he’s dead, and his body’s in the watch-tower. They rushed our road-party +last week, and got him and seven men. We’ve been besieged for five days. +I suppose they let you through to make sure of you. The whole country’s +up. ‘Strikes me you’ve walked into a first-class trap.’ He grinned, but +neither Tertius nor I could see where the deuce the fun was. We hadn’t +any grub for our men, and Stalky had only four days’ whack for his. That +came of dependin’ upon your asinine Politicals, Pussy dear, who told us +that the inhabitants were friendly. + +“To make us _quite_ comfy, Stalky took us up to the watch-tower to see +poor Everett’s body, lyin’ in a foot o’ drifted snow. It looked like a +girl of fifteen--not a hair on the little fellow’s face. He’d been shot +through the temple, but the Malots had left their mark on him. Stalky +unbuttoned the tunic, and showed it to us--a rummy sickle-shaped cut on +the chest. ‘Member the snow all white on his eyebrows, Tertius? ‘Member +when Stalky moved the lamp and it looked as if he was alive?” + +“Ye-es,” said Tertius, with a shudder. “‘Member the beastly look on +Stalky’s face, though, with his nostrils all blown out, same as he used +to look when he was bullyin’ a fag? That was a lovely evening.” + +“We held a council of war up there over Everett’s body. Stalky said the +Malots and Khye-Kheens were up together; havin’ sunk their blood feuds +to settle us. The chaps we’d seen across the gorge were Khye-Kheens. It +was about half a mile from them to us as a bullet flies, and they’d made +a line of sungars under the brow of the hill to sleep in and starve us +out. The Malots, he said, were in front of us promiscuous. There wasn’t +good cover behind the fort, or they’d have been there, too. Stalky +didn’t mind the Malots half as much as he did the Khye-Kheens. He said +the Malots were treacherous curs. What I couldn’t understand was, why +in the world the two gangs didn’t join in and rush us. There must have +been at least five hundred of ‘em. Stalky said they didn’t trust each +other very well, because they were ancestral enemies when they were +at home; and the only time they’d tried a rush he’d hove a couple of +blasting-charges among ‘em, and that had sickened ‘em a bit. + +“It was dark by the time we finished, and Stalky, always serene, said: +‘You command now. I don’t suppose you mind my taking any action I may +consider necessary to reprovision the fort?’ I said, ‘Of course not,’ +and then the lamp blew out. So Tertius and I had to climb down the tower +steps (we didn’t want to stay with Everett) and got back to our men. +Stalky had gone off--to count the stores, I supposed. Anyhow, Tertius +and I sat up in case of a rush (they were plugging at us pretty +generally, you know), relieving each other till the mornin’. + +“Mornin’ came. No Stalky. Not a sign of him. I took counsel with his +senior native officer--a grand, white-whiskered old chap--Rutton Singh, +from Jullunder-way. He only grinned, and said it was all right. Stalky +had been out of the fort twice before, somewhere or other, accordin’ to +him. He said Stalky ‘ud come back unchipped, and gave me to understand +that Stalky was an invulnerable _Guru_ of sorts. All the same, I put the +whole command on half rations, and set ‘em to pickin’ out loopholes. + +“About noon there was no end of a snow-storm, and the enemy stopped +firing. We replied gingerly, because we were awfully short of +ammunition. Don’t suppose we fired five shots an hour, but we generally +got our man. Well, while I was talking with Rutton Singh I saw Stalky +coming down from the watch-tower, rather puffy about the eyes, his +poshteen coated with claret-colored ice. + +“‘No trustin’ these snow-storms,’ he said. ‘Nip out quick and snaffle +what you can get. There’s a certain amount of friction between the +Khye-Kheens and the Malots just now.’ + +“I turned Tertius out with twenty Pathans, and they bucked about in the +snow for a bit till they came on to a sort of camp about eight hundred +yards away, with only a few men in charge and half a dozen sheep by +the fire. They finished off the men, and snaffled the sheep and as much +grain as they could carry, and came back. No one fired a shot at ‘em. +There didn’t seem to be anybody about, but the snow was falling pretty +thick. + +“‘That’s good enough,’ said Stalky when we got dinner ready and he was +chewin’ mutton-kababs off a cleanin’ rod. ‘There’s no sense riskin’ men. +They’re holding a pow-wow between the Khye-Kheens and the Malots at +the head of the gorge. I don’t think these so-called coalitions are much +good.’ + +“Do you know what that maniac had done? Tertius and I shook it out of +him by instalments. There was an underground granary cellar-room below +the watch-tower, and in blasting the road Stalky had blown a hole into +one side of it. Being no one else _but_ Stalky, he’d kept the hole open +for his own ends; and laid poor Everett’s body slap over the well of the +stairs that led down to it from the watch-tower. He’d had to move and +replace the corpse every time he used the passage. The Sikhs wouldn’t go +near the place, of course. Well, he’d got out of this hole, and dropped +on to the road. Then, in the night _and_ a howling snow-storm, he’d +dropped over the edge of the khud, made his way down to the bottom of +the gorge, forded the nullah, which was half frozen, climbed up on the +other side along a track he’d discovered, and come out on the right +flank of the Khye-Kheens. He had then--listen to this!--crossed over a +ridge that paralleled their rear, walked half a mile behind that, and +come out on the left of their line where the gorge gets shallow and +where there was a regular track between the Malot and the Khye-Kheen +camps. That was about two in the morning, and, as it turned out, a man +spotted him--a Khye-Kheen. So Stalky abolished him quietly, and left +him--_with_ the Malot mark on his chest, same as Everett had. + +“‘I was just as economical as I could be,’ Stalky said to us. ‘If he’d +shouted I should have been slain. I’d never had to do that kind of thing +but once before, and that was the first time I tried that path. It’s +perfectly practicable for infantry, you know.’ + +“‘What about your first man?’ I said. + +“‘Oh, that was the night after they killed Everett, and I went out +lookin’ for a line of retreat for my men. A man found me. I abolished +him--_privatim_--scragged him. But on thinkin’ it over it occurred to +me that if I could find the body (I’d hove it down some rocks) I might +decorate it with the Malot mark and leave it to the Khye-Kheens to draw +inferences. So I went out again the next night and did. The Khye-Kheens +are shocked at the Malots perpetratin’ these two dastardly outrages +after they’d sworn to sink all bleed feuds. I lay up behind their +sungars early this morning and watched ‘em. They all went to confer +about it at the head of the gorge. Awf’ly annoyed they are. Don’t +wonder.’ You know the way Stalky drops out his words, one by one.” + +“My God!” said the Infant, explosively, as the full depth of the +strategy dawned on him. + +“Dear-r man!” said McTurk, purring rapturously. + +“Stalky stalked,” said Tertius. “That’s all there is to it.” + +“No, he didn’t,” said Dick Four. “Don’t you remember how he insisted +that he had only applied his luck? Don’t you remember how Rutton Singh +grabbed his boots and grovelled in the snow, and how our men shouted?” + +“None of our Pathans believed that was luck,” said Tertius. “They swore +Stalky ought to have been born a Pathan, and--‘member we nearly had a +row in the fort when Rutton Singh said Stalky was a Pathan? Gad, how +furious the old chap was with my Jemadar! But Stalky just waggled his +finger and they shut up. + +“Old Rutton Singh’s sword was half out, though, and he swore he’d +cremate every Khye-Kheen and Malot he killed. That made the Jemadar +pretty wild, because he didn’t mind fighting against his own creed, but +he wasn’t going to crab a fellow Mussulman’s chances of Paradise. Then +Stalky jabbered Pushtu and Punjabi in alternate streaks. Where the deuce +did he pick up his Pushtu from, Beetle?” + +“Never mind his language, Dick,” said I. “Give us the gist of it.” + +“I flatter myself I can address the wily Pathan on occasion, but, hang +it all, I can’t make puns in Pushtu, or top off my arguments with a +smutty story, as he did. He played on those two old dogs o’ war like +a--like a concertina. Stalky said--and the other two backed up his +knowledge of Oriental nature--that the Khye-Kheens and the Malots +between ‘em would organize a combined attack on us that night, as +a proof of good faith. They wouldn’t drive it home, though, because +neither side would trust the other on account, as Rutton Singh put it, +of the little accidents. Stalky’s notion was to crawl out at dusk with +his Sikhs, manoeuvre ‘em along this ungodly goat-track that he’d found, +to the back of the Khye-Kheen position, and then lob in a few long shots +at the Malots when the attack was well on. ‘That’ll divert their minds +and help to agitate ‘em,’ he said. ‘Then you chaps can come out and +sweep up the pieces, and we’ll rendezvous at the head of the gorge. +After that, I move we get back to Mac’s camp and have something to eat.” + +“_You_ were commandin’?” the Infant suggested. + +“I was about three months senior to Stalky, and two months Tertius’s +senior,” Dick Four replied. “_But_ we were all from the same old Coll. +I should say ours was the only little affair on record where some one +wasn’t jealous of some one else.” + +“_We_ weren’t,” Tertius broke in, “but there was another row between Gul +Sher Khan and Rutton Singh. Our Jemadar said--he was quite right--that +no Sikh living could stalk worth a damn; and that Koran Sahib had better +take out the Pathans, who understood that kind of mountain work. Rutton +Singh said that Koran Sahib jolly well knew every Pathan was a born +deserter, and every Sikh was a gentleman, even if he couldn’t crawl on +his belly. Stalky struck in with some woman’s proverb or other, that had +the effect of doublin’ both men up with a grin. He said the Sikhs and +the Pathans could settle their claims on the Khye-Kheens and +Malots later on, but he was going to take his Sikhs along for this +mountain-climbing job, because Sikhs could shoot. They can, too. Give +‘em a mule-load of ammunition apiece, and they’re perfectly happy.” + +“And out he gat,” said Dick Four. “As soon as it was dark, and he’d had +a bit of a snooze, him and thirty Sikhs went down through the staircase +in the tower, every mother’s son of ‘em salutin’ little Everett where +It stood propped up against the wall. The last I heard him say was, +‘Kubbadar! tumbleinga! [Look out; you’ll fall!] and they tumbleingaed +over the black edge of nothing. Close upon 9 p.m. the combined attack +developed; Khye-Kheens across the valley, and Malots in front of us, +pluggin’ at long range and yellin’ to each other to come along and cut +our infidel throats. Then they skirmished up to the gate, and began the +old game of calling our Pathans renegades, and invitin’ ‘em to join the +holy war. One of our men, a young fellow from Dera Ismail, jumped on +the wall to slang ‘em back, and jumped down, blubbing like a child. He’d +been hit smack in the middle of the hand. ‘Never saw a man yet who could +stand a hit in the hand without weepin’ bitterly. It tickles up all the +nerves. So Tertius took his rifle and smote the others on the head to +keep them quiet at the loopholes. The dear children wanted to open the +gate and go in at ‘em generally, but that didn’t suit our book. + +“At last, near midnight, I heard the wop, wop, wop, of Stalky’s Martinis +across the valley, and some general cursing among the Malots, whose +main body was hid from us by a fold in the hillside. Stalky was brownin’ +‘em at a great rate, and very naturally they turned half right and began +to blaze at their faithless allies, the Khye-Kheens--regular volley +firin’. In less than ten minutes after Stalky opened the diversion they +were going it hammer and tongs, both sides the valley. When we could +see, the valley was rather a mixed-up affair. The Khye-Kheens had +streamed out of their sungars above the gorge to chastise the Malots, +and Stalky--I was watching him through my glasses--had slipped in behind +‘em. Very good. The Khye-Kheens had to leg it along the hillside up to +where the gorge got shallow and they could cross over to the Malots, +who were awfully cheered to see the Khye-Kheens taken in the rear. + +“Then it occurred to me to comfort the Khye-Kheens. So I turned out the +whole command, and we advanced _a’ la pas de charge_, doublin’ up what, +for the sake of argument, we’ll call the Malots’ left flank. Even then, +if they’d sunk their differences, they could have eaten us alive; +but they’d been firin’ at each other half the night, and they went on +firin’. Queerest thing you ever saw in your born days! As soon as our +men doubled up to the Malots, they’d blaze at the Khye-Kheens more +zealously than ever, to show they were on our side, run up the valley +a few hundred yards, and halt to fire again. The moment Stalky saw our +game he duplicated it his side the gorge; and, by Jove! the Khye-Kheens +did just the same thing.” + +“Yes, but,” said Tertius, “you’ve forgot him playin’ ‘Arrah, Patsy, mind +the baby’ on the bugle to hurry us up.” + +“Did he?” roared McTurk. Somehow we all began to sing it, and there was +an interruption. + +“Rather,” said Tertius, when we were quiet. No one of the Aladdin +company could forget that tune. “Yes, he played ‘Patsy.’ Go on, Dick.” + +“Finally,” said Dick Four, “we drove both mobs into each other’s arms on +a bit of level ground at the head of the valley, and saw the whole crew +whirl off, fightin’ and stabbin’ and swearin’ in a blindin’ snow-storm. +They were a heavy, hairy lot, and we didn’t follow ‘em. + +“Stalky had captured one prisoner--an old pensioned Sepoy of twenty-five +years’ service, who produced his discharge--an awf’ly sportin’ old card. +He had been tryin’ to make his men rush us early in the day. He was +sulky--angry with his own side for their cowardice, and Rutton Singh +wanted to bayonet him--Sikhs don’t understand fightin’ against the +Government after you’ve served it honestly--but Stalky rescued him, and +froze on to him tight--with ulterior motives, I believe. When we got +back to the fort, we buried young Everett--Stalky wouldn’t hear of +blowin’ up the place--and bunked. We’d only lost ten men, all told.” + +“Only ten, out of seventy. How did you lose ‘em?” I asked. + +“Oh, there was a rush on the fort early in the night, and a few Malots +got over the gate. It was rather a tight thing for a minute or two, but +the recruits took it beautifully. Lucky job we hadn’t any badly wounded +men to carry, because we had forty miles to Macnamara’s camp. By Jove, +how we legged it! Half way in, old Rutton Singh collapsed, so we slung +him across four rifles and Stalky’s overcoat; and Stalky, his prisoner, +and a couple of Sikhs were his bearers. After that I went to sleep. You +can, you know, on the march, when your legs get properly numbed. Mac +swears we all marched into his camp snoring and dropped where we halted. +His men lugged us into the tents like gram-bags. I remember wakin’ up +and seeing Stalky asleep with his head on old Rutton Singh’s chest. _He_ +slept twenty-four hours. I only slept seventeen, but then I was coming +down with dysentery.” + +“Coming down? What rot! He had it on him before we joined Stalky in the +fort,” said Tertius. + +“Well, _you_ needn’t talk! You hove your sword at Macnamara and demanded +a drum-head court-martial every time you saw him. The only thing that +soothed you was putting you under arrest every half hour. You were off +your head for three days.” + +“Don’t remember a word of it,” said Tertius, placidly. “I remember my +orderly giving me milk, though.” + +“How did Stalky come out?” McTurk demanded, purling hard over his pipe. + +“Stalky? Like a serene Brahmini bull. Poor old Mac was at his Royal +Engineers’ wits’ end to know what to do. You see I was putrid with +dysentery, Tertius was ravin’, half the men had frost-bite, and +Macnamara’s orders were to break camp and come in before winter. So +Stalky, who hadn’t turned a hair, took half his supplies to save him +the bother o’ luggin’ ‘em back to the plains, and all the ammunition he +could get at, and, _consilio et auxilio_ Rutton Singhi, tramped back +to his fort with all his Sikhs and his precious prisoners, and a lot of +dissolute hangers-on that he and the prisoner had seduced into service. +He had sixty men of sorts--and his brazen cheek. Mac nearly wept with +joy when he went. You see there weren’t any explicit orders to Stalky to +come in before the passes were blocked: Mac is a great man for orders, +and Stalky’s a great man for orders--when they suit his book.” + +“He told me he was goin’ to the Engadine,” said Tertius. “Sat on my cot +smokin’ a cigarette, and makin’ me laugh till I cried. Macnamara bundled +the whole lot of us down to the plains next day. We were a walkin’ +hospital.” + +“Stalky told me that Macnamara was a simple godsend to him,” said Dick +Four. “I used to see him in Mac’s tent listenin’ to Mac playin’ the +fiddle, and, between the pieces, wheedlin’ Mac out of picks and shovels +and dynamite cartridges hand-over-fist. Well, that was the last we saw +of Stalky. A week or so later the passes were shut with snow, and I +don’t think Stalky wanted to be found particularly just then.” + +“He didn’t,” said the fair and fat Abanazar. “He didn’t. Ho, ho!” + +Dick Four threw up his thin, dry hand with the blue veins at the back of +it. “Hold on a minute, Pussy; I’ll let you in at the proper time. I went +down to my regiment, and that spring, five mouths later, I got off +with a couple of companies on detachment: nominally to look after some +friends of ours across the border; actually, of course, to recruit. +It was a bit unfortunate, because an ass of a young Naick carried a +frivolous blood-feud he’d inherited from his aunt into those hills, and +the local gentry wouldn’t volunteer into my corps. Of course, the Naick +had taken short leave to manage the business; that was all regular +enough; _but_ he’d stalked my pet orderly’s uncle. It was an infernal +shame, because I knew Harris of the Ghuznees would be covering that +ground three months later, and he’d snaffle all the chaps I had my eyes +on. Everybody was down on the Naick, because they felt he ought to +have had the decency to postpone his--his disgustful amours till our +companies were full strength. + +“Still the beast had a certain amount of professional feeling left. +He sent one of his aunt’s clan by night to tell me that, if I’d take +safeguard, he’d put me on to a batch of beauties. I nipped over the +border like a shot, and about ten miles the other side, in a nullah, +my rapparee-in-charge showed me about seventy men variously armed, but +standing up like a Queen’s company. Then one of ‘em stepped out and +lugged round an old bugle, just like--who’s the man?--Bancroft, ain’t +it?--feeling for his eye-glass in a farce, and played ‘Arrah, Patsy, +mind the baby. Arrah, Patsy, mind’--that was as for as he could get.” + +That, also, was as far as Dick Four could get, because we had to sing +the old song through twice, again and once more, and subsequently, in +order to repeat it. + +“He explained that if I knew the rest of the song he had a note for me +from the man the song belonged to. Whereupon, my children, I finished +that old tune on that bugle, and _this_ is what I got. I knew you’d like +to look at it. Don’t grab.” (We were all struggling for a sight of the +well-known unformed handwriting.) “I’ll read it aloud. + + “‘Fort Everett, February 19. + +“‘Dear Dick, or Tertius: The bearer of this is in charge of seventy-five +recruits, all pukka devils, but desirous of leading new lives. They have +been slightly polished, and after being boiled may shape well. I want +you to give thirty of them to my adjutant, who, though God’s own ass, +will need men this spring. The rest you can keep. You will be interested +to learn that I have extended my road to the end of the Malot country. +All headmen and priests concerned in last September’s affair worked one +month each, supplying road metal from their own houses. Everett’s grave +is covered by a forty-foot mound, which should serve well as a base for +future triangulations. Rutton Singh sends his best salaams. I am +making some treaties, and have given my prisoner--who also sends his +salaams--local rank of Khan Bahadur. “‘A. L. Cockran.’ + +“Well, that was all,” said Dick Four, when the roaring, the shouting, +the laughter, and, I think, the tears, had subsided. “I chaperoned the +gang across the border as quick as I could. They were rather homesick, +but they cheered up when they recognized some of my chaps, who had been +in the Khye-Kheen row, and they made a rippin’ good lot. It’s rather +more than three hundred miles from Fort Everett to where I picked ‘em +up. Now, Pussy, tell ‘em the latter end o’ Stalky as you saw it.” + +Abanazar laughed a little nervous, misleading, official laugh. + +“Oh, it wasn’t much. I was at Simla in the spring, when our Stalky, out +of his snows, began corresponding direct with the Government.” + +“After the manner of a king,” suggested Dick Four. “My turn now, +Dick. He’d done a whole let of things he shouldn’t have done, and +constructively pledged the Government to all sorts of action.” + +“‘Pledged the State’s ticker, eh?” said McTurk, with a nod to me. + +“About that; but the embarrassin’ part was that it was all so thunderin’ +convenient, so well reasoned, don’t you know? Came in as pat as if he’d +had access to all sorts of information--which he couldn’t, of course.” + +“Pooh!” said Tertius, “I back Stalky against the Foreign Office any +day.” + +“He’d done pretty nearly everything he could think of, except strikin’ +coins in his own image and superscription, all under cover of buildin’ +this infernal road and bein’ blocked by the snow. His report was simply +amazin’. Von Lennaert tore his hair over it at first, and then he +gasped, ‘Who the dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He must be +slain. He must be slain officially! The Viceroy’ll never stand it. It’s +unheard of. He must be slain by his Excellency in person. Order him up +here and pitch in a stinger.’ Well, I sent him no end of an official +stinger, and I pitched in an unofficial telegram at the same time.” + +“You!” This with amazement from the Infant, for Abanazar resembled +nothing so much as a fluffy Persian cat. + +“Yes--me,” said Abanazar. “‘Twasn’t much, but after what you’ve said, +Dicky, it was rather a coincidence, because I wired: + + “‘Aladdin now has got his wife, + Your Emperor is appeased. + I think you’d better come to life: + We hope you’ve all been pleased.’ + +“Funny how that old song came up in my head. That was fairly +non-committal and encouragin’. The only flaw was that his Emperor +wasn’t appeased by very long chalks. Stalky extricated himself from his +mountain fastnesses and leafed up to Simla at his leisure, to be offered +up on the horns of the altar.” + +“But,” I began, “surely the Commander-in-Chief is the proper--” + +“His Excellency had an idea that if he blew up one single junior +captain--same as King used to blow us up--he was holdin’ the reins +of empire, and, of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert +encouraged him. I’m not sure Von Lennaert didn’t put that notion into +his head.” + +“They’ve changed the breed, then, since my time,” I said. + +“P’r’aps. Stalky was sent up for his wiggin’ like a bad little boy. I’ve +reason to believe that His Excellency’s hair stood on end. He walked +into Stalky for one hour--Stalky at attention in the middle of the +floor, and (so he vowed) Von Lennaert pretending to soothe down His +Excellency’s topknot in dumb show in the background. Stalky didn’t dare +to look up, or he’d have laughed.” + +“Now, wherefore was Stalky not broken publicly?” said the Infant, with a +large and luminous leer. + +“Ah, wherefore?” said Abanazar. “To give him a chance to retrieve his +blasted career, and not to break his father’s heart. Stalky hadn’t a +father, but that didn’t matter. He behaved like a--like the Sanawar +Orphan Asylum, and His Excellency graciously spared him. Then he came +round to my office and sat opposite me for ten minutes, puffing out his +nostrils. Then he said, ‘Pussy, if I thought that basket-hanger--’” + +“Hah! He remembered that,” said McTurk. + +“‘That two-anna basket-hanger governed India, I swear I’d become a +naturalized Muscovite to-morrow. I’m a _femme incomprise_. This thing’s +broken my heart. It’ll take six months’ shootin’-leave in India to mend +it. Do you think I can get it, Pussy?’ + +“He got it in about three minutes and a half, and seventeen days later +he was back in the arms of Rutton Singh--horrid disgraced--with orders +to hand over his command, etc., to Cathcart MacMonnie.” + +“Observe!” said Dick Four. “One colonel of the Political Department in +charge of thirty Sikhs, on a hilltop. Observe, my children!” + +“Naturally, Cathcart not being a fool, even if he _is_ a Political, let +Stalky do his shooting within fifteen miles of Fort Everett for the +next six months, and I always understood they and Rutton Singh and +the prisoner were as thick as thieves. Then Stalky loafed back to his +regiment, I believe. I’ve never seen him since.” + +“I have, though,” said McTurk, swelling with pride. + +We all turned as one man. “It was at the beginning of this hot weather. +I was in camp in the Jullunder doab and stumbled slap on Stalky in +a Sikh village; sitting on the one chair of state, with half the +population grovellin’ before him, a dozen Sikh babies on his knees, +an old harridan clappin’ him on the shoulder, and a garland o’ flowers +round his neck. Told me he was recruitin’. We dined together that night, +but he never said a word of the business at the Fort. Told me, though, +that if I wanted any supplies I’d better say I was Koran Sahib’s _bhai_; +and I did, and the Sikhs wouldn’t take my money.” + +“Ah! That must have been one of Rutton Singh’s villages,” said Dick +Four; and we smoked for some time in silence. + +“I say,” said McTurk, casting back through the years, “did Stalky ever +tell you _how_ Rabbits-Eggs came to rock King that night?” + +“No,” said Dick Four. Then McTurk told. “I see,” said Dick Four, +nodding. “Practically he duplicated that trick over again. There’s +nobody like Stalky.” + +“That’s just where you make the mistake,” I said. “India’s full of +Stalkies--Cheltenham and Haileybury and Marlborough chaps--that we don’t +know anything about, and the surprises will begin when there is really a +big row on.” + +“Who will be surprised?” said Dick Four. + +“The other side. The gentlemen who go to the front in first-class +carriages. Just imagine Stalky let loose on the south side of Europe +with a sufficiency of Sikhs and a reasonable prospect of loot. Consider +it quietly.” + +“There’s something in that, but you’re too much of an optimist, Beetle,” + said the Infant. + +“Well, I’ve a right to be. Ain’t I responsible for the whole thing? You +needn’t laugh. Who wrote ‘Aladdin now has got his wife’--eh?” + +“What’s that got to do with it?” said Tertius. + +“Everything,” said I. + +“Prove it,” said the Infant. + +And I have. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stalky & Co., by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STALKY & CO. *** + +***** This file should be named 3006-0.txt or 3006-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/0/3006/ + +Produced by A. Elizabeth Warren + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by A Elizabeth Warren MD, Sacramento, CA +aewarren2@aol.com + + + + + +STALKY & CO. + +By Rudyard Kipling + + + + +"Let us now praise famous men"-- + Men of little showing-- +For their work continueth, +And their work continueth, + Greater than their knowing. + +Western wind and open surge + Tore us from our mothers; +Flung us on a naked shore +(Twelve bleak houses by the shore! +Seven summers by the shore!) + 'Mid two hundred brothers. + +There we met with famous men + Set in office o'er us. +And they beat on us with rods-- +Faithfully with many rods-- +Daily beat us on with rods-- + For the love they bore us! + +Out of Egypt unto Troy-- + Over Himalaya-- +Far and sure our bands have gone-- +Hy-Brasil or Babylon, +Islands of the Southern Run, + And cities of Cathaia! + +And we all praise famous men-- + Ancients of the College; +For they taught us common sense--- +Tried to teach us common sense-- +Truth and God's Own Common Sense + Which is more than knowledge! + +Each degree of Latitude + Strung about Creation +Seeth one (or more) of us, +(Of one muster all of us-- +Of one master all of us--) + Keen in his vocation. + +This we learned from famous men + Knowing not its uses +When they showed in daily work +Man must finish off his work-- +Right or wrong, his daily work- + And without excuses. + +Servants of the staff and chain, + Mine and fuse and grapnel-- +Some before the face of Kings, +Stand before the face of Kings; +Bearing gifts to divers Kings-- + Gifts of Case and Shrapnel. + +This we learned from famous men + Teaching in our borders. +Who declare'd it was best, +Safest, easiest and best-- +Expeditious, wise and best-- + To obey your orders. + +Some beneath the further stars + Bear the greater burden. +Set to serve the lands they rule, +(Save he serve no man may rule) +Serve and love the lands they rule; + Seeking praise nor guerdon. + +This we learned from famous men + Knowing not we learned it. +Only, as the years went by-- +Lonely, as the years went by-- +Far from help as years went by + Plainer we discerned it. + +Wherefore praise we famous men + Prom whose bays we borrow-- +They that put aside Today-- +All the joys of their Today-- +And with toil of their Today + Bought for us Tomorrow! + +Bless and praise we famous men + Men of little showing! +For their work continueth +And their work continueth +Broad and deep continueth + Great beyond their knowing! + +Copyright, 1899. by Rudyard Kipling + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. IN AMBUSH +II. SLAVES OF THE LAMP--PART I. +III. AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE +IV. THE IMPRESSIONISTS +V. THE MORAL REFORMERS +VI. A LITTLE PREP. +VII. THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY +VIII. THE LAST TERM +IX. SLAVES OF THE LAMP --PART II. + + + + +"IN AMBUSH." + + +In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind +the College--little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly +bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they +were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight. And for the fifth summer +in succession, Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle (this was before they +reached the dignity of a study) had built like beavers a place of +retreat and meditation, where they smoked. + +Now, there was nothing in their characters as known to Mr. Prout, +their house-master, at all commanding respect; nor did Foxy, the +subtle red-haired school Sergeant, trust them. His business was to +wear tennis-shoes, carry binoculars, and swoop hawklike upon evil +boys. Had he taken the field alone, that hut would have been raided, +for Foxy knew the manners of his quarry; but Providence moved Mr. +Prout, whose school-name, derived from the size of his feet, was +Hoofer, to investigate on his own account; and it was the cautious +Stalky who found the track of his pugs on the very floor of their +lair one peaceful afternoon when Stalky would fain have forgotten +Prout and his works in a volume of Surtees and a new briar-wood pipe. +Crusoe, at sight of the footprint, did not act more swiftly than +Stalky. He removed the pipes, swept up all loose match-ends, and +departed to warn Beetle and McTurk. + +But it was characteristic of the boy that he did not approach his +allies till he had met and conferred with little Hartopp, President +of the Natural History Society, an institution which Stalky held in +contempt, Hartopp was more than surprised when the boy meekly, as he +knew how, begged to propose himself, Beetle, and McTurk as +candidates; confessed to a long-smothered interest in +first-flowerings, early butterflies, and new arrivals, and +volunteered, if Mr. Hartopp saw fit, to enter on the new life at +once. Being a master, Hartopp was suspicious; but he was also an +enthusiast, and his gentle little soul had been galled by chance-heard +remarks from the three, and specially Beetle. So he was gracious to +that repentant sinner, and entered the three names in his book. + +Then, and not till then, did Stalky seek Beetle and McTurk in their +house form-room. They were stowing away books for a quiet afternoon +in the furze, which they called the "wuzzy." + +"All up," said Stalky, serenely. "I spotted Heffy's fairy feet round +our hut after dinner. 'Blessing they're so big." + +"Con-found! Did you hide our pipes?" said Beetle. + +"Oh, no. Left 'em in the middle of the hut, of course. What a blind +ass you are, Beetle! D'you think nobody thinks but yourself? Well, we +can't use the hut any more. Hoofer will be watchin' it." + +"'Bother! Likewise blow!'" said McTurk thoughtfully, unpacking the +volumes with which his chest was cased. The boys carried their +libraries between their belt and their collar. "Nice job! This means +we're under suspicion for the rest of the term." + +"Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. He and Foxy will watch it. +It's nothing to do with us; only we mustn't be seen that way for a +bit." + +"Yes, and where else are we to go?" said Beetle. "You chose that +place, too--an'--an' I wanted to read this afternoon." + +Stalky sat on a desk drumming his heels on the form. + +"You're a despondin' brute, Beetle. Sometimes I think I shall have to +drop you altogether. Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky forget you +yet? _His_rebus_infectis_--after I'd seen Heffy's man-tracks +marchin' round our hut, I found little +Hartopp--_destricto_ense_--wavin' a butterfly-net. I conciliated +Hartopp. 'Told him that you'd read papers to the Bug-hunters if he'd +let you join, Beetle. 'Told him you liked butterflies, Turkey. +Anyhow, I soothed the Hartoffles, and we're Bug-hunters now." + +"What's the good of that?" said Beetle. + +"Oh, Turkey, kick him!" + +In the interests of science bounds were largely relaxed for the +members of the Natural History Society. They could wander, if they +kept clear of all houses, practically where they chose; Mr. Hartopp +holding himself responsible for their good conduct. + +Beetle began to see this as McTurk began the kicking. + +"I'm an ass, Stalky!" he said, guarding the afflicted part. "_Pax_, +Turkey. I'm an ass." + +"Don't stop, Turkey. Isn't your Uncle Stalky a great man?" + +"Great man," said Beetle. + +"All the same bug-huntin's a filthy business," said McTurk. "How the +deuce does one begin?" + +"This way," said Stalky, turning to some fags' lockers behind him. +"Fags are dabs at Natural History. Here's young Braybrooke's +botany-case." He flung out a tangle of decayed roots and adjusted the +slide. "'Gives one no end of a professional air, I think. Here's Clay +Minor's geological hammer. Beetle can carry that. Turkey, you'd +better covet a butterfly-net from somewhere." + +"I'm blowed if I do," said McTurk, simply, with immense feeling. +"Beetle, give me the hammer." + +"All right. I'm not proud. Chuck us down that net on top of the +lockers, Stalky." + +"That's all right. It's a collapsible jamboree, too. Beastly luxurious +dogs these fags are. Built like a fishin'-rod. 'Pon my sainted Sam, +but we look the complete Bug-hunters! Now, listen to your Uncle +Stalky! We're goin' along the cliffs after butterflies. Very few +chaps come there. We're goin' to leg it, too. You'd better leave your +book behind." + +"Not much!" said Beetle, firmly. "I'm not goin' to be done out of my +fun for a lot of filthy butterflies." + +"Then you'll sweat horrid. You'd better carry my Jorrocks. 'Twon't +make you any hotter." + +They all sweated; for Stalky led them at a smart trot west away along +the cliffs under the furze-hills, crossing combe after gorzy combe. +They took no heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and +all that Turkey said of geology was utterly unquotable. + +"Are we going to Clovelly?" he puffed at last, and they flung +themselves down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the +sea below and the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were +looking into a combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that +ran up to a fringe of brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and +hollies. It was as though one-half the combe were filled with golden +fire to the cliff's edge. The side nearest to them was open grass, +and fairly bristled with notice-boards. + +"Fee-rocious old cove, this," said Stalky, reading the nearest. +"'_Prosecuted_with_the_utmost_rigour_of_the_law_. G. M. Dabney, Col., +J.P.,' an' all the rest of it. 'Don't seem to me that any chap in his +senses would trespass here, does it?" + +"You've got to prove damage 'fore you can prosecute for anything! +'Can't prosecute for trespass," said McTurk, whose father held many +acres in Ireland. "That's all rot!" + +"Glad of that, 'cause this looks like what we wanted. Not straight +across, Beetle, you blind lunatic! Anyone could spot us half a mile +off. This way; and furl up your beastly butterfly-net." + +Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up +the handle to a two-foot stave, and slid the cane-ring round his +waist. Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter +of a mile from the sea, and reached the fringe of the brambles. + +"_Now_ we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up +at all," said the tactician. "Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf! Snf! +Beastly stink of fox somewhere!" + +On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into +the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had +found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky +pinched him _a_tergo_. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was +evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their +inexpressible joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few +square feet of dry turf walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse. + +"By gum! There isn't a single thing to do except lie down," said +Stalky, returning a knife to his pocket. "Look here!" + +He parted the tough stems before him, and it was as a window opened on +a far view of Lundy, and the deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles a +couple of hundred feet below. They could hear young jackdaws +squawking on the ledges, the hiss and jabber of a nest of hawks +somewhere out of sight; and, with great deliberation, Stalky spat on +to the back of a young rabbit sunning himself far down where only a +cliff-rabbit could have found foot-hold. Great gray and black gulls +screamed against the jackdaws; the heavy-scented acres of bloom round +them were alive with low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the +shadow of the wheeling hawks passed and returned; and on the naked +turf across the combe rabbits thumped and frolicked. + +"Whew! What a place! Talk of natural history; this is it," said +Stalky, filling himself a pipe. "Isn't it scrumptious? Good old sea!" +He spat again approvingly, and was silent. + +McTurk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their +stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snored and gurgled; the birds, +scattered for the moment by these new animals, returned to their +businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm, sleepy silence. + +"Hullo, here's a keeper," said Stalky, shutting "Handley Cross" +cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared +on the sky-line to the east. "Confound him, he's going to sit down." + +"He'd swear we were poachin', too," said Beetle. "What's the good of +pheasants' eggs? They're always addled, too." + +"Might as well get up to the wood, I think," said Stalky. "We don't +want G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up +the wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know." + +Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp +indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through +the furze. + +"Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!" The keeper threw the gun to +his shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets +dusted the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky's +legs, and ran over the cliff-edge. + +They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, disheveled, hot, +but unseen. + +"Narrow squeak," said Stalky. "I'll swear some of the pellets went +through my hair." + +"Did you see him?" said Beetle. "I almost put my hand on him. Wasn't +he a wopper! Didn't he stink! Hullo, Turkey, what's the matter? Are +you hit?" + +McTurk's lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half +open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him +like this save once in a sad time of civil war. + +"Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?" he said, in a +grating voice, as he brushed prickles from his head. + +"Well, he didn't hit us," said Stalky. "I think it was rather a lark. +Here, where are you going?" + +"I'm going up to the house, if there is one," said McTurk, pushing +through the hollies. "I am going to tell this Colonel Dabney." + +"Are you crazy? He'll swear it served us jolly well right. He'll +report us. It'll be a public lickin'. Oh, Turkey, don't be an ass! +Think of us!" + +"You fool!" said McTurk, turning savagely. "D'you suppose I'm thinkin' +of _us_? It's the keeper." + +"He's cracked," said Beetle, miserably, as they followed. Indeed, this +was a new Turkey--a haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey--whom they +accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a white-whiskered +old gentleman with a cleek was alternately putting and blaspheming +vigorously. + +"Are you Colonel Dabney?" McTurk began in this new creaking voice of +his. + +"I--I am, and--" his eyes traveled up and down the boy--"who--what the +devil d'you want? Ye've been disturbing my pheasants. Don't attempt +to deny it. Ye needn't laugh at it." (McTurk's not too lovely +features had twisted them. selves into a horrible sneer at the word +pheasant.) "You've been birds'-nesting. You needn't hide your hat. I +can see that you belong to the College. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye +do! Your name and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me--Eh? +You saw my notice-boards? Must have. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye +did! Damnable, oh damnable!" + +He choked with emotion. McTurk's heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered +a little--two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why +should he, the offender, be angry? + +"Lo-look here, sir. Do--do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don't, +your keeper does. We've seen him! I do-don't care what you call +us--but it's an awful thing. It's the ruin of good feelin' among +neighbors. A ma-man ought to say once and for all how he stands about +preservin'. It's worse than murder, because there's no legal remedy." +McTurk was quoting confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman +made noises in his throat. + +"Do you know who I am?" he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle +quaking. + +"No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer +me now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?" + +And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked McTurk +out of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a +sunstroke, and as assuredly he would be slain--once by the old +gentleman and once by the Head. A public licking for the throe was +the least they could expect. Yet--if their eyes and ears were to be +trusted--the old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before +the storm, but-- + +"I do not." He was still gurgling. + +"Then you must sack your keeper. He's not fit to live in the same +county with a God-fearin' fox. An' a vixen, too--at this time o' +year!" + +"Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this?" + +"Of course I did, ye silly man," with a stamp of the foot. "Would you +not have done as much for me if you'd seen that thing happen on my +land, now?" + +Forgotten--forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders! +McTurk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy +West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand +naked acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a +crazy fishing-boat, and the idol of his father's shiftless tenantry. +It was the landed man speaking to his equal--deep calling to +deep--and the old gentleman acknowledged the cry. + +"I apologize," said he. "I apologize unreservedly--to you, and to the +Old Country. Now, will you be good enough to tell me your story?" + +"We were in your combe," McTurk began, and he told his tale +alternately as a schoolboy and, when the iniquity of the thing +overcame him, as an indignant squire; concluding: "So you see he must +be in the habit of it. I--we---one never wants to accuse a neighbor's +man; but I took the liberty in this case--" + +"I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous---oh, infamous!" + +The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and +Colonel Dabney was talking as one man to another. "This comes of +promoting a fisherman--a fisherman--from his lobster-pots. It's +enough to ruin the reputation of an archangel. Don't attempt to deny +it. It is! Your father has brought you up well. He has. I'd much like +the pleasure of his acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young +gentlemen? English they are. Don't attempt to deny it. They came up +with you, too? Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present +state of education I shouldn't have thought any three boys would be +well enough grounded. But out of the mouths of--No--no! Not that by +any odds. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye're not! Sherry always catches +me under the liver, but--beer, now? Eh? What d'you say to beer, and +something to eat? It's long since I was a boy--abominable nuisances; +but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, too!" They were fed on +the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely +ate, but McTurk with bright eyes continued a free and lofty +discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a brother. + +"My dear man, of course ye can come again. Did I not say exceptions +prove the rule? The lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so +long as you do not disturb my pheasants. The two are not +incompatible. Don't attempt to deny it. They're not! I'll never allow +another gun, though. Come and go as ye please. I'll not see you, and +ye needn't see me. Ye've been well brought up. Another glass of beer, +now? I tell you a fisherman he was and a fisherman he shall be +to-night again. He shall! Wish I could drown him. I'll convoy you to +the Lodge. My people are not precisely--ah--broke to boy, but they'll +know you again." + +He dismissed them with many compliments by the high Lodge-gate in the +split-oak park palings and they stood still; even Stalky, who had +played second, not to say a dumb, fiddle, regarding McTurk as one +from another world. The two glasses of strong home-brewed had brought +a melancholy upon the boy, for, slowly strolling with his hands in +his pockets, he crooned:--" Oh, Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news +that's goin' round?" + +Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle would have fallen upon +him, for that song was barred utterly--anathema--the sin of +witchcraft. But seeing what he had wrought, they danced round him in +silence, waiting till it pleased him to touch earth. + +The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile from College. +McTurk shivered and came out of dreams. The glory of his holiday +estate had left him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking +English once more. + +"Turkey, it was immense!" said Stalky, generously. "I didn't know you +had it in you. You've got us a hut for the rest of the term, where +we simply _can't_ be collared. Fids! Fids! Oh, Fids! I gloat! Hear +me gloat!" + +They spun wildly on their heels, jodeling after the accepted manner of +a "gloat," which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man's song +of triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer +just in time to meet their house-master, who had spent the afternoon +watching their abandoned hut in the "wuzzy." + +Unluckily, all Mr. Prout's imagination leaned to the darker side of +life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys +that he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for +at any moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricket--even +house-matches; Beetle's views on the honor of the house he knew were +incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky +was laughing at him. Consequently--since human nature is what it +is--those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was +nothing very serious, but... + +"_Ti-ra-ra-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" Stalky, still on his heels, +whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining-hall. + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" Beetle spun behind him with +outstretched arms. + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" McTurk's voice cracked. + +Now was there or was there not a distinct flavor of beer as they shot +past Mr. Prout? + +He was unlucky in that his conscience as a house-master impelled him +to consult his associates. Had he taken his pipe and his troubles to +little Hartopp's rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved confusion, +for Hartopp believed in boys, and knew something about them. His fate +led him to King, a fellow house-master, no friend of his, but a +zealous hater of Stalky & Co. + +"Ah-haa!" said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. +"Curious! Now _my_ house never dream of doing these things." + +"But you see I've no proof, exactly." + +"Proof? With the egregious Beetle! As if one wanted it! I suppose it +is not impossible for the Sergeant to supply it? Foxy is considered +at least a match for any evasive boy in my house. Of course they were +smoking and drinking somewhere. That type of boy always does. They +think it manly." + +"But they've no following in the school, and they are distinctly--er +brutal to their juniors," said Prout, who had from a distance seen +Beetle return, with interest, his butterfly-net to a tearful fag. + +"Ah! They consider themselves superior to ordinary delights. +Self-sufficient little animals! There's something in McTurk's +Hibernian sneer that would make me a little annoyed. And they are so +careful to avoid all overt acts, too. It's sheer calculated +insolence. I am strongly opposed, as you know, to interfering with +another man's house; but they need a lesson, Prout. They need a sharp +lesson, if only to bring down their over-weening self-conceit. Were I +you, I should devote myself for a week to their little performances. +Boys of that order--and I may flatter myself, but I think I know +boys--don't join the Bug-hunters for love. Tell the Sergeant to keep +his eye open; and, of course, in my peregrinations I may casually keep +mine open, too." + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" far down the corridor. + +"Disgusting!" said King. "Where do they pick up these obscene noises? +One sharp lesson is what they want." + +The boys did not concern themselves with lessons for the next few +days. They had all Colonel Dabney's estate to play with, and they +explored it with the stealth of Red Indians and the accuracy of +burglars. They could enter either by the Lodge-gates on the upper +road--they were careful to ingratiate themselves with the Lodge-keeper +and his wife--drop down into the combe, and return along the cliffs; +or they could begin at the combe and climb up into the road. + +They were careful not to cross the Colonel's path--he had served his +turn, and they would not out-wear their welcome--nor did they show up +on the sky-line when they could move in cover. The shelter of the +gorze by the cliff-edge was their chosen retreat. Beetle christened +it the Pleasant Isle of Aves, for the peace and the shelter of it; +and here, the pipes and tobacco once cache'd in a convenient ledge an +arm's length down the cliff, their position was legally unassailable. + +For, observe, Colonel Dabney had not invited them to enter his house. +Therefore, they did not need to ask specific leave to go visiting; +and school rules were strict on that point. He had merely thrown open +his grounds to them; and, since they were lawful Bug-hunters, their +extended bounds ran up to his notice-boards in the combe and his +Lodge-gates on the hill. + +They were amazed at their own virtue. + +"And even if it wasn't," said Stalky, flat on his back, staring into +the blue. "Even suppose we were miles out of bounds, no one could get +at us through this wuzzy, unless he knew the tunnel. Isn't this +better than lyin' up just behind the Coll.--in a blue funk every time +we had a smoke? Isn't your Uncle Stalky--?" + +"No," said Beetle--he was stretched at the edge of the cliff spitting +thoughtfully. "We've got to thank Turkey for this. Turkey is the +Great Man. Turkey, dear, you're distressing Heffles." + +"Gloomy old ass!" said McTurk, deep in a book. + +"They've got us under suspicion," said Stalky. "Hoophats _is_ so +suspicious somehow; and Foxy always makes every stalk he does a sort +of--sort of--" + +"Scalp," said Beetle. "Foxy's a giddy Chingangook." + +"Poor Foxy," said Stalky. "He's goin' to catch us one of these days. +'Said to me in the Gym last night, 'I've got my eye on you, Mister +Corkran. I'm only warning you for your good.' Then I said: 'Well, you +jolly well take it off again, or you'll get into trouble. I'm only +warnin' you for your good.' Foxy was wrath." + +"Yes, but it's only fair sport for Foxy," said Beetle. "It's +Hefflelinga that has the evil mind. 'Shouldn't wonder if he thought +we got tight." + +"I never got squiffy but once--that was in the holidays," said Stalky, +reflectively; "an' it made me horrid sick. 'Pon my sacred Sam, +though, it's enough to drive a man to drink, havin' an animal like +Hoof for house-master." + +"If we attended the matches an' yelled, 'Well hit, sir,' an' stood on +one leg an' grinned every time Heffy said, 'So ho, my sons. Is it +thus?' an' said, 'Yes, sir,' an' 'No, sir,' an' 'O, sir,' an' +'Please, sir,' like a lot o' filthy fa-ags, Heffy 'ud think no end of +us," said McTurk with a sneer. + +"Too late to begin that." + +"It's all right. The Hefflelinga means well. _But_ he is an ass. _And_ +we show him that we think he's an ass. An' _so_ Heffy don't love us. +'Told me last night after prayers that he was _in_loco_parentis_," +Beetle grunted. + +"The deuce he did!" cried Stalky. "That means he's maturin' something +unusual dam' mean. Last time he told me that he gave me three hundred +lines for dancin' the cachuca in Number Ten dormitory. +_Loco_parentis_, by gum! But what's the odds as long as you're 'appy? +_We're_ all right." + +They were, and their very rightness puzzled Prout, King, and the +Sergeant. Boys with bad consciences show it. They slink out past the +Fives Court in haste, and smile nervously when questioned. They +return, disordered, in bare time to save a call-over. They nod and +wink and giggle one to the other, scattering at the approach of a +master. But Stalky and his allies had long out-lived these +manifestations of youth. They strolled forth unconcernedly, and +returned in excellent shape after a light refreshment of strawberries +and cream at the Lodge. + +The Lodge-keeper had been promoted to keeper, _vice_ the murderous +fisherman, and his wife made much of the boys. The man, too, gave +them a squirrel, which they presented to the Natural History Society; +thereby checkmating little Hartopp, who wished to know what they were +doing for Science. Foxy faithfully worked some deep Devon lanes +behind a lonely cross-roads inn; and it was curious that Prout and +King, members of Common-room seldom friendly, walked together in the +same direction--that is to say, northeast. + +Now, the Pleasant Isle of Aves lay due southwest. "They're +deep--day-vilish deep," said Stalky. "Why are they drawin' those +covers?" + +"Me," said Beetle sweetly. "I asked Foxy if he had ever tasted the +beer there. That was enough for Foxy, and it cheered him up a little. +He and Heffy were sniffin' round our old hut so long I thought they'd +like a change." + +"Well, it can't last forever," said Stalky. "Heffy's bankin' up like +a thunder-cloud, an' King goes rubbin' his beastly hands, an' +grinnin' like a hyena. It's shockin' demoralizin' for King. He'll +burst some day." + +That day came a little sooner than they expected--came when the +Sergeant, whose duty it was to collect defaulters, did not attend an +afternoon call-over. + +"Tired of pubs, eh? He's gone up to the top of the bill with his +binoculars to spot us," said Stalky. "Wonder he didn't think of that +before. Did you see old Heffy cock his eye at us when we answered our +names? Heffy's in it, too. _Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me! Come +on!" + +"Aves?" said Beetle. + +"Of course, but I'm not smokin' _aujourd'hui_. _Parceque_je_ jolly +well _pense_ that we'll be _suivi_. We'll go along the cliffs, slow, +an' give Foxy lots of time to parallel us up above." + +They strolled towards the swimming-baths, and presently overtook King. +"Oh, don't let _me_ interrupt you," he said. "Engaged in scientific +pursuits, of course? I trust you will enjoy yourselves, my young +friends." + +"You see!" said Stalky, when they were out of ear-shot. "He _can't_ +keep a secret. He's followin' to cut off our line of retreat. He'll +wait at the baths till Heffy comes along. They've tried every blessed +place except along the cliffs, and now they think they've bottled us. +No need to hurry." + +They walked leisurely over the combes till they reached the line of +notice-boards. + +"Listen a shake. Foxy's up wind comin' down hill like beans. When you +hear him move in the bushes, go straight across to Aves. They want to +catch us _flagrante_delicto_." + +They dived into the gorse at right angles to the tunnel, openly +crossing the grass, and lay still in Aves. + +"What did I tell you?" Stalky carefully put away the pipes and +tobacco. The Sergeant, out of breath, was leaning against the fence, +raking the furze with his binoculars, but he might as well have tried +to see through a sand-bag. Anon, Prout and King appeared behind him. +They conferred. + +"Aha! Foxy don't like the notice-boards, and he don't like the +prickles either. Now we'll cut up the tunnel and go to the Lodge. +Hullo! They've sent Foxy into cover." + +The Sergeant was waist-deep in crackling, swaying furze, his ears +filled with the noise of his own progress. The boys reached the +shelter of the wood and looked down through a belt of hollies. + +"Hellish noise!" said Stalky, critically. "'Don't think Colonel Dabney +will like it. I move we go into the Lodge and get something to eat. +We might as well see the fun out." + +Suddenly the keeper passed them at a trot. "Who'm they to combe-bottom +for Lard's sake? Master'll be crazy," he said. + +"Poachers simly," Stalky replied in the broad Devon that was the +boy's _langue_de_guerre_. + +"I'll poach 'em to raights!" He dropped into the funnel-like combe, +which presently began to fill with noises, notably King's voice +crying: "Go on, Sergeant! Leave him alone, you, sir. He is executing +my orders." + +"Who'm yeou to give arders here, gingy whiskers? Yeou come up to the +master. Come out o' that wuzzy! [This is to the Sergeant.] Yiss, I +reckon us knows the boys yeou'm after. They've tu long ears an' vuzzy +bellies, an' you nippies they in yeour pockets when they'm dead. Come +on up to master! He'll boy yeou all you're a mind to. Yeou other +folk bide your side fence." + +"Explain to the proprietor. You can explain, Sergeant," shouted King. +Evidently the Sergeant had surrendered to the major force. + +Beetle lay at full length on the turf behind the Lodge, literally +biting the earth in spasms of joy. Stalky kicked him upright. There +was nothing of levity about Stalky or McTurk save a stray muscle +twitching on the cheek. + +They tapped at the Lodge door, where they were always welcome. "Come +yeou right in an' set down, my little dearrs," said the woman. +"They'll niver touch my man. He'll poach 'em to rights. Iss fai! +Fresh berries an' cream. Us Dartymoor folk niver forgit their +friends. But them Bidevor poachers, they've no hem to their garments. +Sugar? My man he've digged a badger for yeou, my dearrs. 'Tis in the +linhay in a box." + +"Us'll take un with us when we're finished here. I reckon yeou'm busy. +We'll bide here an'--'tis washin' day with yeou, simly," said Stalky. +"We'm no company to make all vitty for. Never yeou mind us. Yiss. +There's plenty cream." + +The woman withdrew, wiping her pink hands on her apron, and left them +in the parlor. There was a scuffle of feet on the gravel outside the +heavily-leaded diamond panes, and then the voice of Colonel Dabney, +something clearer than a bugle. + +"Ye can read? You've eyes in your head? Don't attempt to deny it. Ye +have!" + +Beetle snatched a crochet-work antimacassar from the shiny horsehair +sofa, stuffed it into his mouth, and rolled out of sight. + +"You saw my notice-boards. Your duty? Curse your impudence, sir. Your +duty was to keep off my grounds. Talk of duty to _me_! Why--why--why, +ye misbegotten poacher, ye'll be teaching me my A B C next! Roarin' +like a bull in the bushes down there! Boys? Boys? Boys? Keep your +boys at home, then! I'm not responsible for your boys! But I don't +believe it--I don't believe a word of it. Ye've a furtive look in +your eye--a furtive, sneakin', poachin' look in your eye, that 'ud +ruin the reputation of an archangel! Don't attempt to deny it! Ye +have! A sergeant? More shame to you, then, an' the worst bargain Her +Majesty ever made! A sergeant, to run about the country poachin'--on +your pension! Damnable! Oh, damnable! But I'll be considerate. I'll +be merciful. By gad, I'll be the very essence o' humanity! Did ye, or +did ye not, see my notice-boards? Don't attempt to deny it! Ye did. +Silence, Sergeant!" + +Twenty-one years in the army had left their mark on Foxy. He obeyed. + +"Now. March!" The high Lodge gate shut with a clang. "My duty! A +sergeant to tell me my duty!" puffed Colonel Dabney. "Good Lard! more +sergeants!" + +"It's King! It's King!" gulped Stalky, his head on the horsehair +pillow. McTurk was eating the rag-carpet before the speckless hearth, +and the sofa heaved to the emotions of Beetle. Through the thick +glass the figures without showed blue, distorted, and menacing. + +"I--I protest against this outrage." King had evidently been running +up hill. "The man was entirely within his duty. Let--let me give you +my card." + +"He's in flannels!" Stalky buried his head again. + +"Unfortunately--most unfortunately--I have not one with me, but my +name is King, sir, a house-master of the College, and you will find +me prepared--fully prepared--to answer for this man's action. We've +seen three--" + +"Did ye see my notice-boards?" + +"I admit we did; but under the circumstances--" + +"I stand _in_loco_parentis_." Prout's deep voice was added to the +discussion. They could hear him pant. + +"F'what?" Colonel Dabney was growing more and more Irish. + +"I'm responsible for the boys under my charge." + +"Ye are, are ye? Then all I can say is that ye set them a very bad +example--a dam' bad example, if I may say so. I do not own your boys. +I've not seen your boys, an' I tell you that if there was a boy +grinnin' in every bush on the place, _still_ ye've no shadow of a +right here, comin' up from the combe that way, an' frightenin' +everything in it. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye did. Ye should have +come to the Lodge an' seen me like Christians, instead of chasin' +your dam' boys through the length and breadth of my covers. +_In_loco_parentis_ ye are? Well, I've not forgotten my Latin either, +an' I'll say to you: '_Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes_.' If the +masters trespass, how can we blame the boys?" + +"But if I could speak to you privately," said Prout. + +"I'll have nothing private with you! Ye can be as private as ye please +on the other side o' that gate an'--I wish ye a very good afternoon." + +A second time the gate clanged. They waited till Colonel Dabney had +returned to the house, and fell into one another's arms, crowing for +breath. + +"Oh, my Soul! Oh, my King! Oh, my Heffy! Oh, my Foxy! Zeal, all zeal, +Mr. Simple." Stalky wiped his eyes. "Oh! Oh I Oh!--'I _did_ boil the +exciseman!' We must get out of this or we'll be late for tea." + +"Ge--Ge--get the badger and make little Hartopp happy. Ma--ma--make +'em all happy," sobbed McTurk, groping for the door and kicking the +prostrate Beetle before him. + +They found the beast in an evil-smelling box, left two half-crowns for +payment, and staggered home. Only the badger grunted most marvelous +like Colonel Dabney, and they dropped him twice or thrice with +shrieks of helpless laughter. They were but imperfectly recovered +when Foxy met them by the Fives Court with word that they were to go +up to their dormitory and wait till sent for. + +"Well, take this box to Mr. Hartopp's rooms, then. We've done +something for the Natural History Society, at any rate," said Beetle. + +"'Fraid that won't save you, young gen'elmen," Foxy answered, in an +awful voice. He was sorely ruffled in his mind. + +"All sereno, Foxibus." Stalky had reached the extreme stage of +hiccups. "We--we'll never desert you, Foxy. Hounds choppin' foxes in +cover is more a proof of vice, ain't it?... No, you're right. +I'm--I'm not quite well." + +"They've gone a bit too far this time," Foxy thought to himself. "Very +far gone, _I'd_ say, excep' there was no smell of liquor. An' yet it +isn't like 'em--somehow. King and Prout they 'ad their dressin'-down +same as me. That's one comfort." + +"Now, we must pull up," said Stalky, rising from the bed on which he +had thrown himself. "We're injured innocence--as usual. We don't know +what we've been sent up here for, do we?" + +"No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public disgrace before the house," +said McTurk, whose eyes were running over. "It's dam' serious." + +"Well, hold on, till King loses his temper," said Beetle. "He's a +libelous old rip, an' he'll be in a ravin' paddy-wack. Prout's too +beastly cautious. Keep your eye on King, and, if he gives us a +chance, appeal to the Head. That always makes 'em sick." + +They were summoned to their house-master's study, King and Foxy +supporting Prout, and Foxy had three canes under his arm. King leered +triumphantly, for there were tears, undried tears of mirth, on the +boys' cheeks. Then the examination began. + +Yes, they had walked along the cliffs. Yes, they had entered Colonel +Dabney's grounds. Yes, they had seen the notice-boards (at this point +Beetle sputtered hysterically). For what purpose had they entered +Colonel Dabney's grounds? "Well, sir, there was a badger." + +Here King, who loathed the Natural History Society because he did not +like Hartopp, could no longer be restrained. He begged them not to +add mendacity to open insolence. But the badger was in Mr. Hartopp's +rooms, sir. The Sergeant had kindly taken it up for them. That +disposed of the badger, and the temporary check brought King's temper +to boiling-point. They could hear his foot on the floor while Prout +prepared his lumbering inquiries. They had settled into their stride +now. Their eyes ceased to sparkle; their faces were blank; their +hands hung beside them without a twitch. They were learning, at the +expense of a fellow-countryman, the lesson of their race, which is to +put away all emotion and entrap the alien at the proper time. + +So far good. King was importing himself more freely into the trial, +being vengeful where Prout was grieved. They knew the penalties of +trespassing? With a fine show of irresolution, Stalky admitted that +he had gathered some information vaguely bearing on this head, but he +thought--The sentence was dragged out to the uttermost: Stalky did +not wish to play his trump with such an opponent. Mr. King desired no +buts, nor was he interested in Stalky's evasions. They, on the other +hand, might be interested in his poor views. Boys who crept--who +sneaked--who lurked--out of bounds, even the generous bounds of the +Natural History Society, which they had falsely joined as a cloak for +their misdeeds--their vices--their villainies--their immoralities-- + +"He'll break cover in a minute," said Stalky to himself. "Then we'll +run into him before he gets away." + +Such boys, scabrous boys, moral lepers--the current of his words was +carrying King off his feet--evil-speakers, liars, slow-bellies--yea, +incipient drunkards... + +He was merely working up to a peroration, and the boys knew it; but +McTurk cut through the frothing sentence, the others echoing: + +"I appeal to the Head, sir." + +"I appeal to the head, sir." + +"I appeal to the Head, sir." + +It was their unquestioned right. Drunkenness meant expulsion after a +public flogging. They had been accused of it. The case was the +Head's, and the Head's alone. + +"Thou hast appealed unto Caesar: unto Caesar shalt thou go." They had +heard that sentence once or twice before in their careers. "None the +less," said King, uneasily, "you would be better advised to abide by +our decision, my young friends." + +"Are we allowed to associate with the rest of the school till we see +the Head, sir?" said McTurk to his house-master, disregarding King. +This at once lifted the situation to its loftiest plane. Moreover, it +meant no work, for moral leprosy was strictly quarantined, and the +Head never executed judgment till twenty-four cold hours later. + +"Well--er--if you persist in your defiant attitude," said King, with a +loving look at the canes under Foxy's arm. "There is no alternative." + +Ten minutes later the news was over the whole school. Stalky and Co. +had fallen at last--fallen by drink. They had been drinking. They had +returned blind-drunk from a hut. They were even now lying hopelessly +intoxicated on the dormitory floor. A few bold spirits crept up to +look, and received boots about the head from the criminals. + +"We've got him--got him on the Caudine Toasting-fork!" said Stalky, +after those hints were taken. "King'll have to prove his charges up +to the giddy hilt." + +"Too much ticklee, him bust," Beetle quoted from a book of his +reading. "Didn't I say he'd go pop if we lat un bide?" + +"No prep., either, O ye incipient drunkards," said McTurk, "and it's +trig night, too. Hullo! Here's our dear friend Foxy. More tortures, +Foxibus?" + +"I've brought you something to eat, young gentlemen," said the +Sergeant from behind a crowded tray. Their wars had ever been waged +without malice, and a suspicion floated in Foxy's mind that boys who +allowed themselves to be tracked so easily might, perhaps, hold +something in reserve. Foxy had served through the Mutiny, when early +and accurate information was worth much. + +"I--I noticed you 'adn't 'ad anything to eat, an' I spoke to Gumbly, +an' he said you wasn't exactly cut off from supplies. So I brought up +this. It's your potted 'am tin, ain't it, Mr. Corkran?" + +"Why, Foxibus, you're a brick," said Stalky. "I didn't think you had +this much--what's the word, Beetle?" + +"Bowels," Beetle replied, promptly. "Thank you, Sergeant. That's young +Carter's potted ham, though." + +"There was a C on it. I thought it was Mr. Corkran's. This is a very +serious business, young gentlemen. That's what it is. I didn't know, +perhaps, but there might be something on your side which you hadn't +said to Mr. King or Mr. Prout, maybe." + +"There is. Heaps, Foxibus." This from Stalky through a full mouth. + +"Then you see, if that was the case, it seemed to me I might represent +it, quiet so to say, to the 'Ead when he asks me about it. I've got +to take 'im the charges to-night, an'--it looks bad on the face of +it." + +"'Trocious bad, Foxy. Twenty-seven cuts in the Gym before all the +school, and public expulsion. 'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is +ragin','" quoth Beetle. + +"It's nothin' to make fun of, young gentlemen. I 'ave to go to the +'Ead with the charges. An'--an' you mayn't be aware, per'aps, that I +was followin' you this afternoon; havin' my suspicions." + +"Did ye see the notice-boards?" croaked McTurk, in the very brogue of +Colonel Dabney. + +"Ye've eyes in your head. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye did!" said +Beetle. + +"A sergeant! To run about poachin' on your pension! Damnable, O +damnable!" said Stalky, without pity. + +"Good Lord!" said the Sergeant, sitting heavily upon a bed. +"Where--where the devil _was_ you? I might ha' known it was a +do--somewhere." + +"Oh, you clever maniac!" Stalky resumed. "We mayn't be aware you were +followin' us this afternoon, mayn't we? 'Thought you were stalkin' +us, eh? Why, we led you bung into it, of course. Colonel +Dabney--don't you think he's a nice man, Foxy?--Colonel Dabney's our +pet particular friend. We've been goin' there for weeks and weeks, he +invited us. You and your duty! Curse your duty, sir! Your duty was to +keep off his covers." + +"You'll never be able to hold up your head again, Foxy. The fags 'll +hoot at you," said Beetle. + +"Think of your giddy prestige!" The Sergeant was thinking--hard. + +"Look 'ere, young gentlemen," he said, earnestly. "You aren't surely +ever goin' to tell, are you? Wasn't Mr. Prout and Mr. King in--in it +too?" + +"Foxibusculus, they _was_. They was--singular horrid. Caught it worse +than you. We heard every word of it. You got off easy, considerin'. +If I'd been Dabney I swear I'd ha' quodded you. I think I'll suggest +it to him to-morrow." + +"An' it's all goin' up to the 'Ead. Oh, Good Lord!" + +"Every giddy word of it, my Chingangook," said Beetle, dancing. "Why +shouldn't it? _We've_ done nothing wrong. _We_ ain't poachers. _We_ +didn't cut about blastin' the characters of poor, innocent +boys--saying they were drunk." + +"That I didn't," said Foxy. "I--I only said that you be'aved uncommon +odd when you come back with that badger. Mr. King may have taken the +wrong hint from that." + +"'Course he did; an' he'll jolly well shove all the blame on you when +he finds out he's wrong. We know King, if you don't. I'm ashamed of +you. You ain't fit to be a sergeant," said McTurk. + +"Not with three thorough-goin' young devils like you, I ain't. I've +been had. I've been ambuscaded. Horse, foot, an' guns, I've been had, +an'--an' there'll be no holdin' the junior forms after this. M'rover, +the 'Ead will send me with a note to Colonel Dabney to ask if what +you say about bein' invited was true." + +"Then you'd better go in by the Lodge-gates this time, instead of +chasin' your dam' boys--oh, that was the Epistle to King--so it was. +We-el, Foxy?" Stalky put his chin on his hands and regarded the +victim with deep delight. + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" said McTurk. "Foxy brought us +tea when we were moral lepers. Foxy has a heart. Foxy has been in the +Army, too." + +"I wish I'd ha' had you in my company, young gentlemen," said the +Sergeant from the depths of his heart; "I'd ha' given you something." + +"Silence at drum-head court-martial," McTurk went on. "I'm advocate +for the prisoner; and, besides, this is much too good to tell all the +other brutes in the Coll. They'd _never_ understand. They play +cricket, and say: 'Yes sir,' and 'O, sir,' and 'No, sir.'" + +"Never mind that. Go ahead," said Stalky. + +"Well, Foxy's a good little chap when he does not esteem himself so as +to be clever." + +"'Take not out your 'ounds on a werry windy day,'" Stalky struck in. +"_I_ don't care if you let him off." + +"Nor me," said Beetle. "Heffy is my only joy--Heffy and King." + +"I 'ad to do it," said the Sergeant, plaintively. + +"Right, O! Led away by bad companions in the execution of his duty +or--or words to that effect. You're dismissed with a reprimand, Foxy. +_We_ won't tell about _you_. I swear we won't," McTurk concluded. +"Bad for the discipline of the school. Horrid bad." + +"Well," said the Sergeant, gathering up the tea-things, "knowin' what +I know o' the young dev--gentlemen of the College, I'm very glad to +'ear it. But what am I to tell the 'Ead?" + +"Anything you jolly well please, Foxy. We aren't the criminals." + +To say that the Head was annoyed when the Sergeant appeared after +dinner with the day's crime-sheet would be putting it mildly. + +"Corkran, McTurk, and Co., I see. Bounds as usual. Hullo! What the +deuce is this? Suspicion of drinking. Whose charge??" + +"Mr. King's, sir. I caught 'em out of bounds, sir: at least that was +'ow it looked. But there's a lot be'ind, sir." The Sergeant was +evidently troubled. + +"Go on," said the Head. "Let us have your version." He and the Sergeant +had dealt with one another for some seven years; and the Head knew +that Mr. King's statements depended very largely on Mr. King's +temper. + +"I thought they were out of bounds along the cliffs. But it come out +they wasn't, sir. I saw them go into Colonel Dabney's woods, and--Mr. +King and Mr. Prout come along--and the fact was, sir, we was mistook +for poachers by Colonel Dabney's people--Mr. King and Mr. Prout and +me. There were some words, sir, on both sides. The young gentlemen +slipped 'ome somehow, and they seemed 'ighly humorous, sir. Mr. King +was mistook by Colonel Dabney himself--Colonel Dabney bein' strict. +Then they preferred to come straight to you, sir, on account of +what--what Mr. King may 'ave said about their 'abits afterwards in +Mr. Prout's study. I only said they was 'ighly humorous, laughin' an' +gigglin', an' a bit above 'emselves. They've since told me, sir, in a +humorous way, that they was invited by Colonel Dabney to go into 'is +woods." + +"I see. They didn't tell their house-master that, of course?" + +"They took up Mr. King on appeal just as soon as he spoke about +their--'abits. Put in the appeal at once, sir, an' asked to be sent +to the dormitory waitin' for you. I've since gathered, sir, in their +humorous way, sir, that some'ow or other they've 'eard about every +word Colonel Dabney said to Mr. King and Mr. Prout when he mistook +'em for poachers. I--I might ha' known when they led me on so that +they 'eld the inner line of communications. It's--it's a plain do, +sir, if you ask me; an' they're gloatin' over it in the dormitory." + +The Head saw--saw even to the uttermost farthing--and his mouth +twitched a little under his mustache. + +"Send them to me at once, Sergeant. This case needn't wait over." + +"Good evening," said he when the three appeared under escort. "I want +your undivided attention for a few minutes. You've known me for five +years, and I've known you for--twenty-five. I think we understand one +another perfectly. I am now going to pay you a tremendous compliment +(the brown one, please, Sergeant. Thanks. You needn't wait). I'm +going to execute you without rhyme, Beetle, or reason. I know you went +to Colonel Dabney's covers because you were invited. I'm not even +going to send the Sergeant with a note to ask if your statement is +true; because I am convinced that on this occasion you have adhered +strictly to the truth. I know, too, that you were not drinking. (You +can take off that virtuous expression, McTurk, or I shall begin to +fear you don't understand me.) There is not a flaw in any of your +characters. And that is why I am going to perpetrate a howling +injustice. Your reputations have been injured, haven't they? You have +been disgraced before the house, haven't you? You have a peculiarly +keen regard for the honor of your house, haven't you? Well, now I am +going to lick you." + +Six apiece was their portion upon that word. + +"And this I think"--the Head replaced the cane, and flung the written +charge into the waste-paper basket--"covers the situation. When you +find a variation from the normal--this will be useful to you in later +life--always meet him in an abnormal way. And that reminds me. There +are a pile of paper-backs on that shelf. You can borrow them if you +put them back. I don't think they'll take any harm from being read in +the open. They smell of tobacco rather. You will go to prep. this +evening as usual. Good-night," said that amazing man. + +"Good-night, and thank you, sir." + +"I swear I'll pray for the Head to-night," said Beetle. "Those last +two cuts were just flicks on my collar. There's a 'Monte Cristo' in +that lower shelf. I saw it. Bags I, next time we go to Aves!" + +"Dearr man!" said McTurk. "No gating. No impots. No beastly questions. +All settled. Hullo! what's King goin' in to him for--King and +Prout?" + +Whatever the nature of that interview, it did not improve either +King's or Prout's ruffled plumes, for, when they came out of the +Head's house, eyes noted that the one was red and blue with emotion +as to his nose, and that the other was sweating profusely. That sight +compensated them amply for the Imperial Jaw with which they were +favored by the two. It seems--and who so astonished as they?--that +they had held back material facts; were guilty both of +_suppressio_veri_ and _suggestio_falsi_ (well-known gods against whom +they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their +dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and +revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of +wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and +lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful. + +They were careful, as only boys can be when there is a hurt to be +inflicted. They waited through one suffocating week till Prout and +King were their royal selves again; waited till there was a +house-match--their own house, too--in which Prout was taking part; +waited, further, till he had his pads in the pavilion and stood ready +to go forth. King was scoring at the window, and the three sat on a +bench without. + +Said Stalky to Beetle: "I say, Beetle,_quis_custodet_ipsos_custodes_?" + +"Don't ask me," said Beetle. "I'll have nothin' private with you. Ye +can be as private as ye please the other end of the bench; and I wish +ye a very good afternoon." + +McTurk yawned. + +"Well, ye should ha' come up to the lodge like Christians instead o' +chasin' your--a-hem--boys through the length an' breadth of my +covers. _I_ think these house-matches are all rot. Let's go over to +Colonel Dabney's an' see if he's collared any more poachers." + +That afternoon there was joy in Aves. + + + +SLAVES OF THE LAMP + + +The music-room on the top floor of Number Five was filled with the +"Aladdin" company at rehearsal. Dickson Quartus, commonly known as +Dick Four, was Aladdin, stage-manager, ballet-master, half the +orchestra, and largely librettist, for the "book" had been rewritten +and filled with local allusions. The pantomime was to be given next +week, in the down-stairs study occupied by Aladdin, Abanazar, and the +Emperor of China. The Slave of the Lamp, with the Princess +Badroulbadour and the Widow Twankay, owned Number Five study across +the same landing, so that the company could be easily assembled. The +floor shook to the stamp-and-go of the ballet, while Aladdin, in pink +cotton tights, a blue and tinsel jacket, and a plumed hat, banged +alternately on the piano and his banjo. He was the moving spirit of +the game, as befitted a senior who had passed his Army Preliminary +and hoped to enter Sandhurst next spring. + +Aladdin came to his own at last, Abanazar lay poisoned on the floor, +the Widow Twankay danced her dance, and the company decided it would +"come all right on the night." + +"What about the last song, though?" said the Emperor, a tallish, +fair-headed boy with a ghost of a mustache, at which he pulled +manfully. "We need a rousing old tune." + +"'John Peel'? 'Drink, Puppy, Drink'?" suggested Abanazar, smoothing +his baggy lilac pajamas. "Pussy" Abanazar never looked more than +one-half awake, but he owned a soft, slow smile which well suited the +part of the Wicked Uncle. + +"Stale," said Aladdin. "Might as well have 'Grandfather's Clock.' +What's that thing you were humming at prep. last night, Stalky?" + +Stalky, The Slave of the Lamp, in black tights and doublet, a black +silk half-mask on his forehead, whistled lazily where he lay on the +top of the piano. It was a catchy music-hall tune. + +Dick Four cocked his head critically, and squinted down a large red +nose. + +"Once more, and I can pick it up," he said, strumming. "Sing the +words." + +"Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child! Wrap him +in an overcoat, he's surely going wild! Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! +just you mind the child awhile! He'll kick and bite and cry all +night! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child!" + +"Rippin'! Oh, rippin'!" said Dick Four. "Only we shan't have any piano +on the night. We must work it with the banjoes--play an' dance at +the same time. You try, Tertius." + +The Emperor pushed aside his pea-green sleeves of state, and followed +Dick Four on a heavy nickel plated banjo. + +"Yes, but I'm dead all this time. Bung in the middle of the stage, +too," said Abanazar. + +"Oh, that's Beetle's biznai," said Dick Four. "Vamp it up, Beetle. +Don't keep us waiting all night. You've got to get Pussy out of the +light somehow, and bring us all in dancin' at the end." + +"All right. You two play it again," said Beetle, who, in a gray skirt +and a wig of chestnut sausage-curls, set slantwise above a pair of +spectacles mended with an old boot-lace, represented the Widow +Twankay. He waved one leg in time to the hammered refrain, and the +banjoes grew louder. + +"Um! Ah! Er--'Aladdin now has won his wife,'" he sang, and Dick Four +repeated it. + +"'Your Emperor is appeased.'" Tertius flung out his chest as he +delivered his line. + +"Now jump up, Pussy! Say, 'I think I'd better come to life!" Then we +all take hands and come forward: 'We hope you've all been pleased.' +_Twiggez-vous_?" + +"_Nous_twiggons_. Good enough. What's the chorus for the final ballet? +It's four kicks and a turn," said Dick Four. + +"Oh! Er! + + John Short will ring the curtain down. + And ring the prompter's bell; + We hope you know before you go + That we all wish you well." + +"Rippin'! Rippin'! Now for the Widow's scene with the Princess. Hurry +up, Turkey." + +McTurk, in a violet silk skirt and a coquettish blue turban, slouched +forward as one thoroughly ashamed of himself. The Slave of the Lamp +climbed down from the piano, and dispassionately kicked him. "Play +up, Turkey," he said; "this is serious." But there fell on the door +the knock of authority. It happened to be King, in gown and +mortar-board, enjoying a Saturday evening prowl before dinner. + +"Locked doors! Locked doors!" he snapped with a scowl. "What's the +meaning of this; and what, may I ask, is the intention of this--this +epicene attire?" + +"Pantomime, sir. The Head gave us leave," said Abanazar, as the only +member of the Sixth concerned. Dick Four stood firm in the confidence +born of well-fitting tights, but Beetle strove to efface himself +behind the piano. A gray princess-skirt borrowed from a day-boy's +mother and a spotted cotton bodice unsystematically padded with +imposition-paper make one ridiculous. And in other regards Beetle had +a bad conscience. + +"As usual!" sneered King. "Futile foolery just when your careers, such +as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see! The old +gang of criminals--allied forces of disorder--Corkran"--the Slave of +the Lamp smiled politely--"McTurk"--the Irishman scowled--"and, of +course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs." Abanazar, the +Emperor, and Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed +them over. "Come forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument +of music! You supply, I presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. +Esteem yourself to be, as it were, a poet?" + +"He's found one of 'em," thought Beetle, noting the flush on King's +cheek-bone. + +"I have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my +address, I believe--an effusion intended to rhyme. So--so you despise +me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite aware--you need not explain +--that it was ostensibly not intended for my edification. I read it +with laughter--yes, with laughter. These paper pellets of inky boys +--still a boy we are, Master Gigadibs--do not disturb my equanimity." + +"Wonder which it was," thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons +on an appreciative public ever since he discovered that it was +possible to convey reproof in rhyme. + +In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he +called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his +mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he +held him up to the derision of his associates--with the usual result. +His wild flowers of speech--King had an unpleasant tongue---restored +him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle's +latter end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a +few compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he +must come up for judgment when called upon, went to Common-room, +where he triumphed anew over his victims. + +"And the worst of it," he explained in a loud voice over his soup, "is +that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. It's miles +above them, I'm certain." + +"We-ell," said the school chaplain slowly, "I don't know what +Corkran's appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads +Ruskin for his amusement." + +"Nonsense! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt." + +"He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, +unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers +of 'Fors Clavigera.'" + +"I don't know anything about their private lives," said a mathematical +master hotly, "but I've learned by bitter experience that Number Five +study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils." + +He blushed as the others laughed. + +But in the music-room there were wrath and bad language. Only Stalky, +Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano unmoved. + +"That little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. He's +always suckin' up to King. Go and kill him," he drawled. "Which one +was it, Beetle?" + +"Dunno," said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. "There was one +about his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other +one was one about him in hell, tellin' the Devil he was a Balliol +man. I swear both of 'em rhymed all right. By gum! P'raps Manders +minor showed him both! _I'll_ correct his caesuras for him." + +He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and +white boy in a form-room next door to King's study, which, again, was +immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a +form-room sacred to the revels of the Lower Third. Thence he came +back, greatly disordered, to find McTurk, Stalky, and the others of +the company, in his study enjoying an unlimited "brew"--coffee, +cocoa, buns, new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, +ham-and-tongue paste, pilchards, three jams, and at least as many +pounds of Devonshire cream. + +"My hat!" said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. "Who stumped up +for this, Stalky?" It was within a month of term end, and blank +starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks. + +"You," said Stalky, serenely. + +"Confound you! You haven't been popping my Sunday bags, then?" + +"Keep your hair on. It's only your watch." + +"Watch! I lost it--weeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to +shoot the old ram--the day our pistol burst." + +"It dropped out of your pocket (you're so beastly careless, Beetle), +and McTurk and I kept it for you. I've been wearing it for a week, +and you never noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. Got +thirteen and sevenpence. Here's the ticket." + +"Well, that's pretty average cool," said Abanazar behind a slab of +cream and jam, as Beetle, reassured upon the safety of his Sunday +trousers, showed not even surprise, much less resentment. Indeed, it +was McTurk who grew angry, saying: + +"You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated +beast! Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! 'Never got a sniff +of any ticket." + +"Ah, that was because you locked your trunk, and we wasted half the +afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if you'd behaved +like a Christian, Turkey." + +"My Aunt!" said Abanazar, "you chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to +Beetle, though." + +"That's beastly unfair," said Stalky, "when I took all the trouble to +pawn it. Beetle never knew he had a watch. Oh, I say, Rabbits-Eggs +gave me a lift into Bideford this afternoon." + +Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrier--an outcrop of the early Devonian +formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. "He was +pretty average drunk, or he wouldn't have done it. Rabbits-Eggs is a +little shy of me, somehow. But I swore it was _pax_ between us, and +gave him a bob. He stopped at two pubs on the way in, so he'll be +howling drunk to-night. Oh, don't begin reading, Beetle; there's a +council of war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?" + +"'Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third box-room. 'Had all his +beastly little friends on top of me," said Beetle from behind a jar +of pilchards and a book. + +"You ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to," +said McTurk. + +"I didn't think," said Beetle, meekly, scooping out pilchards with a +spoon. + +"Course you didn't. You never do." McTurk adjusted Beetle's collar +with a savage tug. "Don't drop oil all over my 'Fors' or I'll scrag +you!" + +"Shut up, you--you Irish Biddy! 'Tisn't your beastly 'Fors.' It's one +of mine." + +The book was a fat, brown-backed volume of the later Sixties, which +King had once thrown at Beetle's head that Beetle might see whence +the name Gigadibs came. Beetle had quietly annexed the book, and had +seen--several things. The quarter-comprehended verses lived and ate +with him, as the bedropped pages showed. He removed himself from all +that world, drifting at large with wondrous Men and Women, till +McTurk hammered the pilchard spoon on his head and he snarled. + +"Beetle! You're oppressed and insulted and bullied by King. Don't you +feel it?" + +"Let me alone! I can write some more poetry about him if I am, I +suppose." + +"Mad! Quite mad!" said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting +strange beasts. "Beetle reads an ass called Brownin', and McTurk +reads an ass called Ruskin; and--" + +"Ruskin isn't an ass," said McTurk. "He's almost as good as the Opium +Eater. He says 'we're children of noble races trained by surrounding +art.' That means _me_, and the way I decorated the study when you two +badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a +noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading, or I'll shove a +pilchard down your neck!" + +"It's two to one," said Stalky, warningly, and Beetle closed the book, +in obedience to the law under which he and his companions had lived +for six checkered years. + +The visitors looked on delighted. Number Five study had a reputation +for more variegated insanity than the rest of the school put +together; and so far as its code allowed friendship with outsiders it +was polite and open-hearted to its neighbors on the same landing. + +"What rot do you want now?" said Beetle. + +"King! War!" said McTurk, jerking his head toward the wall, where hung +a small wooden West-African war-drum, a gift to McTurk from a naval +uncle. + +"Then we shall be turned out of the study again," said Beetle, who +loved his flesh-pots. "Mason turned us out for--just warbling on it." +Mason was the mathematical master who had testified in Common-room. + +"Warbling?--O Lord!" said Abanazar. "We couldn't hear ourselves speak +in our study when you played the infernal thing. What's the good of +getting turned out of your study, anyhow?" + +"We lived in the form-rooms for a week, too," said Beetle, tragically. +"And it was beastly cold." + +"Ye-es, but Mason's rooms were filled with rats every day we were out. +It took him a week to draw the inference," said McTurk. "He loathes +rats. 'Minute he let us go back the rats stopped. Mason's a little +shy of us now, but there was no evidence." + +"Jolly well there wasn't," said Stalky, "when I got out on the roof +and dropped the beastly things down his chimney. But, look +here--question is, are our characters good enough just now to stand a +study row?" + +"Never mind mine," said Beetle. "King swears I haven't any." + +"I'm not thinking of you," Stalky returned scornfully. "You aren't +going up for the Army, you old bat. I don't want to be expelled--and +the Head's getting rather shy of us, too." + +"Rot!" said McTurk. "The Head never expels except for beastliness or +stealing. But I forgot; you and Stalky _are_ thieves--regular +burglars." + +The visitors gasped, but Stalky interpreted the parable with large +grins. + +"Well, you know, that little beast Manders minor saw Beetle and me +hammerin' McTurk's trunk open in the dormitory when we took his watch +last month. Of course Manders sneaked to Mason, and Mason solemnly +took it up as a case of theft, to get even with us about the rats." + +"That just put Mason into our giddy hands," said McTurk, blandly. "We +were nice to him, because he was a new master and wanted to win the +confidence of the boys. 'Pity he draws inferences, though. Stalky +went to his study and pretended to blub, and told Mason he'd lead a +new life if Mason would let him off this time, but Mason wouldn't. +'Said it was his duty to report him to the Head." + +"Vindictive swine!" said Beetle. "It was all those rats! Then _I_ +blubbed, too, and Stalky confessed that he'd been a thief in regular +practice for six years, ever since he came to the school; and that +I'd taught him--_a_la_ Fagin. Mason turned white with joy. He thought +he had us on toast." + +"Gorgeous! Gorgeous!" said Dick Four. "We never heard of this." + +"'Course not. Mason kept it jolly quiet. He wrote down all our +statements on impot-paper. There wasn't anything he wouldn't +believe," said Stalky. + +"And handed it all up to the Head, _with_ an extempore prayer. It took +about forty pages," said Beetle. "I helped him a lot." + +"And then, you crazy idiots?" said Abanazar. + +"Oh, we were sent for; and Stalky asked to have the 'depositions' read +out, and the Head knocked him spinning into a waste-paper basket. +Then he gave us eight cuts apiece--welters--for--for--takin' +unheard-of liberties with a new master. I saw his shoulders shaking +when we went out. Do you know," said Beetle, pensively, "that Mason +can't look at us now in second lesson without blushing? We three stare +at him sometimes till he regularly trickles. He's an awfully +sensitive beast." + +"He read 'Eric, or Little by Little,'" said McTurk; "so we gave him +'St. Winifred's, or the World of School.' They spent all their spare +time stealing at St. Winifred's, when they weren't praying or getting +drunk at pubs. Well, that was only a week ago, and the Head's a +little bit shy of us. He called it constructive deviltry. Stalky +invented it all." + +"Not the least good having a row with a master unless you can make an +ass of him," said Stalky, extended at ease on the hearth-rug. "If +Mason didn't know Number Five--well, he's learnt, that's all. Now, my +dearly beloved 'earers"--Stalky curled his legs under him and +addressed the company--"we've got that strong', perseverin' man King +on our hands. He went miles out of his way to provoke a conflict." +(Here Stalky snapped down the black silk domino and assumed the air of +a judge.) "He has oppressed Beetle, McTurk, and me, +_privatim_et_seriatim_, one by one, as he could catch us. But now, he +has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of +these--these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like +hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry 'Capivi!'" + +Stalky's reading did not include Browning or Ruskin. + +"And, besides," said McTurk, "he's a Philistine, a basket-hanger. He +wears a tartan tie. Ruskin says that any man who wears a tartan tie +will, without doubt, be damned everlastingly." + +"Bravo, McTurk," said Tertius; "I thought he was only a beast." + +"He's that, too, of course, but he's worse. Ho has a china basket with +blue ribbons and a pink kitten on it, hung up in his window to grow +musk in. You know when I got all that old oak carvin' out of Bideford +Church, when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who'll +restore a church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with +glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know whether we'd done it with +a fret-saw! Yah! He is the King of basket-hangers!" + +Down went McTurk's inky thumb over an imaginary arena full of bleeding +Kings. "_Placete_, child of a generous race!" he cried to Beetle. + +"Well," began Beetle, doubtfully, "he comes from Balliol, but I'm +going to give the beast a chance. You see I can always make him hop +with some more poetry. He can't report me to the Head, because it +makes him ridiculous. (Stalky's quite right.) But he shall have his +chance." + +Beetle opened the book on the table, ran his finger down a page, and +began at random: + + "Or who in Moscow toward the Czar + With the demurest of footfalls, + Over the Kremlin's pavement white + With serpentine and syenite, + Steps with five other generals--" + +"That's no good. Try another," said Stalky. + +"Hold on a shake; I know what's coming." McTurk was reading over +Beetle's shoulder. + + "That simultaneously take snuff, + For each to have pretext enough + And kerchiefwise unfold his sash, + Which--softness' self--is yet the stuff + +(Gummy! What a sentence!) + + To hold fast where a steel chain snaps + And leave the grand white neck no gash. + +(Full stop.)" + +"'Don't understand a word of it," said Stalky. + +"More fool you! Construe," said McTurk. "Those six bargees scragged +the Czar, and left no evidence. _Actum_est_ with King." + +"He gave me that book, too," said Beetle, licking his lips: + + "There's a great text in Galatians, + Once you trip on it entails + Twenty-nine distinct damnations, + One sure if another fails." + +Then irrelevantly: + + "Setebos! Setebos! and Setebos! + Thinketh he liveth in the cold of the moon." + +"He's just come in from dinner," said Dick Four, looking through the +window. "Manders minor is with him." + +"'Safest place for Manders minor just now," said Beetle. + +"Then you chaps had better clear out," said Stalky politely to the +visitors. "'Tisn't fair to mix you up in a study row. Besides, we +can't afford to have evidence." + +"Are you going to begin at once?' said Aladdin. + +"Immediately, if not sooner," said Stalky, and turned out the gas. +"Strong, perseverin' man--King. Make him cry 'Capivi.' G'way, +Binjimin." + +The company retreated to their own neat and spacious study with +expectant souls. + +"When Stalky blows out his nostrils like a horse," said Aladdin to the +Emperor of China, "he's on the war-path. 'Wonder what King will get." + +"Beans," said the Emperor. "Number Five generally pays in full." + +"Wonder if I ought to take any notice of it officially," said +Abanazar, who had just remembered he was a prefect. + +"It's none of your business, Pussy. Besides, if you did, we'd have +them hostile to us; and we shouldn't be able to do any work," said +Aladdin. "They've begun already." + +Now that West-African war-drum had been made to signal across +estuaries and deltas. Number Five was forbidden to wake the engine +within earshot of the school. But a deep, devastating drone filled +the passages as McTurk and Beetle scientifically rubbed its top. Anon +it changed to the blare of trumpets--of savage pursuing trumpets. +Then, as McTurk slapped one side, smooth with the blood of ancient +sacrifice, the roar broke into short coughing howls such as the +wounded gorilla throws in his native forest. These were followed by +the wrath of King--three steps at a time, up the staircase, with a +dry whir of the gown. Aladdin and company, listening, squeaked with +excitement as the door crashed open. King stumbled into the darkness, +and cursed those performers by the gods of Balliol and quiet repose. + +"Turned out for a week," said Aladdin, holding the study door on the +crack. "Key to be brought down to his study in five minutes. 'Brutes! +Barbarians! Savages! Children!' He's rather agitated. 'Arrah, Patsy, +mind the baby,'" he sang in a whisper as he clung to the door-knob, +dancing a noiseless war-dance. + +King went down-stairs again, and Beetle and McTurk lit the gas to +confer with Stalky. But Stalky had vanished. + +"Looks like no end of a mess," said Beetle, collecting his books and +mathematical instrument case. "A week in the form-rooms isn't any +advantage to us." + +"Yes, but don't you see that Stalky isn't here, you owl!" said McTurk. +"Take down the key, and look sorrowful. King'll only jaw you for half +an hour. I'm going to read in the lower form-room." + +"But it's always me," mourned Beetle. + +"Wait till we see," said McTurk, hopefully. "I don't know any more +than you do what Stalky means, but it's something. Go down and draw +King's fire. You're used to it." + +No sooner had the key turned in the door than the lid of the coal-box, +which was also the window-seat, lifted cautiously. It had been a +tight fit, even for the lithe Stalky, his head between his knees, and +his stomach under his right ear. From a drawer in the table he took a +well-worn catapult, a handful of buckshot, and a duplicate key of the +study; noiselessly he raised the window and kneeled by it, his face +turned to the road, the wind-sloped trees, the dark levels of the +Burrows, and the white line of breakers falling nine-deep along the +Pebbleridge. Far down the steep-banked Devonshire lane he heard the +husky hoot of the carrier's horn. There was a ghost of melody in it, +as it might have been the wind in a gin-bottle essaying to sing, +"It's a way we have in the Army." + +Stalky smiled a tight-lipped smile, and at extreme range opened fire: +the old horse half wheeled in the shafts. + +"Where he gwaine tu?" hiccoughed Rabbits-Eggs. Another buckshot tore +through the rotten canvas tilt with a vicious zipp. + +"_Habet_!" murmured Stalky, as Rabbits-Eggs swore into the patient +night, protesting that he saw the "dommed colleger" who was +assaulting him. + + +"And so," King was saying in a high head voice to Beetle, whom he had +kept to play with before Manders minor, well knowing that it hurts a +Fifth-form boy to be held up to a fag's derision, "and so, Master +Beetle, in spite of all our verses, which we are so proud of, when we +presume to come into direct conflict with even so humble a +representative of authority as myself, for instance, we are turned out +of our studies, are we not?" + +"Yes, sir," said Beetle, with a sheepish grin on his lips and murder +in his heart. Hope had nearly left him, but he clung to a +well-established faith that never was Stalky so dangerous as when he +was invisible. + +"You are _not_ required to criticise, thank you. Turned out of our +studies, we are, just as if we were no better than little Manders +minor. Only inky schoolboys we are, and must be treated as such." + +Beetle pricked up his ears, for Rabbits-Eggs was swearing savagely on +the road, and some of the language entered at the upper sash. King +believed in ventilation. He strode to the window gowned and majestic, +very visible in the gaslight. + +"I zee 'un! I zee 'un!" roared Rabbits-Eggs, now that he had found a +visible foe--another shot from the darkness above. "Yiss, yeou, yeou +long-nosed, fower-eyed, gingy-whiskered beggar! Yeu'm tu old for such +goin's on. Aie! Poultice yeour nose, I tall 'ee! Poultice yeour long +nose!" + +Beetle's heart leaped up within him. Somewhere, somehow, he knew, +Stalky moved behind these manifestations. There were hope and the +prospect of revenge. He would embody the suggestion about the nose in +deathless verse. King threw up the window, and sternly rebuked +Rabbits-Eggs. But the carrier was beyond fear or fawning. He had +descended from the cart, and was stooping by the roadside. + +It all fell swiftly as a dream. Manders minor raised his hand to his +head with a cry, as a jagged flint cannoned on to some rich tree-calf +bindings in the bookshelf. Another quoited along the writing-table. +Beetle made zealous feint to stop it, and in that endeavor overturned +a student's lamp, which dripped, _via_ King's papers and some choice +books, greasily on to a Persian rug. There was much broken glass on +the window-seat; the china basket--McTurk's aversion--cracked to +flinders, had dropped her musk plant and its earth over the red rep +cushions; Manders minor was bleeding profusely from a cut on the +cheek-bone; and King, using strange words, every one of which Beetle +treasured, ran forth to find the school-sergeant, that Rabbits-Eggs +might be instantly cast into jail. + +"Poor chap!" said Beetle, with a false, feigned sympathy. "Let it +bleed a little. That'll prevent apoplexy," and he held the blind +head skilfully over the table, and the papers on the table, as he +guided the howling Manders to the door. + +Then did Beetle, alone with the wreckage, return good for evil. How, +in that office, a complete set of "Gibbon" was scarred all along the +back as by a flint; how so much black and copying ink came to be +mingled with Manders's gore on the table-cloth; why the big +gum-bottle, unstoppered, had rolled semicircularly across the floor; +and in what manner the white china door-knob grew to be painted with +yet more of Manders's young blood, were matters which Beetle did not +explain when the rabid King returned to find him standing politely +over the reeking hearth-rug. + +"You never told me to go, sir," he said, with the air of Casabianca, +and King consigned him to the outer darkness. + +But it was to a boot-cupboard under the staircase on the ground floor +that he hastened, to loose the mirth that was destroying him. He had +not drawn breath for a first whoop of triumph when two hands choked +him dumb. + +"Go to the dormitory and get me my things. Bring 'em to Number Five +lavatory. I'm still in tights," hissed Stalky, sitting on his head. +"Don't run. Walk." + +But Beetle staggered into the form-room next door, and delegated his +duty to the yet unenlightened McTurk, with an hysterical precis of +the campaign thus far. So it was McTurk, of the wooden visage, who +brought the clothes from the dormitory while Beetle panted on a form. +Then the three buried themselves in Number Five lavatory, turned on +all the taps, filled the place with steam, and dropped weeping into +the baths, where they pieced out the war. + +"_Moi_! _Je_! _Ich_! _Ego_!" gasped Stalky. "I waited till I couldn't +hear myself think, while you played the drum! Hid in the +coal-locker--and tweaked Rabbits-Eggs--and Rabbits-Eggs rocked King. +Wasn't it beautiful? Did you hear the glass?" + +"Why, he--he--he," shrieked McTurk, one trembling finger pointed at +Beetle. + +"Why, I--I--I was through it all," Beetle howled; "in his study, being +jawed." + +"Oh, my soul!" said Stalky with a yell, disappearing under water. + +"The--the glass was nothing. Manders minor's head's cut open. +La--la--lamp upset all over the rug. Blood on the books and papers. +The gum! The gum! The gum! The ink! The ink! The ink! Oh, Lord!" + +Then Stalky leaped out, all pink as he was, and shook Beetle into some +sort of coherence; but his tale prostrated them afresh. + +"I bunked for the boot-cupboard the second I heard King go +down-stairs. Beetle tumbled in on top of me. The spare key's hid +behind the loose board. There isn't a shadow of evidence," said +Stalky. They were all chanting together. + +"And he turned us out himself--himself--himself!" This from McTurk. +"He can't begin to suspect us. Oh, Stalky, it's the loveliest thing +we've ever done." + +"Gum! Gum! Dollops of gum!" shouted Beetle, his spectacles gleaming +through a sea of lather. "Ink and blood all mixed. I held the little +beast's head all over the Latin proses for Monday. Golly, how the oil +stunk! And Rabbits-Eggs told King to poultice his nose! Did you hit +Rabbits-Eggs, Stalky?" + +"Did I jolly well not.? Tweaked him all over. Did you hear him curse? +Oh, I shall be sick in a minute if I don't stop." + +But dressing was a slow process, because McTurk was obliged to dance +when he heard that the musk basket was broken, and, moreover, Beetle +retailed all King's language with emendations and purple insets. + +"Shockin'!' said Stalky, collapsing in a helpless welter of +half-hitched trousers. "So dam' bad, too, for innocent boys like us! +Wonder what they'd say at 'St. Winifred's, or the World of +School.'--By gum! That reminds me we owe the Lower Third one for +assaultin' Beetle when he chivied Manders minor. Come on! It's an +alibi, Samivel; and, besides, if we let 'em off they'll be worse next +time." + +The Lower Third had set a guard upon their form-room for the space of +a full hour, which to a boy is a lifetime. Now they were busy with +their Saturday evening businesses--cooking sparrows over the gas with +rusty nibs; brewing unholy drinks in gallipots; skinning moles with +pocket-knives; attending to paper trays full of silkworms, or +discussing the iniquities of their elders with a freedom, fluency, +and point that would have amazed their parents. The blow fell without +warning. Stalky upset a form crowded with small boys among their own +cooking utensils, McTurk raided the untidy lockers as a terrier digs +at a rabbit-hole, while Beetle poured ink upon such heads as he could +not appeal to with a Smith's Classical Dictionary. Three brisk +minutes accounted for many silkworms, pet larvae, French exercises, +school caps, half-prepared bones and skulls, and a dozen pots of +home-made sloe jam. It was a great wreckage, and the form-room looked +as though three conflicting tempests had smitten it. + +"Phew!" said Stalky, drawing breath outside the door (amid groans of +"Oh, you beastly ca-ads! You think yourselves awful funny," and so +forth). "_That's_ all right. Never let the sun go down upon your +wrath. Rummy little devils, fags. Got no notion o' combinin'." + +"Six of 'em sat on my head when I went in after Manders minor," said +Beetle. "I warned 'em what they'd get, though." + +"Everybody paid in full--beautiful feelin'," said McTurk absently, as +they strolled along the corridor. "Don't think we'd better say much +about King, though, do you, Stalky?" + +"Not _much_. Our line is injured innocence, of course--same as when +the Sergeant reported us on suspicion of smoking in the bunkers. If I +hadn't thought of buyin' the pepper and spillin' it all over our +clothes, he'd have smelt us. King was gha-astly facetious about that. +'Called us bird-stuffers in form for a week." + +"Ah, King hates the Natural History Society because little Hartopp is +president. Mustn't do anything in the Coll. without glorifyin' +King," said McTurk. "But he must be a putrid ass, know, to suppose at +our time o' life we'd go and stuff birds like fags." + +"Poor old King!" said Beetle. "He's unpopular in Common-room, and +they'll chaff his head off about Rabbits-Eggs. Golly! How lovely! How +beautiful! How holy! But you should have seen his face when the first +rock came in! _And_ the earth from the basket!" + +So they were all stricken helpless for five minutes. + +They repaired at last to Abanazar's study, and were received +reverently. + +"What's the matter?" said Stalky, quick to realize new atmospheres. + +"You know jolly well," said Abanazar. "You'll be expelled if you get +caught. King is a gibbering maniac." + +"Who? Which? What? Expelled for how? We only played the war-drum. +We've got turned out for that already." + +"Do you chaps mean to say you didn't make Rabbits-Eggs drunk and bribe +him to rock King's rooms?" + +"Bribe him? No, that I'll swear we didn't," said Stalky, with a +relieved heart, for he loved not to tell lies. "What a low mind +you've got, Pussy! We've been down having a bath. Did Rabbits-Eggs +rock King? Strong, perseverin' man King? Shockin'!" + +"Awf'ly. King's frothing at the mouth. There's bell for prayers. Come +on." + +"Wait a sec," said Stalky, continuing the conversation in a loud and +cheerful voice, as they descended the stairs. "What did Rabbits-Eggs +rock King for?" + +"I know," said Beetle, as they passed King's open door. "I was in his +study." + +"Hush, you ass!" hissed the Emperor of China. "Oh, he's gone down to +prayers," said Beetle, watching the shadow of the house-master on the +wall. "Rabbits-Eggs was only a bit drunk, swearin' at his horse, and +King jawed him through the window, and then, of course, he rocked +King." + +"Do you mean to say," said Stalky, "that King began it?" + +King was behind them, and every well-weighed word went up the +staircase like an arrow. "I can only swear," said Beetle, "that King +cursed like a bargee. Simply disgustin'. I'm goin' to write to my +father about it." + +"Better report it to Mason," suggested Stalky. "He knows our tender +consciences. Hold on a shake. I've got to tie my bootlace." + +The other study hurried forward. They did not wish to be dragged into +stage asides of this nature. So it was left to McTurk to sum up the +situation beneath the guns of the enemy. + +"You see," said the Irishman, hanging on the banister, "he begins by +bullying little chaps; then he bullies the big chaps; then he bullies +some one who isn't connected with the College, and then catches it. +Serves him jolly well right... I beg your pardon, sir. I didn't see +you were coming down the staircase." + +The black gown tore past like a thunder-storm, and in its wake, three +abreast, arms linked, the Aladdin company rolled up the big corridor +to prayers, singing with most innocent intention: + + "Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child! + Wrap him up in an overcoat, he's surely goin' wild! + Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby; just ye mind the child awhile! + He'll kick an' bite an' cry all night! Arrah, Patsy, mind + the child!" + + + + +AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. + + + +It was a maiden aunt of Stalky who sent him both books, with the +inscription, "To dearest Artie, on his sixteenth birthday;" it was +McTurk who ordered their hypothecation; and it was Beetle, returned +from Bideford, who flung them on the window-sill of Number Five study +with news that Bastable would advance but ninepence on the two; +"Eric; or, Little by Little," being almost as great a drug as "St. +Winifred's." "An' I don't think much of your aunt. We're nearly out of +cartridges, too--Artie, dear." + +Whereupon Stalky rose up to grapple with him, but McTurk sat on +Stalky's head, calling him a "pure-minded boy" till peace was +declared. As they were grievously in arrears with a Latin prose, as +it was a blazing July afternoon, and as they ought to have been at a +house cricket-match, they began to renew their acquaintance, intimate +and unholy, with the volumes. + +"Here we are!" said McTurk. "'Corporal punishment produced on Eric the +worst effects. He burned _not_ with remorse or regret'--make a note +o' that, Beetle--' but with shame and violent indignation. He +glared'--oh, naughty Eric! Let's get to where he goes in for drink." + +"Hold on half a shake. Here's another sample. 'The Sixth,' he says,'is +the palladium of all public schools.' But this lot--" Stalky rapped +the gilded book--"can't prevent fellows drinkin' and stealin', an' +lettin' fags out of window at night, an'--an' doin' what they please. +Golly, what we've missed--not goin' to St. Winifred's!..." + +"I'm sorry to see any boys of my house taking so little interest in +their matches." + +Mr. Prout could move very silently if he pleased, though that is no +merit in a boy's eyes. He had flung open the study-door without +knocking--another sin--and looked at them suspiciously. "Very sorry, +indeed, I am to see you frowsting in your studies." + +"We've been out ever since dinner, sir," said. McTurk wearily. One +house-match is just like another, and their "ploy" of that week +happened to be rabbit-shooting with saloon-pistols. + +"I can't see a ball when it's coming, sir," said Beetle. "I've had my +gig-lamps smashed at the Nets till I got excused. I wasn't any good +even as a fag, then, sir." + +"Tuck is probably your form. Tuck and brewing. Why can't you three +take any interest in the honor of your house?" + +They had heard that phrase till they were wearied. The "honor of the +house" was Prout's weak point, and they knew well how to flick him on +the raw. + +"If you order us to go down, sir, of course we'll go," said Stalky, +with maddening politeness. But Prout knew better than that. He had +tried the experiment once at a big match, when the three, +self-isolated, stood to attention for half an hour in full view of +all the visitors, to whom fags, subsidized for that end, pointed them +out as victims of Prout's tyranny. And Prout was a sensitive man. + +In the infinitely petty confederacies of the Common-room, King and +Macrea, fellow house-masters, had borne it in upon him that by games, +and games alone, was salvation wrought. Boys neglected were boys +lost. They must be disciplined. Left to himself, Prout would have +made a sympathetic house-master; but he was never so left, and with +the devilish insight of youth, the boys knew to whom they were +indebted for his zeal. + +"Must we go down, sir?' said McTurk. + +"I don't want to order you to do what a right-thinking boy should do +gladly. I'm sorry." And he lurched out with some hazy impression that +he had sown good seed on poor ground. + +"Now what does he suppose is the use of that?" said Beetle. + +"Oh, he's cracked. King jaws him in Common-room about not keepin' us +up to the mark, an' Macrea burbles about 'dithcipline,' an' old Heffy +sits between 'em sweatin' big drops. I heard Oke (the Common-room +butler) talking to Richards (Prout's house-servant) about it down in +the basement the other day when I went down to bag some bread," said +Stalky. + +"What did Oke say?" demanded McTurk, throwing "Eric" into a corner. + +"Oh, he said, 'They make more nise nor a nest full o' jackdaws, an' +half of it like we'd no ears to our heads that waited on 'em. They +talks over old Prout--what he've done an' left undone about his boys. +An' how their boys be fine boys, an' his'n be dom bad.' Well, Oke +talked like that, you know, and Richards got awf'ly wrathy. He has a +down on King for something or other. Wonder why?" + +"Why, King talks about Prout in form-room--makes allusions, an' all +that--only half the chaps are such asses they can't see what he's +drivin' at. And d'you remember what he said about the 'Casual House' +last Tuesday? He meant us. They say he says perfectly beastly things +to his own house, making fun of Prout's," said Beetle. + +"Well, we didn't come here to mix up in their rows," McTurk said +wrathfully. "Who'll bathe after call-over? King's takin' it in the +cricket-field. Come on." Turkey seized his straw and led the way. + +They reached the sun-blistered pavilion over against the gray +Pebbleridge just before roll-call, and, asking no questions, gathered +from King's voice and manner that his house was on the road to +victory. + +"Ah, ha!" said he, turning to show the light of his countenance. "Here +we have the ornaments of the Casual House at last. You consider +cricket beneath you, I believe "--the crowd, flannelled, sniggered +"and from what I have seen this afternoon, I fancy many others of +your house hold the same view. And may I ask what you purpose to do +with your noble selves till tea-time?" + +"Going down to bathe, sir," said Stalky. + +"And whence this sudden zeal for cleanliness? There is nothing about +you that particularly suggests it. Indeed, so far as I remember--I +may be at fault--but a short time ago--" + +"Five years, sir," said Beetle hotly. + +King scowled. "_One_ of you was that thing called a water-funk. Yes, a +water-funk. So now you wish to wash? It is well. Cleanliness never +injured a boy or--a house. We will proceed to business," and he +addressed himself to the call-over board. + +"What the deuce did you say anything to him for, Beetle?" said McTurk +angrily, as they strolled towards the big, open sea-baths. + +"'Twasn't fair--remindin' one of bein' a water-funk. My first term, +too. Heaps of chaps are--when they can't swim." + +"Yes, you ass; but he saw he'd fetched you. You ought never to answer +King." + +"But it wasn't fair, Stalky." + +"My Hat! You've been here six years, and you expect fairness. Well, +you are a dithering idiot." + +A knot of King's boys, also bound for the baths, hailed them, +beseeching them to wash--for the honor of their house. + +"That's what comes of King's jawin' and messin'. Those young animals +wouldn't have thought of it unless he'd put it into their heads. Now +they'll be funny about it for weeks," said Stalky. "Don't take any +notice." + +The boys came nearer, shouting an opprobrious word. At last they moved +to windward, ostentatiously holding their noses. + +"That's pretty," said Beetle. "They'll be sayin' our house stinks +next." + +When they returned from the baths, damp-headed, languid, at peace with +the world, Beetle's forecast came only too true. They were met in the +corridor by a fag--a common, Lower-Second fag--who at arm's length +handed them a carefully wrapped piece of soap "with the compliments +of King's House." + +"Hold on," said Stalky, checking immediate attack. "Who put you up to +this, Nixon? Rattray and White? (Those were two leaders in King's +house.) Thank you. There's no answer." + +"Oh, it's too sickening to have this kind o' rot shoved on to a chap. +What's the sense of it? What's the fun of it?" said McTurk. + +"It will go on to the end of the term, though," Beetle wagged his head +sorrowfully. He had worn many jests threadbare on his own account. + +In a few days it became an established legend of the school that +Prout's house did not wash and were therefore noisome. Mr. King was +pleased to smile succulently in form when one of his boys drew aside +from Beetle with certain gestures. + +"There seems to be some disability attaching to you, my Beetle, or +else why should Burton major withdraw, so to speak, the hem of his +garments? I confess I am still in the dark. Will some one be good +enough to enlighten me?" + +Naturally, he was enlightened by half the form. + +"Extraordinary! Most extraordinary! However, each house has its +traditions, with which I would not for the world interfere. _We_ have +a prejudice in favor of washing. Go on, Beetle--from +'_jugurtha_tamen_'--and, if you can, avoid the more flagrant forms of +guessing." + +Prout's house was furious because Macrea's and Hartopp's houses joined +King's to insult them. They called a house-meeting after dinner--an +excited and angry meeting of all save the prefects, whose dignity, +though they sympathized, did not allow them to attend. They read +ungrammatical resolutions, and made speeches beginning, "Gentlemen, +we have met on this occasion," and ending with, "It's a beastly +shame," precisely as houses have done since time and schools began. + +Number Five study attended, with its usual air of bland patronage. At +last McTurk, of the lanthorn jaws, delivered himself: + +"You jabber and jaw and burble, and that's about all you can do. +What's the good of it? King's house'll only gloat because they've +drawn you, and King will gloat, too. Besides, that resolution of +Orrin's is chock-full of bad grammar, and King'll gloat over that." + +"I thought you an' Beetle would put it right, an'--an' we'd post it in +the corridor," said the composer meekly. + +"_Par_si_je_le_connai_. I'm not goin' to meddle with the biznai," said +Beetle. "It's a gloat for King's house. Turkey's quite right." + +"Well, won't Stalky, then?" + +But Stalky puffed out his cheeks and squinted down his nose in the +style of Panurge, and all he said was, "Oh, you abject burblers!" + +"You're three beastly scabs!" was the instant retort of the democracy, +and they went out amid execrations. + +"This is piffling," said McTurk. "Let's get our sallies, and go and +shoot bunnies." + +Three saloon-pistols, with a supply of bulleted breech-caps, were +stored in Stalky's trunk, and this trunk was in their dormitory, and +their dormitory was a three-bed attic one, opening out of a ten-bed +establishment, which, in turn, communicated with the great range of +dormitories that ran practically from one end of the College to the +other. Macrea's house lay next to Prout's, King's next to Macrea's, +and Hartopp's beyond that again. Carefully locked doors divided house +from house, but each house, in its internal arrangements--the College +had originally been a terrace of twelve large houses--was a replica +of the next; one straight roof covering all. + +They found Stalky's bed drawn out from the wall to the left of the +dormer window, and the latter end of Richards protruding from a +two-foot-square cupboard in the wall. + +"What's all this? I've never noticed it before. What are you tryin' to +do, Fatty?" + +"Fillin' basins, Muster Corkran." Richards's voice was hollow and +muffled. "They've been savin' me trouble. Yiss." + +"'Looks like it," said McTurk. "Hi! You'll stick if you don't take +care." + +Richards backed puffing. + +"I can't rache un. Yiss, 'tess a turncock, Muster McTurk. They've took +an' runned all the watter-pipes a storey higher in the houses--runned +'em all along under the 'ang of the heaves, like. Runned 'em in last +holidays. _I_ can't rache the turncock." + +"Let me try," said Stalky, diving into the aperture. + +"Slip 'ee to the left, then, Muster Corkran. Slip 'ee to the left, an' +feel in the dark." + +To the left Stalky wriggled, and saw a long line of lead pipe +disappearing up a triangular tunnel, whose roof was the rafters and +boarding of the college roof, whose floor was sharp-edged joists, and +whose side was the rough studding of the lath and plaster wall under +the dormer. + +"Rummy show. How far does it go?" + +"Right along, Muster Corkran--right along from end to end. Her runs +under the 'ang of the heaves. Have 'ee rached the stopcock yet? Mr. +King got un put in to save us carryin' watter from down-stairs to +fill the basins. No place for a lusty man like old Richards. I'm tu +thickabout to go ferritin'. Thank 'ee, Muster Corkran." + +The water squirted through the tap just inside the cupboard, and, +having filled the basins, the grateful Richards waddled away. + +The boys sat round-eyed on their beds considering the possibilities of +this trove. Two floors below them they could hear the hum of the +angry house; for nothing is so still as a dormitory in mid-afternoon +of a midsummer term. + +"It has been papered over till now." McTurk examined the little door. +"If we'd only known before!" + +"I vote we go down and explore. No one will come up this time o' day. +We needn't keep _cave'_." + +They crawled in, Stalky leading, drew the door behind them, and on all +fours embarked on a dark and dirty road full of plaster, odd +shavings, and all the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of +a house. The passage was perhaps three feet wide, and, except for the +struggling light round the edges of the cupboards (there was one to +each dormer), almost pitchy dark. + +"Here's Macrea's house," said Stalky, his eye at the crack of the +third cupboard. "I can see Barnes's name on his trunk. Don't make +such a row, Beetle! We can get right to the end of the Coll. Come +on!... We're in King's house now--I can see a bit of Rattray's trunk. +How these beastly boards hurt one's knees!" They heard his nails +scraping, on plaster. + +"That's the ceiling below. Look out! If we smashed that the plaster +'ud fall down in the lower dormitory," said Beetle. + +"Let's," whispered McTurk. + +"An' be collared first thing? Not much. Why, I can shove my hand ever +so far up between these boards." + +Stalky thrust an arm to the elbow between the joists. + +"No good stayin' here. I vote we go back and talk it over. It's a +crummy place. 'Must say I'm grateful to King for his water-works." + +They crawled out, brushed one another clean, slid the saloon-pistols +down a trouser-leg, and hurried forth to a deep and solitary +Devonshire lane in whose flanks a boy might sometimes slay a young +rabbit. They threw themselves down under the rank elder bushes, and +began to think aloud. + +"You know," said Stalky at last, sighting at a distant sparrow, "we +could hide our sallies in there like anything." + +"Huh!" Beetle snorted, choked, and gurgled. He had been silent since +they left the dormitory. "Did you ever read a book called 'The +History of a House' or something? I got it out of the library the +other day. A French woman wrote it--Violet somebody. But it's +translated, you know; and it's very interestin'. Tells you how a house +is built." + +"Well, if you're in a sweat to find out that, you can go down to the +new cottages they're building for the coastguard." + +"My Hat! I will." He felt in his pockets. "Give me tuppence, some +one." + +"Rot! Stay here, and don't mess about in the sun." + +"Gi' me tuppence." + +"I say, Beetle, you aren't stuffy about anything, are you?" said +McTurk, handing over the coppers. His tone was serious, for though +Stalky often, and McTurk occasionally, manoeuvred on his own account, +Beetle had never been known to do so in all the history of the +confederacy. + +"No, I'm not. I'm thinking." + +"Well, we'll come, too," said Stalky, with a general's suspicion of +his aides. + +"Don't want you." + +"Oh, leave him alone. He's been taken worse with a poem," said McTurk. +"He'll go burbling down to the Pebbleridge and spit it all up in the +study when he comes back." + +"Then why did he want the tuppence, Turkey? He's gettin' too beastly +independent. Hi! There's a bunny. No, it ain't. It's a cat, by Jove! +You plug first." + +Twenty minutes later a boy with a straw hat at the back of his head, +and his hands in his pockets, was staring at workmen as they moved +about a half-finished cottage. He produced some ferocious tobacco, +and was passed from the forecourt into the interior, where he asked +many questions. + +"Well, let's have your beastly epic," said Turkey, as they burst into +the study, to find Beetle deep in Viollet-le-Duc and some drawings. +"We've had no end of a lark." + +"Epic? What epic? I've been down to the coastguard." + +"No epic? Then we will slay you, O Beetle," said Stalky, moving to the +attack. "You've got something up your sleeve. _I_ know, when you +talk in that tone!" + +"Your Uncle Beetle"--with an attempt to imitate Stalky's +war-voice--"is a great man." + +"Oh, no; he jolly well isn't anything of the kind. You deceive +yourself, Beetle. Scrag him, Turkey!" + +"A great man," Beetle gurgled from the floor. "_You_ are futile--look +out for my tie!--futile burblers. I am the Great Man. I gloat. Ouch! +Hear me!" + +"Beetle, de-ah"--Stalky dropped unreservedly on Beetle's chest--" we +love you, an' you're a poet. If I ever said you were a doggaroo, I +apologize; but you know as well as we do that you can't do anything +by yourself without mucking it." + +"I've got a notion." + +"And you'll spoil the whole show if you don't tell your Uncle Stalky. +Cough it up, ducky, and we'll see what we can do. Notion, you fat +impostor--I knew you had a notion when you went away! Turkey said it +was a poem." + +"I've found out how houses are built. Le' me get up. The floor-joists +of one room are the ceiling-joists of the room below." + +"Don't be so filthy technical." + +"Well, the man told me. The floor is laid on top of those +joists--those boards on edge that we crawled over--but the floor +stops at a partition. Well, if you get behind a partition, same as +you did in the attic, don't you see that you can shove anything you +please under the floor between the floor-boards and the lath and +plaster of the ceiling below? Look here. I've drawn it." + +He produced a rude sketch, sufficient to enlighten the allies. There +is no part of the modern school curriculum that deals with +architecture, and none of them had yet reflected whether floors and +ceilings were hollow or solid. Outside his own immediate interests +the boy is as ignorant as the savage he so admires; but he has also +the savage's resource. + +"I see," said Stalky. "I shoved my hand there. An' then?" + +"An' then They've been calling us stinkers, you know. We might shove +somethin' under--sulphur, or something that stunk pretty bad--an' +stink 'em out. I know it can be done somehow." Beetle's eyes turned +to Stalky handling the diagrams. + +"Stinks?" said Stalky interrogatively. Then his face grew luminous +with delight. "By gum! I've got it. Horrid stinks! Turkey!" He leaped +at the Irishman. "This afternoon--just after Beetle went away! +_She's_ the very thing!" + +"Come to my arms, my beamish boy," caroled McTurk, and they fell into +each other's arms dancing. "Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay! She +will! She will!" + +"Hold on," said Beetle. "I don't understand." + +"Dearr man! It shall, though. Oh, Artie, my pure-souled youth, let us +tell our darling Reggie about Pestiferous Stinkadores." + +"Not until after call-over. Come on!" + +"I say," said Orrin, stiffly, as they fell into their places along the +walls of the gymnasium. "The house are goin' to hold another +meeting." + +"Hold away, then." Stalky's mind was elsewhere. + +"It's about you three this time." + +"All right, give 'em my love... _Here,_sir_," and he tore down the +corridor. + +Gamboling like kids at play, with bounds and sidestarts, with +caperings and curvetings, they led the almost bursting Beetle to the +rabbit-lane, and from under a pile of stones drew forth the new-slain +corpse of a cat. Then did Beetle see the inner meaning of what had +gone before, and lifted up his voice in thanksgiving for that the +world held warriors so wise as Stalky and McTurk. + +"Well-nourished old lady, ain't she?" said Stalky. "How long d'you +suppose it'll take her to get a bit whiff in a confined space?" + +"Bit whiff! What a coarse brute you are!" said McTurk. "Can't a poor +pussy-cat get under King's dormitory floor to die without your +pursuin' her with your foul innuendoes?" + +"What did she die under the floor for?' said Beetle, looking to the +future. + +"Oh, they won't worry about that when they find her," said Stalky. + +"A cat may look at a king." McTurk rolled down the bank at his own +jest. "Pussy, you don't know how useful you're goin' to be to three +pure-souled, high-minded boys." + +"They'll have to take up the floor for her, same as they did in Number +Nine when the rat croaked. Big medicine--heap big medicine! Phew! Oh, +Lord, I wish I could stop laughin'," said Beetle. + +"Stinks! Hi, stinks! Clammy ones!" McTurk gasped as he regained his +place. "And"--the exquisite humor of it brought them sliding down +together in a tangle--"it's all for the honor of the house, too!" + +"An' they're holdin' another meeting--on us," Stalky panted, his knees +in the ditch and his face in the long grass. "Well, let's get the +bullet out of her and hurry up. The sooner she's bedded out the +better." + +Between them they did some grisly work with a penknife; between them +(ask not who buttoned her to his bosom) they took up the corpse and +hastened back, Stalky arranging their plan of action at the full +trot. + +The afternoon sun, lying in broad patches on the bed-rugs, saw three +boys and an umbrella disappear into a dormitory wall. In five minutes +they emerged, brushed themselves all over, washed their hands, combed +their hair, and descended. + +"Are you sure you shoved her far enough under?" said McTurk suddenly. + +"Hang it, man, I shoved her the full length of my arm and Beetle's +brolly. That must be about six feet. She's bung in the middle of +King's big upper ten-bedder. Eligible central situation, _I_ call it. +She'll stink out his chaps, and Hartopp's and Macrea's, when she +really begins to fume. I swear your Uncle Stalky is a great man. Do +you realize what a great man he is, Beetle?" + +"Well, I had the notion first, hadn't I--? only--" + +"You couldn't do it without your Uncle Stalky, could you?" + +"They've been calling us stinkers for a week now," said McTurk. "Oh, +_won't_ they catch it!" + +"Stinker! Yah! Stink-ah!" rang down the corridor. + +"And she's there," said Stalky, a hand on either boy's shoulder. +"She--is--there, gettin' ready to surprise 'em. Presently she'll +begin to whisper to 'em in their dreams. Then she'll whiff. Golly, +how she'll whiff! Oblige me by thinkin' of it for two minutes." + +They went to their study in more or less of silence. There they began +to laugh--laugh as only boys can. They laughed with their foreheads +on the tables, or on the floor; laughed at length, curled over the +backs of chairs or clinging to a book-shelf; laughed themselves limp. + +And in the middle of it Orrin entered on behalf of the house. "Don't +mind us, Orrin; sit down. You don't know how we respect and admire +you. There's something about your pure, high young forehead, full of +the dreams of innocent boyhood, that's no end fetchin'. It is, +indeed." + +"The house sent me to give you this." He laid a folded sheet of paper +on the table and retired with an awful front. + +"It's the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. I'm too silly-sick with +laughin' to see," said Beetle. Stalky jerked it open with a +precautionary sniff. "Phew! Phew! Listen. +'_The_house_notices_with_pain_and_contempt_the_attitude_of_indiference_' +--how many f's in indifference, Beetle?" + +"Two for choice." + +"Only one here--'_adopted_by_the_occupants_of_Number_Five_study_in_ +relation_to_the_insults_offered_to_Mr._Prout's_house_at_the_recent_ +meeting_in_Number_Twelve_form-room,_and_the_House_hereby_pass_a_ +vote_of_censure_on_the_said_study._ That's all." + +"And she bled all down my shirt, too!" said Beetle. + +"An' I'm catty all over," said McTurk, "though I washed twice." + +"An' I nearly broke Beetle's brolly plantin' her where she would blossom!" + +The situation was beyond speech, but not laughter. There was some +attempt that night to demonstrate against the three in their +dormitory; so they came forth. + +"You see," Beetle began suavely as he loosened his braces, "the +trouble with you is that you're a set of unthinkin' asses. You've no +more brains than spidgers. We've told you that heaps of times, +haven't we.?" + +"We'll give the three of you a dormitory lickin'. You always jaw at us +as if you were prefects," cried one. + +"Oh, no, you won't," said Stalky, "because you know that if you did +you'd get the worst of it sooner or later. _We_ aren't in any hurry. +We can afford to wait for our little revenges. You've made howlin' +asses of yourselves, and just as soon as King gets hold of your +precious resolutions to-morrow you'll find that out. If you aren't +sick an' sorry by to-morrow night, I'll--I'll eat my hat." + +But or ever the dinner-bell rang the next day Prout's were sadly aware +of their error. King received stray members of that house with an +exaggerated attitude of fear. Did they purpose to cause him to be +dismissed from the College by unanimous resolution? What were their +views concerning the government of the school, that he might hasten +to give effect to them? he would not offend them for worlds; but he +feared--he sadly feared--that his own house, who did not pass +resolutions (but washed), might somewhat deride. + +King was a happy man, and his house, basking in the favor of his +smile, made that afternoon a long penance to the misled Prouts. And +Prout himself, with a dull and lowering visage, tried to think out +the rights and wrongs of it all, only plunging deeper into +bewilderment. Why should his house be called "Stinkers"? Truly, it was +a small thing, but he had been trained to believe that straws show +which way the wind blows, and that there is no smoke without fire. He +approached King in Common-room with a sense of injustice, but King +was pleased to be full of airy persiflage that tide, and brilliantly +danced dialectical rings round Prout. + +"Now," said Stalky at bedtime, making pilgrimage through the +dormitories before the prefects came by, "_now_ what have you got to +say for yourselves? Foster, Carton, Finch, Longbridge, Marlin, Brett! +I heard you chaps catchin' it from King--he made hay of you--an' all +you could do was to wriggle an' grin an' say, 'Yes, sir,' an' 'No, +sir,'' an' 'O, sir,' an' 'Please, sir'! You an' your resolution! +Urh!" + +"Oh, shut up, Stalky." + +"Not a bit of it. You're a gaudy lot of resolutionists, you are! +You've made a sweet mess of it. Perhaps you'll have the decency to +leave us alone next time." + +Here the house grew angry, and in many voices pointed out how this +blunder would never have come to pass if Number Five study had helped +them from the first. + +"But you chaps are so beastly conceited, an'--an' you swaggered into +the meetin' as if we were a lot of idiots," growled Orrin of the +resolution. + +"That's precisely what you are! That's what we've been tryin' to +hammer into your thick heads all this time," said Stalky. "Never +mind, we'll forgive you. Cheer up. You can't help bein' asses, you +know," and, the enemy's flank deftly turned, Stalky hopped into bed. + +That night was the first of sorrow among the jubilant King's. By some +accident of under-floor drafts the cat did not vex the dormitory +beneath which she lay, but the next one to the right; stealing on the +air rather as a pale-blue sensation than as any poignant offense. But +the mere adumbration of an odor is enough for the sensitive nose and +clean tongue of youth. Decency demands that we draw several +carbolized sheets over what the dormitory said to Mr. King and what +Mr. King replied. He was genuinely proud of his house and fastidious +in all that concerned their well-being. He came; he sniffed; he said +things. Next morning a boy in that dormitory confided to his bosom +friend, a fag of Macrea's, that there was trouble in their midst +which King would fain keep secret. + +But Macrea's boy had also a bosom friend in Prout's, a shock-headed +fag of malignant disposition, who, when he had wormed out the secret, +told--told it in a high-pitched treble that rang along the corridor +like a bat's squeak. + +"An'--an' they've been calling us 'stinkers' all this week. Why, +Harland minor says they simply can't sleep in his dormitory for the +stink. Come on!" + +"With one shout and with one cry" Prout's juniors hurled themselves +into the war, and through the interval between first and second +lesson some fifty twelve-year-olds were embroiled on the gravel +outside King's windows to a tune whose _leit-motif_ was the word +"stinker." + +"Hark to the minute-gun at sea!" said Stalky. They were in their study +collecting books for second lesson--Latin, with King. "I thought his +azure brow was a bit cloudy at prayers. 'She is comin', sister Mary. +She is--'" + +"If they make such a row now, what will they do when she really begins +to look up an' take notice?" + +"Well, no vulgar repartee, Beetle. Ali we want is to keep out of this +row like gentlemen." + +"'Tis but a little faded flower.' Where's my Horace? Look here, I +don't understand what she means by stinkin' out Rattray's dormitory +first. We holed in under White's, didn't we?" asked McTurk, with a +wrinkled brow. + +"Skittish little thing. She's rompin' about all over the place, I +suppose." + +"My Aunt! King'll be a cheerful customer at second lesson. I haven't +prepared my Horace one little bit, either," said Beetle. "Come on!" + +They were outside the form-room door now. It was within five minutes +of the bell, and King might arrive at any moment. + +Turkey elbowed into a cohort of scuffling fags, cut out Thornton +tertius (he that had been Harland's bosom friend), and bade him tell +his tale. + +It was a simple one, interrupted by tears. Many of King's house trod +already battered him for libel. + +"Oh, it's nothing," McTurk cried. "He says that King's house stinks. +That's all." + +"Stale!" Stalky shouted. "We knew that years ago, only we didn't +choose to run about shoutin' 'stinker.' We've got some manners, ir +they haven't. Catch a fag, Turkey, and make sure of it." + +Turkey's long arm closed on a hurried and anxious ornament of the +Lower Second. + +"Oh, McTurk, please let me go. I don't stink--I swear I don't!" + +"Guilty conscience!" cried Beetle. "Who said you did?" + +"What d'you make of it?" Stalky punted the small boy into Beetle's +arms. + +"Snf! Snf! He does, though. I think it's leprosy--or thrush. P'raps +it's both. Take it away." + +"Indeed, Master Beetle"--King generally came to the house-door for a +minute or two as the bell rang--" we are vastly indebted to you for +your diagnosis, which seems to reflect almost as much credit on the +natural unwholesomeness of your mind as it does upon your pitiful +ignorance of the diseases of which you discourse so glibly. We will, +however, test your knowledge in other directions." + +That was a merry lesson, but, in his haste to scarify Beetle, King +clean neglected to give him an imposition, and since at the same time +he supplied him with many priceless adjectives for later use, Beetle +was well content, and applied himself most seriously throughout third +lesson (algebra with little Hartopp) to composing a poem entitled +"The Lazar-house." + +After dinner King took his house to bathe in the sea off the +Pebbleridge. It was an old promise; but he wished he could have +evaded it, for all Prout's lined up by the Fives Court and cheered +with intention. In his absence not less than half the school invaded +the infected dormitory to draw their own conclusions. The cat had +gained in the last twelve hours, but a battlefield of the fifth day +could not have been so flamboyant as the spies reported. + +"My word, she _is_ doin' herself proud," said Stalky. "Did you ever +smell anything like it? Ah, an' she isn't under White's dormitory at +all yet." + +"But she will be. Give her time," said Beetle. "She'll twine like a +giddy honeysuckle. What howlin' Lazarites they are! No house is +justified in makin' itself a stench in the nostrils of decent--" + +"High-minded, pure-souled boys. Do you burn with remorse and regret?" +said McTurk, as they hastened to meet the house coming up from the +sea. King had deserted it, so speech was unfettered. Round its front +played a crowd of skirmishers--all houses mixed--flying, reforming, +shrieking insults. On its tortured flanks marched the Hoplites, +seniors hurling jests one after another--simple and primitive jests of +the Stone Age. To these the three added themselves, dispassionately, +with an air of aloofness, almost sadly. + +"And they look all right, too," said Stalky. "It can't be Rattray, can +it? Rattray?" + +No answer. + +"Rattray, dear? He seems stuffy about something or other. Look here, +old man, we don't bear any malice about your sending that soap to us +last week, do we? Be cheerful, Rat. You can live this down all right. +I dare say it's only a few fags. Your house is so beastly slack, +though." + +"You aren't going back to the house, are you?" said McTurk. The +victims desired nothing better. "You've simply no conception of the +reek up there. Of course, frowzin' as you do, you wouldn't notice it; +but, after this nice wash and the clean, fresh air, even you'd be +upset. 'Much better camp on the Burrows. We'll get you some straw. +Shall we'?" The house hurried in to the tune of "John Brown's body," +sung by loving schoolmates, and barricaded themselves in their +form-room. Straightway Stalky chalked a large cross, with "Lord, have +mercy upon us," on the door, and left King to find it. + +The wind shifted that night and wafted a carrion-reek into Macrea's +dormitories; so that boys in nightgowns pounded on the locked door +between the houses, entreating King's to wash. Number Five study went +to second lesson with not more than half a pound of camphor apiece in +their clothing; and King, too wary to ask for explanations, gibbered +a while and hurled them forth. So Beetle finished yet another poem at +peace in the study. + +"They're usin' carbolic now. Malpas told me," said Stalky. "King +thinks it's the drains." + +"She'll need a lot o' carbolic," said McTurk. "No harm tryin', I +suppose. It keeps King out of mischief." + +"I swear I thought he was goin' to kill me when I sniffed just now. He +didn't mind Burton major sniffin' at me the other day, though. He +never stopped Alexander howlin' 'Stinker!' into our form-room +before--before we doctored 'em. He just grinned," said Stalky. "What +was he frothing over you for, Beetle?" + +"Aha! That, was my subtle jape. I had him on toast. You know he always +jaws about the learned Lipsius." + +"'Who at the age of four'--that chap?" said McTurk. + +"Yes. Whenever he hears I've written a poem. Well, just as I was +sittin' down, I whispered, 'How is our learned Lepsius?' to Burton +major. Old Butt grinned like an owl. _He_ didn't know what I was +drivin' at; but King jolly well did. That was really why he hove us +out. Ain't you grateful? Now shut up. I'm goin' to write the 'Ballad +of the Learned Lipsius.'" + +"Keep clear of anything coarse, then," said Stalky. "I shouldn't like +to be coarse on this happy occasion." + +"Not for wo-orlds. What rhymes to 'stenches,' someone?" + +In Common-room at lunch King discoursed acridly to Prout of boys with +prurient minds, who perverted their few and baleful talents to sap +discipline and corrupt their equals, to deal in foul imagery and +destroy reverence. + +"But you didn't seem to consider this when your house called +us--ah--stinkers. If you hadn't assured me that you never interfere +with another man's house, I should almost believe that it was a few +casual remarks of yours that started all this nonsense." + +Prout had endured much, for King always took his temper to meals. + +"You spoke to Beetle yourself, didn't you? Something about not +bathing, and being a water-funk?" the school chaplain put in. "I was +scoring in the pavilion that day." + +"I may have--jestingly. I really don't pretend to remember every +remark I let fall among small boys; and full well I know the Beetle +has no feelings to be hurt." + +"May be; but he, or they--it comes to to same thing--have the fiend's +own knack of discovering a man's weak place. I confess I rather go +out of my way to conciliate Number Five study. It may be soft, but so +far, I believe, I am the only man here whom they haven't maddened by +their--well--attentions." + +"That is all beside the point. I flatter myself I can deal with them +alone as occasion arises. But if they feel themselves morally +supported by those who should wield an absolute and open-handed +justice, then I say that my lot is indeed a hard one. Of all things I +detest, I admit that anything verging on disloyalty among ourselves +is the first." + +The Common-room looked at one another out of the corners of their +eyes, and Prout blushed. + +"I deny it absolutely," he said. "Er--in fact, I own that I personally +object to all three of them. It is not fair, therefore, to--" + +"How long do you propose to allow it?" said King. + +"But surely," said Macrea, deserting his usual ally, "the blame, if +there be any, rests with you, King. You can't hold them responsible +for the--you prefer the good old Anglo-Saxon, I believe--stink in +your house. My boys arc complaining of it now." + +"What can you expect? You know what boys are. Naturally they take +advantage of what to them is a heaven-sent opportunity," said little +Hartopp. "What _is_ the trouble in your dormitories, King?" + +Mr. King explained that as he had made it the one rule of his life +never to interfere with another man's house, so he expected not to be +too patently interfered with. They might be interested to learn +--here the chaplain heaved a weary sigh--that he had taken all steps +that, in his poor judgment, would meet the needs of the case. Nay, +further, he had himself expended, with no thought of reimbursement, +sums, the amount of which he would not specify, on disinfectants. +This he had done because he knew by bitter--by most bitter--experience +that the management of the college was slack, dilatory, and +inefficient. He might even add, almost as slack as the administration +of certain houses which now thought fit to sit in judgment on his +actions. With a short summary of his scholastic career, and a precis +of his qualifications, including his degrees, he withdrew, slamming +the door. + +"Heigho!" said the chaplain. "Ours is a dwarfing life--a belittling +life, my brethren. God help all schoolmasters! They need it." + +"I don't like the boys, I own"--Prout dug viciously with his fork into +the table-cloth--"and I don't pretend to be a strong man, as you +know. But I confess I can't see any reason why I should take steps +against Stalky and the others because King happens to be annoyed +by--by--" + +"Falling into the pit he has digged," said little Hartopp. "Certainly +not, Prout. No one accuses you of setting one house against another +through sheer idleness." + +"A belittling life--a belittling life." The chaplain rose. "I go to +correct French exercises. By dinner King will have scored off some +unlucky child of thirteen; he will repeat to us every word of his +brilliant repartees, and all will be well." + +"But about those three. Are they so prurient-minded?" + +"Nonsense," said little Hartopp. "If you thought for a minute, Prout, +you would see that the 'precocious flow of fetid imagery,' that King +complains of, is borrowed wholesale from King. He 'nursed the pinion +that impelled the steel.' Naturally he does not approve. Come into +the smoking-room for a minute. It isn't fair to listen to boys; but +they should be now rubbing it into King's house outside. Little +things please little minds." + +The dingy den off the Common-room was never used for anything except +gowns. Its windows were ground glass; one could not see out of it, +but one could hear almost every word on the gravel outside. A light +and wary footstep came up from Number Five. + +"Rattray!" in a subdued voice--Rattray's study fronted that way. +"D'you know if Mr. King's anywhere about? I've got a--" McTurk +discreetly left the end of the sentence open. + +"No. he's gone out," said Rattray unguardedly. + +"Ah! The learned Lipsius is airing himself, is he? His Royal Highness +has gone to fumigate." McTurk climbed on the railings, where he held +forth like the never-wearied rook. + +"Now in all the Coll. there was no stink like the stink of King's +house, for it stank vehemently and none knew what to make of it. Save +King. And he washed the fags _privatim_et_seriatim_. In the fishpools +of Hesbon washed he them, with an apron about his loins." + +"Shut up, you mad Irishman!" There was the sound of a golf-ball +spurting up gravel. + +"It's no good getting wrathy, Rattray. We've come to jape with you. +Come on, Beetle. They're all at home. You can wind 'em." + +"Where's the Pomposo Stinkadore? 'Tisn't safe for a pure-souled, +high-minded boy to be seen round his house these days. Gone out, has +he? Never mind. I'll do the best I can, Rattray. I'm +_in_loco_parentis_ just now." + +("One for you, Prout," whispered Macrea, for this was Mr. Prout's pet +phrase.) + +"I have a few words to impart to you, my young friend. We will +discourse together a while." + +Here the listening Prout sputtered: Beetle, in a strained voice, had +chosen a favorite gambit of King's. + +"I repeat, Master Rattray, we will confer, and the matter of our +discourse shall not be stinks, for that is a loathsome and obscene +word. We will, with your good leave--granted, I trust, Master +Rattray, granted, I trust--study this--this scabrous upheaval of +latent demoralization. What impresses me most is not so much the +blatant indecency with which you swagger abroad under your load of +putrescence" (you must imagine this discourse punctuated with +golf-balls, but old Rattray was ever a bad shot) "as the cynical +immorality with which you revel in your abhorrent aromas. Far be it +from me to interfere with another's house--" + +("Good Lord!" said Prout, "but this is King." + +"Line for line, letter for letter; listen;" said little Hartopp.) + +"But to say that you stink, as certain lewd fellows of the baser sort +aver, is to say nothing--less than nothing. In the absence of your +beloved house-master, for whom no one has a higher regard than +myself, I will, if you will allow me, explain the grossness--the +unparalleled enormity--the appalling fetor of the stenches (I believe +in the good old Anglo-Saxon word), stenches, sir, with which you have +seen fit to infect your house... Oh, bother! I've forgotten the rest, +but it was very beautiful. Aren't you grateful to us for laborin' +with you this way, Rattray? Lots of chaps 'ud never have taken the +trouble, but we're grateful, Rattray." + +"Yes, we're horrid grateful," grunted McTurk. "We don't forget that +soap. We're polite. Why ain't you polite, Rat?" + +"Hallo!" Stalky cantered up, his cap over one eye. "Exhortin' the +Whiffers, eh? I'm afraid they're too far gone to repent. Rattray! +White! Perowne! Malpas! No answer. This is distressin'. This is +truly distressin'. Bring out your dead, you glandered lepers!" + +"You think yourself funny, don't you?" said Rattray, stung from his +dignity by this last. "It's only a rat or something under the floor. +We're going to have it up to-morrow." + +"Don't try to shuffle it off on a poor dumb animal, and dead, too. I +loathe prevarication. 'Pon my soul, Rattray--" + +"Hold on. The Hartoffles never said 'Pon my soul' in all his little +life," said Beetle critically. + +("Ah!" said Prout to little Hartopp.) + +"Upon my word, sir, upon my word, sir, I expected better things of +you, Rattray. Why can you not own up to your misdeeds like a man? +Have _I_ ever shown any lack of confidence in _you_?" + +("It's not brutality," murmured little Hartopp, as though answering a +question no one had asked. "It's boy; only boy.") + +"And this was the house," Stalky changed from a pecking, fluttering +voice to tragic earnestness. "This was the--the--open cesspit that +dared to call us 'stinkers.' And now--and now, it tries to shelter +itself behind a dead rat. You annoy me, Rattray. You disgust me! You +irritate me unspeakably! Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable +temper--" + +("This is to your address, Macrea," said Prout. + +"I fear so, I fear so.") + +"Or I should scarcely be able to contain myself before your mocking +visage." + +"_Cave_!" in an undertone. Beetle had spied King sailing down the +corridor. + +"And what may you be doing here, my little friends?" the house-master +began. "I had a fleeting notion--correct me if I am wrong" (the +listeners with one accord choked)--"that if I found you outside my +house I should visit you with dire pains and penalties." + +"We were just goin' for a walk, sir," said Beetle. + +"And you stopped to speak to Rattray _en_route_?" + +"Yes, sir. We've been throwing golf-balls," said Rattray, coming out +of the study. + +("Old Rat is more of a diplomat than I thought. So far he is strictly +within the truth," said little Hartopp. "Observe the ethics of it, +Prout.") + +"Oh, you were sporting with them, were you? I must say I do not envy +you your choice of associates. I fancied they might have been engaged +in some of the prurient discourse with which they have been so +disgustingly free of late. I should strongly advise you to direct +your steps most carefully in the future. Pick up those golf-balls." +He passed on. + + +Next day Richards, who had been a carpenter in the Navy, and to whom +odd jobs were confided, was ordered to take up a dormitory floor; for +Mr. King held that something must have died there. + +"We need not neglect all our work for a trumpery incident of this +nature; though I am quite aware that little things please little +minds. Yes, I have decreed the boards to be taken up after lunch +under Richards's auspices. I have no doubt it will be vastly +interesting to a certain type of so-called intellect; but any boy of +my house or another's found on the dormitory stairs will _ipso_facto_ +render himself liable to three hundred lines." + +The boys did not collect on the stairs, but most of them waited +outside King's. Richards had been bound to cry the news from the +attic window, and, if possible, to exhibit the corpse. + +"'Tis a cat, a dead cat!" Richards's face showed purple at the window. +He had been in the chamber of death and on his knees for some time. + +"Cat be blowed!" cried McTurk. "It's a dead fag left over from last +term. Three cheers for King's dead fag!" + +They cheered lustily. + +"Show it, show it! Let's have a squint at it!" yelled the juniors. +"Give her to the Bug-hunters." (This was the Natural History +Society). "The cat looked at the King--and died of it! Hoosh! Yai! +Yaow! Maiow! Ftzz!" were some of the cries that followed. + +Again Richards appeared. + +"She've been"--he checked himself suddenly--"dead a long taime." + +The school roared. + +"Well, come on out for a walk," said Stalky in a well-chosen pause. +"It's all very disgustin', and I do hope the Lazar-house won't do it +again." + +"Do what?" a King's boy cried furiously. + +"Kill a poor innocent cat every time you want to get off washing. It's +awfully hard to distinguish between you as it is. I prefer the cat, I +must say. She isn't quite so whiff. What are you goin' to do, +Beetle?" + +"_Je_vais_gloater_. _Je_vais_gloater_tout_le_ blessed afternoon. +_Jamais_j'ai_ _gloate'_comme_je_gloaterai_aujourd'hui_. +_Nous_bunkerons_aux_ bunkers." + +And it seemed good to them so to do. + + +Down in the basement, where the gas flickers and the boots stand in +racks, Richards, amid his blacking-brushes, held forth to Oke of the +Common-room, Gumbly of the dining-halls, and fair Lena of the +laundry. + +"Yiss. Her were in a shockin' staate an' condition. Her nigh made me +sick, I tal 'ee. But I rowted un out, and I rowted un out, an' I made +all shipshape, though her smelt like to bilges." + +"Her died mousin', I reckon, poor thing," said Lena. + +"Then her moused different to any made cat o' God's world, Lena. I up +with the top-board, an' she were lying on her back, an' I turned un +ovver with the brume-handle, an' 'twas her back was all covered with +the plaster from 'twixt the lathin'. Yiss, I tal 'ee. An' under her +head there lay, like, so's to say, a little pillow o' plaster druv up +in front of her by raison of her slidin' along on her back. No cat +niver went mousin' on her back, Lena. Some one had shoved her along +right underneath, so far as they could shove un. Cats don't make +theyselves pillows for to die on. Shoved along, she were, when she +was settin' for to be cold, laike." + +"Oh, yeou'm too clever to live, Fatty. Yeou go get wed an' taught some +sense," said Lena, the affianced of Gumbly. + +"Larned a little 'fore iver some maidens was born. Sarved in the +Queen's Navy, I have, where yeou'm taught to use your eyes. Yeou go +'tend your own business, Lena." + +"Do 'ee mean what you'm been tellin' us?" said Oke. + +"Ask me no questions, I'll give 'ee no lies. Bullet-hole clane thru +from side to side, an' tu heart-ribs broke like withies. I seed un +when I turned un ovver. They're clever, oh, they'm clever, but +they'm not too clever for old Richards! 'Twas on the born tip o' my +tongue to tell, tu, but... he said us niver washed, he did. Let his +dom boys call us 'stinkers,' he did. Sarve un dom well raight, I +say!" + +Richards spat on a fresh boot and fell to his work, chuckling. + + + + +THE IMPRESSIONISTS. + + + +They had dropped into the chaplain's study for a Saturday night +smoke---all four house-masters--and the three briars and the one +cigar reeking in amity proved the Rev. John Gillett's good +generalship. Since the discovery of the cat, King had been too ready +to see affront where none was meant, and the Reverend John, +buffer-state and general confidant, had worked for a week to bring +about a good understanding. He was fat, clean-shaven, except for a +big mustache, of an imperturbable good temper, and, those who loved +him least said, a guileful Jesuit. He smiled benignantly upon his +handiwork--four sorely tried men talking without very much malice. + +"Now remember," he said, when the conversation turned that way, "I +impute nothing. But every time that any one has taken direct steps +against Number Five study, the issue has been more or less +humiliating to the taker." + +"I can't admit that. I pulverize the egregious Beetle daily for his +soul's good; and the others with him," said King. + +"Well, take your own case, King, and go back a couple of years. Do you +remember when Prout and you were on their track for hutting and +trespass, wasn't it? Have you forgotten Colonel Dabney?" + +The others laughed. King did not care to be reminded of his career as +a poacher. + +"That was one instance. Again, when you had rooms below them--I always +said that that was entering the lion's den--you turned them out." + +"For making disgusting noises. Surely, Gillett, you don't excuse--" + +"All I say is that you turned them out. That same evening your study +was wrecked." + +"By Rabbits-Eggs--most beastly drunk--from the road," said King. "What +has that?" + +The Reverend John went on. + +"Lastly, they conceive that aspersions are cast upon their personal +cleanliness--a most delicate matter with all boys. Ve-ry good. +Observe how, in each case, the punishment fits the crime. A week +after your house calls them 'stinkers,' King, your house is, not to +put too fine a point on it, stunk out by a dead cat who chooses to +die in the one spot where she can annoy you most. Again the long arm +of coincidence! _Summa_. You accuse them of trespass. Through some +absurd chain of circumstances--they may or may not be at the other +end of it--you and Prout are made to appear as trespassers. You evict +them. For a time your study is made untenable. I have drawn the +parallel in the last case. Well?" + +"She was under the centre of White's dormitory," said King. "There are +double floor-boards there to deaden noise. No boy, even in my own +house, could possibly have pried up the boards without leaving some +trace--and Rabbits-Eggs was phenomenally drunk that other night." + +"They are singularly favored by fortune. That is all I ever said. +Personally, I like them immensely, and I believe I have a little of +their confidence. I confess I like being called 'Padre.' They are at +peace with me; consequently I am not treated to bogus confessions of +theft." + +"You mean Mason's case?" said Prout heavily. "That always struck me as +peculiarly scandalous. I thought the Head should have taken up the +matter more thoroughly. Mason may be misguided, but at least he is +thoroughly sincere and means well." + +"I confess I cannot agree with you, Prout," said the Reverend John. +"He jumped at some silly tale of theft on their part; accepted +another boy's evidence without, so far as I can see, any inquiry; +and--frankly, I think he deserved all he got." + +"They deliberately outraged Mason's best feelings," said Prout. "A +word to me on their part would have saved the whole thing. But they +preferred to lure him on; to play on his ignorance of their +characters--" + +"That may be," said King, "but I don't like Mason. I dislike him for +the very reason that Prout advances to his credit. He means well." + +"Our criminal tradition is not theft--among ourselves, at least," said +little Hartopp. + +"For the head of a house that raided seven head of cattle from the +innocent pot-wallopers of Northam, isn't that rather a sweeping +statement?" said Macrae. + +"Precisely so," said Hartopp, unabashed. "That, with gate-lifting, and +a little poaching and hawk-hunting on the cliffs, is our salvation." + +"It does us far more harm as a school--" Prout began. + +"Than any hushed-up scandal could? Quite so. Our reputation among the +farmers is most unsavory. But I would much sooner deal with any +amount of ingenious crime of that nature than--some other offenses." + +"They may be all right, but they are unboylike, abnormal, and, in my +opinion, unsound," Prout insisted. "The moral effect of their +performances must pave the way for greater harm. It makes me doubtful +how to deal with them. I might separate them." + +"You might, of course; but they have gone up the school together for +six years. _I_ shouldn't care to do it," said Macrae. + +"They use the editorial 'we,'" said King, irrelevantly. "It annoys me. +'Where's your prose, Corkran?' 'Well, sir, we haven't quite done it +yet.' 'We'll bring it in a minute,' and so on. And the same with the +others." + +"There's great virtue in that 'we,'" said little Hartopp. "You know I +take them for trig. McTurk may have some conception of the meaning of +it; but Beetle is as the brutes that perish about sines and cosines. +He copies serenely from Stalky, who positively rejoices in +mathematics." + +"Why don't you stop it?" said Prout. + +"It rights itself at the exams. Then Beetle shows up blank sheets, and +trusts to his 'English' to save him from a fall. I fancy he spends +most of his time with me in writing verse." + +"I wish to Heaven he would transfer a little of his energy in that +direction to Elegiaes." King jerked himself upright. "He is, with the +single exception of Stalky, the very vilest manufacturer of +'barbarous hexameters' that I have ever dealt with." + +"The work is combined in that study," said the chaplain. "Stalky does +the mathematics, McTurk the Latin, and Beetle attends to their +English and French. At least, when he was in the sick-house last +month--" + +"Malingering," Prout interjected. + +"Quite possibly. I found a very distinct falling off in their 'Roman +d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre' translations." + +"I think it is profoundly immoral," said Prout. "I've always been +opposed to the study system." + +"It would be hard to find any study where the boys don't help each +other; but in Number Five the thing has probably been reduced to a +system," said little Hartopp. "They have a system in most things." + +"They confess as much," said the Reverend John. "I've seen McTurk +being hounded up the stairs to elegise the 'Elegy in a Churchyard,' +while Beetle and Stalky went to punt-about." + +"It amounts to systematic cribbing," said Prout, his voice growing +deeper and deeper. + +"No such thing," little Hartopp returned. "You can't teach a cow the +violin." + +"In intention it is cribbing." + +"But we spoke under the seal of the confessional, didn't we?" said the +Reverend John. + +"You say you've heard them arranging their work in this way, Gillett," +Prout persisted. + +"Good Heavens! Don't make me Queen's evidence, my dear fellow. Hartopp +is equally incriminated. If they ever found out that I had sneaked, +our relations would suffer--and I value them." + +"I think your attitude in this matter is weak," said Prout, looking +round for support. "It would be really better to break up the +study--for a while--wouldn't it?" + +"Oh, break it up by all means," said Macrae. "We shall see then if +Gillett's theory holds water." + +"Be wise, Prout. Leave them alone, or calamity will overtake you; and +what is much more important, they will be annoyed with me. I am too +fat, alas! to be worried by bad boys. Where are you going?" + +"Nonsense! They would not dare---but I am going to think this out," +said Prout. "It needs thought. In intention they cribbed, and I must +think out my duty." + +"He's perfectly capable of putting the boys on their honor. It's _I_ +that am a fool." The Reverend John looked round remorsefully. "Never +again will I forget that a master is not a man. Mark my words," said +the Reverend John. "There will be trouble." + + + But by the yellow Tiber + Was tumult and affright. + +Out of the blue sky (they were still rejoicing over the cat war) Mr. +Prout had dropped into Number Five, read them a lecture on the +enormity of cribbing, and bidden them return to the form-rooms on +Monday. They had raged, solo and chorus, all through the peaceful +Sabbath, for their sin was more or less the daily practice of all the +studies. + +"What's the good of cursing?" said Stalky at last. "We're all in the +same boat. We've got to go back and consort with the house. A locker +in the form-room, and a seat at prep. in Number Twelve." (He looked +regretfully round the cozy study which McTurk, their leader in +matters of Art, had decorated with a dado, a stencil, and cretonne +hangings.) + +"Yes! Heffy lurchin' into the form-rooms like a frowzy old retriever, +to see if we aren't up to something. You know he never leaves his +house alone, these days," said McTurk. "Oh, it will be giddy!" + +"Why aren't you down watchin' cricket? I like a robust, healthy boy. +You mustn't frowst in a form. room. Why don't you take an interest in +your house? Yah!" quoted Beetle. + +"Yes, why don't we? Let's! We'll take an interest in the house. We'll +take no end of interest in the house! He hasn't had us in the +form-rooms for a year. We've learned a lot since then. Oh, we'll make +it a be-autiful house before we've done! 'Member that chap in 'Eric' +or 'St. Winifred's'--Belial somebody? I'm goin' to be Belial," said +Stalky, with an ensnaring grin. + +"Right O," said Beetle, "and I'll be Mammon. I'll lend money at +usury--that's what they do at all schools accordin' to the B.O.P. +Penny a week on a shillin'. That'll startle Heffy's weak intellect. +You can be Lucifer, Turkey." + +"What have I got to do?" McTurk also smiled. + +"Head conspiracies--and cabals--and boycotts. Go in for that 'stealthy +intrigue' that Heffy is always talkin' about. Come on!" + +The house received them on their fall with the mixture of jest and +sympathy always extended to boys turned out of their study. The known +aloofness of the three made them more interesting. + +"Quite like old times, ain't it?" Stalky selected a locker and flung +in his books. "We've come to sport with you, my young friends, for a +while, because our beloved house-master has hove us out of our +diggin's." + +"'Serve you jolly well right," said Orrin, "you cribbers!" + +"This will never do," said Stalky. "We can't maintain our giddy +prestige, Orrin, de-ah, if you make these remarks." + +They wrapped themselves lovingly about the boy, thrust him to the +opened window, and drew down the sash to the nape of his neck. With +an equal swiftness they tied his thumbs together behind his back with +a piece of twine, and then, because he kicked furiously, removed his +shoes. There Mr. Prout happened to find him a few minutes later, +guillotined and helpless, surrounded by a convulsed crowd who would +not assist. + +Stalky, in an upper form-room, had gathered himself allies against +vengeance. Orrin presently tore up at the head of a boarding party, +and the form-room grew one fog of dust through which boys wrestled, +stamped, shouted, and yelled. A desk was carried away in the tumult, +a knot of warriors reeled into and split a door-panel, a window was +broken, and a gas-jet fell. Under cover of the confusion the three +escaped to the corridor, whence they called in and sent up passers-by +to the fray. + +"Rescue, Kings! Kings! Kings! Number Twelve form-room! Rescue, +Prouts--Prouts! Rescue, Macraes! Rescue, Hartopps!" + +The juniors hurried out like bees aswarm, asking no questions, +clattered up the staircase, and added themselves to the embroilment. + +"Not bad for the first evening's work," said Stalky, rearranging his +collar. "I fancy Prout'll be somewhat annoyed. We'd better establish +an alibi." So they sat on Mr. King's railings till prep. + +"You see," quoth Stalky, as they strolled up to prep. with the ignoble +herd, "if you get the houses well mixed up an' scufflin', it's even +bettin' that some ass will start a real row. Hullo, Orrin, you look +rather metagrobolized." + +"It was all your fault, you beast! You started it. We've got two +hundred lines apiece, and Heffy's lookin' for you. Just see what that +swine Malpas did to my eye!" + +"I like your saying we started it. Who called us cribbers? Can't your +infant mind connect cause and effect yet? Some day you'll find out +that it don't pay to jest with Number Five." + +"Where's that shillin' you owe me?" said Beetle suddenly. + +Stalky could not see Prout behind him, but returned the lead without a +quaver. "I only owed you ninepence, you old usurer." + +"You've forgotten the interest," said McTurk. "A halfpenny a week per +bob is Beetle's charge. You must be beastly rich, Beetle." + +"Well, Beetle lent me sixpence." Stalky came to a full stop and made +as to work it out on his fingers. "Sixpence on the nineteenth, didn't +he?" + +"Yes; hut you've forgotten you paid no interest on the other bob--the +one I lent you before." + +"But you took my watch as security." The game was developing itself +almost automatically. + +"Never mind. Pay me my interest, or I'll charge you interest on +interest. Remember, I've got your note-of-hand!" shouted Beetle. + +"You are a cold-blooded Jew," Stalky groaned. + +"Hush!" said McTurk very loudly indeed, and started as Prout came upon +them. + +"I didn't see you in that disgraceful affair in the form-room just +now," said he. + +"What, sir? We're just come up from Mr. King's," said Stalky. "Please, +sir, what am I to do about prep.? They've broken the desk you told me +to sit at, and the form's just swimming with ink." + +"Find another seat--find another seat. D'you expect me to dry-nurse +you? I wish to know whether you are in the habit of advancing money +to your associates, Beetle?" + +"No, sir; not as a general rule, sir." + +"It is a most reprehensible habit. I thought that my house, at least, +would be free from it. Even with my opinion of you, I hardly thought +it was one of your vices." + +"There's no harm in lending money, sir, is there?" + +"I am not going to bandy words with you on your notions of morality. +How much have you lent Corkran?" + +"I--I don't quite know," said Beetle. It is difficult to improvise a +going concern on the spur of the minute. + +"You seemed certain enough just now." + +"I think it's two and fourpence," said McTurk, with a glance of cold +scorn at Beetle. In the hopelessly involved finances of the study +there was just that sum to which both McTurk and Beetle laid claim, +as their share in the pledging of Stalky's second-best Sunday +trousers. But Stalky had maintained for two terms that the money was +his "commission" for effecting the pawn; and had, of course, spent it +on a study "brew." + +"Understand this, then. You are not to continue your operations as a +money-lender. Two and four-pence, you said, Corkran?" + +Stalky had said nothing, and continued so to do. + +"Your influence for evil is quite strong enough without buying a hold +over your companions." He felt in his pockets, and (oh joy!) produced +a florin and fourpence. "Bring me what you call Corkran's +note-of-hand, and be thankful that I do not carry the matter any +further. The money is stopped from your pocket-money, Corkran. The +receipt to my study, at once!" + +Little they cared! Two and fourpence in a lump is worth six weekly +sixpences any hungry day of the week. + +"But what the dooce is a note-of-hand?" said Beetle. "I only read +about it in a book." + +"Now you've jolly well got to make one," said Stalky. + +"Yes--but our ink don't turn black till next day. S'pose he'll spot +that?" + +"Not him. He's too worried," said McTurk. "Sign your name on a bit of +impot-paper, Stalky, and write, 'I O U two and fourpence.' Aren't you +grateful to me for getting that out of Prout? Stalky'd never have +paid... Why, you ass!" + +Mechanically Beetle had handed over the money to Stalky as treasurer +of the study. The custom of years is not lightly broken. In return +for the document, Prout expounded to Beetle the enormity of +money-lending, which, like everything except compulsory cricket, +corrupted houses and destroyed good feeling among boys, made youth +cold and calculating, and opened the door to all evil. Finally, did +Beetle know of any other cases? If so, it was his duty as proof of +repentance to let his house-master know. No names need be mentioned. + +Beetle did not know--at least, he was not quite sure, sir. How could +he give evidence against his friends? The house might, of +course--here he feigned an anguished delicacy--be full of it. He was +not in a position to say. He had not met with any open competition in +his trade; but if Mr. Prout considered it was a matter that affected +the honor of the house (Mr. Prout did consider it precisely that), +perhaps the house-prefects would be better... + +He spun it out till half-way through prep. + +"And," said the amateur Shylock, returning to the form-room and +dropping at Stalky's side, "if he don't think the house is putrid +with it, I'm seveiral Dutch-men--that's all... I've been to Mr. +Prout's study, sir." This to the prep.-master. "He said I could sit +where I liked, sir... Oh, he is just tricklin' with emotion... Yes, +sir, I'm only askin' Corkran to let me have a dip in his ink." + +After prayers, on the road to the dormitories, Harrison and Craye, +senior house-prefects, zealous in their office, waylaid them with +great anger. "What have you been doing to Heffy this time, Beetle? +He's been jawing us all the evening." + +"What has His Serene Transparency been vexin' you for?" said McTurk. + +"About Beetle lendin' money to Stalky," began Harrison; "and then +Beetle went and told him that there was any amount of money-lendin' +in the house." + +"No, you don't," said Beetle, sitting on a boot-basket. "That's just +what I didn't tell him. I spoke the giddy truth. He asked me if there +was much of it in the house; and I said I didn't know." + +"He thinks you're a set of filthy Shylocks," said McTurk. "It's just +as well for you he don't think you're burglars. You know he never +gets a notion out of his conscientious old head." + +"Well-meanin' man. Did it all for the best." Stalky curled gracefully +round the stair-rail. "Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the +left boot. Bad for the honor of the house--very." + +"Shut up," said Harrison. "You chaps always behave as if you were +jawin' us when we come to jaw you." + +"You're a lot too cheeky," said Craye. + +"I don't quite see where the cheek comes in, except on your part, in +interferin' with a private matter between me an' Beetle after it has +been settled by Prout." Stalky winked cheerfully at the others. + +"That's the worst of clever little swots," said McTurk, addressing the +gas. "They get made prefects before they have any tact, and then they +annoy chaps who could really help 'em to look after the honor of the +house." + +"We won't trouble you to do that!" said Craye hotly. + +"Then what are you badgerin' us for?" said Beetle. "On your own +showing, you've been so beastly slack, looking after the house, that +Prout believes it's a nest of money-lenders. I've told him that I've +lent money to Stalky, and no one else. I don't know whether he +believes me, but that finishes my case. The rest is your business." + +"Now we find out," Stalky's voice rose, "that there is apparently an +organized conspiracy throughout the house. For aught we know, the +fags may be lendin' and borrowin' far beyond their means. We aren't +responsible for it. We're only the rank and file." + +"Are you surprised we don't wish to associate with the house?" said +McTurk, with dignity. "We've kept ourselves to ourselves in our study +till we were turned out, and now we find ourselves let in for for +this sort of thing. It's simply disgraceful." + +"Then you hector and bullyrag us on the stairs," said Stalky, "about +matters that are your business entirely. You know we aren't +prefects." + +"You threatened us with a prefect's lickin' just now," said Beetle, +boldly inventing as he saw the bewilderment in the faces of the +enemy. "And if you expect you'll gain anything from us by your way of +approachin' us, you're jolly well mistaken. That's all. Good-night." + +They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs. + +"But--but what the dickens have we done?" said Harrison, amazedly, to +Craye. + +"I don't know. Only--it always happens that way when one has anything +to do with them. They're so beastly plausible." + +And Mr. Prout called the good boys into his study anew, and succeeded +in sinking both his and their innocent minds ten fathoms deeper in +blindfolded bedazement. He spoke of steps and measures, of tone and +loyalty in the house and to the house, and urged them to take up the +matter tactfully. + +So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any connection with any +other establishment. Beetle promptly went to his house-master, and +wished to know by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a matter +already settled between him and his house-master. In injured +innocence no boy excelled Beetle. + +Then it occurred to Prout that he might have been unfair to the +culprit, who had not striven to deny or palliate his offense. He sent +for Harrison and Craye, reprehending them very gently for the tone +they had adopted to a repentant sinner, and when they returned to +their study, they used the language of despair. They then made +headlong inquisition through the house, driving the fags to the edge +of hysterics, and unearthing, with tremendous pomp and parade, the +natural and inevitable system of small loans that prevails among +small boys. + +"You see, Harrison, Thornton minor lent me a penny last Saturday, +because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at +Keyte's. I didn't know there was any harm in it. And Wray major +borrowed twopence from me when my uncle sent me a post-office +order--I cashed it at Keyte's--for five bob; but he'll pay me back +before the holidays. We didn't know there was anything wrong in it." + +They waded through hours of this kind of thing, but found no usury, or +anything approaching to Beetle's gorgeous scale of interest. The +seniors--for the school had no tradition of deference to prefects +outside compulsory games--told them succinctly to go about their +business. They would not give evidence on any terms. Harrison was one +idiot, and Craye was another; but the greatest of all, they said, was +their house-master. + +When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its conscience, it +breaks into knots and coteries--small gatherings in the twilight, +box-room committees, and groups in the corridor. And when from group +to group, with an immense affectation of secrecy, three wicked boys +steal, crying "_Cave'_" when there is no need of caution, and +whispering "Don't tell!" on the heels of trumpery confidences that +instant invented, a very fine air of plot and intrigue can be woven +round such a house. + +At the end of a few days, it dawned on Prout that he moved in an +atmosphere of perpetual ambush. Mysteries hedged him on all sides, +warnings ran before his heavy feet, and countersigns were muttered +behind his attentive back. McTurk and Stalky invented many absurd and +idle phrases--catch-words that swept through the house as fire +through stubble. It was a rare jest, and the only practical outcome of +the Usury Commission, that one boy should say to a friend, with awful +gravity, "Do you think there's much of it going on in the house?" The +other would reply, "Well, one can't be too careful, you know." The +effect on a house-master of humane conscience and good intent may be +imagined. Again, a man who has sincerely devoted himself to gaining +the esteem of his charges does not like to hear himself described, +even at a distance, as "Popularity Prout" by a dark and scowling Celt +with a fluent tongue. A rumor that stories--unusual stories--are told +in the form-rooms, between the lights, by a boy who does not command +his confidence, agitates such a man; and even elaborate and tender +politeness--for the courtesy wise-grown men offer to a bewildered +child was the courtesy that Stalky wrapped round Prout--restores not +his peace of mind. + +"The tone of the house seems changed--changed for the worse," said +Prout to Harrison and Craye. "Have you noticed it?. I don't for an +instant impute--" + +He never imputed anything; but, on the other hand, he never did +anything else, and, with the best intentions in the world, he had +reduced the house-prefects to a state as nearly bordering on nervous +irritation as healthy boys can know. Worst of all, they began at +times to wonder whether Stalky & Co. had not some truth in their +often-repeated assertions that Prout was a gloomy ass. + +"As you know, I am not the kind of man who puts himself out for every +little thing he hears. I believe in letting the house work out their +own salvation--with a light guiding hand on the reins, of course. But +there is a perceptible lack of reverence---a lower tone in matters +that touch the honor of the house, a sort of hardness." + + Oh, Prout he is a nobleman, a nobleman, a nobleman! + Our Heffy is a nobleman-- + He does an awful lot, + Because his popularity + Oh, pop-u-pop-u-larity-- + His giddy popularity + Would suffer did he not! + +The study door stood ajar; and the song, borne by twenty clear voices, +came faint from a form-room. The fags rather liked the tune; the +words were Beetle's. + +"That's a thing no sensible man objects to," said Prout with a +lop-sided smile; "but you know straws show which way the wind blows. +Can you trace it to any direct influence? I am speaking to you now as +heads of the house." + +"There isn't the least doubt of it," said Harrison angrily. "I know +what you mean, sir. It all began when Number Five study came to the +form-rooms. There's no use blinkin' it, Craye. You know that, too." + +"They make things rather difficult for us, sometimes," said Craye. +"It's more their manner than anything else, that Harrison means." + +"Do they hamper you in the discharge of your duties, then?" + +"Well, no, sir. They only look on and grin--and turn up their noses +generally." + +"Ah," said Prout sympathetically. + +"I think, sir," said Craye, plunging into the business boldly, "it +would be a great deal better if they wore sent back to their +study--better for the house. They are rather old to be knocking about +the form-rooms." + +"They are younger than Orrin, or Flint, and a dozen others that I can +think of." + +"Yes, sir; but that's different, somehow. They're rather influential. +They have a knack of upsettin' things in a quiet way that one can't +take hold of. At least, if one does--" + +"And you think they would be better in their own study again?" + +Emphatically Harrison and Craye were of that opinion. As Harrison said +to Craye, afterwards, "They've weakened our authority. They're too +big to lick; they've made an exhibition of us over this usury +business, and we're a laughing-stock to the rest of the school. I'm +going up (for Sandhurst, understood) next term. They've managed to +knock me out of half my work already with their--their lunacy. If they +go back to their study we may have a little peace." + +"Hullo, Harrison." McTurk ambled round the corner, with a roving eye +on all possible horizons. "Bearin' up, old man? That's right. Live it +down! Live it down!" + +"What d'you mean?" + +"You look a little pensive," said McTurk. "Exhaustin' job +superintendin' the honor of the house, ain't it? By the way, how are +you off for mares'-nests?" + +"Look here," said Harrison, hoping for instant reward. "We've +recommended Prout to let you go back to your study." + +"The dooce you have! And who under the sun are _you_ to interfere +between us and our housemaster?. Upon my Sam, you two try us very +hard--you do, indeed. Of course we don't know how far you abuse your +position to prejudice us with Mr. Prout; but when you deliberately +stop me to tell me you've been makin' arrangements behind our +back--in secret--with Prout--I--I don't know really what we ought to +do." + +"That's beastly unfair! "cried Craye. + + "It is." McTurk had adopted a ghastly solemnity that sat well on his +long, lean face. "Hang it all! A prefect's one thing and an usher's +another; but you seem to combine 'em. You recommend this--you +recommend that! _You_ say how and when we go back to our study!" + +"But--but--we thought you'd like it, Turkey. We did, indeed. You know +you'll be ever so much more comfortable there." Harrison's voice was +almost tearful. + +McTurk turned away as though to hide his emotions. + +"They're broke!" He hunted up Stalky and Beetle in a box-room. +"They're sick! They've been beggin' Heffy to let us go back to +Number Five. Poor devils! Poor little devils!" + +"It's the olive branch," was Stalky's comment. "It's the giddy white +flag, by gum! Come to think of it, we _have_ metagrobolized 'em." + +Just after tea that day, Mr. Prout sent for them to say that if they +chose to ruin their future by neglecting their work, it was entirely +their own affair. He wished them, however, to understand that their +presence in the form-rooms could not be tolerated one hour longer. He +personally did not care to think of the time he must spend in +eliminating the traces of their evil influences. How far Beetle had +pandered to the baser side of youthful imagination he would ascertain +later; and Beetle might be sure that if Mr. Prout came across any +soul-corrupting consequences-- + +"Consequences of what, sir?" said Beetle, genuinely bewildered this +time; and McTurk quietly kicked him on the ankle for being "fetched" +by Prout. Beetle, the house-master continued, knew very well what was +intended. Evil and brief had been their careers under his eye; and +as one standing _in_loco_parentis_ to their yet uncontaminated +associates, he was bound to take his precautions. The return of the +study key closed the sermon. + +"But what was the baser-side-of-imagination business?" said Beetle on +the stairs. + +"I never knew such an ass as you are for justifyin' yourself," said +McTurk. "I hope I jolly well skinned your ankle. Why do you let +yourself be drawn by everybody?" + +"Draws be blowed! I must have tickled him up in some way I didn't know +about. If I'd had a notion of that before, of course I could have +rubbed it in better. It's too late now. What a pity! 'Baser side.' +What _was_ he drivin' at?" + +"Never mind," said Stalky. "I knew we could make it a happy little +house. I said so, remember--but I swear I didn't think we'd do it so +soon." + + +"No," said Prout most firmly in Common-room. "I maintain that Gillett +is wrong. True, I let them return to their study." + +"With your known views on cribbing, too?" purred little Hartopp. "What +an immoral compromise!" + +"One moment," said the Reverend John. "I--we--all of us have exercised +an absolutely heart-breaking discretion for the last ten days. Now we +want to know. Confess--have you known a happy minute since--" + +"As regards my house, I have not," said Prout. "But you are entirely +wrong in your estimate of those boys. In justice to the others--in +self-defence--" + +"Ha! I said it would come to that," murmured the Reverend John. + +"--I was forced to send them back. Their moral influence was +unspeakable--simply unspeakable." + +And bit by bit he told his tale, beginning with Beetle's usury, and +ending with the house-prefects' appeal. + + "Beetle in the _ro'le_ of Shylock is new to me," said King, with +twitching lips. "I heard rumors of it--" + +"Before?" said Prout. + +"No, after you had dealt with them; but I was careful not to inquire. +I never interfere with--" + +"I myself," said Hartopp, "would cheerfully give him five shillings if +he could work out one simple sum in compound interest without three +gross errors." + +"Why--why--why!" Mason, the mathematical master, stuttered, a fierce +joy on his face, "you've been had--precisely the same as me!" + +"And so you held an inquiry?" Little Hartopp's voice drowned Mason's +ere Prout caught the import of the sentence. + +"The boy himself hinted at the existence of a deal of it in the +house," said Prout. + +"He is past master in that line," said the chaplain. "But, as regards +the honor of the house--" + +"They lowered it in a week. I have striven to build it up for years. +My own house-prefects--and boys do not willingly complain of each +other--besought me to get rid of them. You say you have their +confidence, Gillett: they may tell you another tale. As far as I am +concerned, they may go to the devil in their own way. I'm sick and +tired of them," said Prout bitterly. + +But it was the Reverend John, with a smiling countenance, who went to +the devil just after Number Five had cleared away a very pleasant +little brew (it cost them two and fourpence) and was settling down to +prep. + +"Come in, Padre, come in," said Stalky, thrusting forward the best +chair. "We've only met you official-like these last ten days." + +"You were under sentence," said the Reverend John. "I do not consort +with malefactors." + +"Ah, but we're restored again," said McTurk. "Mr. Prout has +relented." + +"Without a stain on our characters," said Beetle. "It was a painful +episode, Padre, most painful." + + "Now, consider for a while, and perpend, _mes_enfants_. It is about +your characters that I've called to-night. In the language of the +schools, what the dooce _have_ you been up to in Mr. Prout's house? +It isn't anything to laugh over. He says that you so lowered the tone +of the house he had to pack you back to your studies. Is that true?" + +"Every word of it, Padre." + +"Don't be flippant, Turkey. Listen to me. I've told you very often +that no boys in the school have a greater influence for good or evil +than you have. You know I don't talk about ethics and moral codes, +because I don't believe that the young of the human animal realizes +what they mean for some years to come. All the same, I don't want to +think you've been perverting the juniors. Don't interrupt, Beetle. +Listen to me. Mr. Prout has a notion that you have been corrupting +your associates somehow or other." + +"Mr. Prout has so many notions, Padre," said Beetle wearily. "Which +one is this?" + +"Well, he tells me that he heard you telling a story in the twilight +in the form-room, in a whisper. And Orrin said, just as he opened the +door, 'Shut up, Beetle; it's too beastly.' Now then?" + +"You remember Mrs. Oliphant's 'Beleaguered City' that you lent me +last term?" said. Beetle. + +The Padre nodded. + +"I got the notion out of that. Only, instead of a city, I made it the +Coll. in a fog--besieged by ghosts of dead boys, who hauled chaps out +of their beds in the dormitory. All the names are quite real. You +tell it in a whisper, you know with the names. Orrin didn't like it +one little bit. None of 'em have ever let me finish it. It gets just +awful at the end part." + +"But why in the world didn't you explain to Mr. Prout, instead of +leaving him under the impression--?" + +"Padre Sahib," said McTurk, "it isn't the least good explainin' to Mr. +Prout. If he hasn't one impression, he's bound to have another." + +"He'd do it with the best o' motives. He's _in_loco_parentis_," purred +Stalky. + +"You young demons!" the Reverend John replied. "And am I to understand +that the---the usury business was another of your house-master's +impressions?" + +"Well--we helped a little in that," said Stalky. "I did owe Beetle two +and fourpence at least, Beetle says I did, but I never intended to +pay him. Then we started a bit of an argument on the stairs, and--and +Mr. Prout dropped into it accidental. That was how it was, Padre. He +paid me cash down like a giddy Dook (stopped it out of my +pocket-money just the same), and Beetle gave him my note-of-hand all +correct. I don't know what happened after that." + +"I was too truthful," said Beetle. "I always am. You see, he was under +an impression, Padre, and I suppose I ought to have corrected that +impression; but of course I couldn't be _quite_ certain that his +house wasn't given over to money-lendin', could I? I thought the +house-prefects might know more about it than I did. They ought to. +They're giddy palladiums of public schools." + +"They did, too--by the time they'd finished," said McTurk. "As nice a +pair of conscientious, well-meanin', upright, pure-souled boys as +you'd ever want to meet, Padre. They turned the house upside down +--Harrison and Craye---with the best motives in the world." + +"They said so. 'They said it very loud and clear. They went and +shouted in our ear,'" said Stalky. + +"My own private impression is that all three of you will infallibly be +hanged," said the Reverend John. + +"Why, we didn't do anything," McTurk replied. "It was all Mr. Prout. +Did you ever read a book about Japanese wrestlers? My uncle---he's in +the Navy--gave me a beauty once." + +"Don't try to change the subject, Turkey." + +"I'm not, sir. I'm givin' an illustration--same as a sermon. These +wrestler-chaps have got sort sort of trick that lets the other chap +do all the work. Than they give a little wriggle, and he upsets +himself. It's called _shibbuwichee_ or _tokonoma_, or somethin'. Mr. +Prout's a _shibbuwicher_. It isn't our fault." + +"Did you suppose we went round corruptin' the minds of the fags? "said +Beetle. "They haven't any, to begin with; and if they had, they're +corrupted long ago. I've been a fag, Padre." + +"Well, I fancied I knew the normal range of your iniquities; hut if +you take so much trouble to pile up circumstantial evidence against +yourselves, you can't blame any one if--" + +"We don't blame any one, Padre. We haven't said a word against Mr. +Prout, have we?" Stalky looked at the others. "We love him. He hasn't +a notion how we love him." + +"H'm! You dissemble your love very well. Have you ever thought who got +you turned out of your study in the first place?" + +"It was Mr. Prout turned us out," said Stalky, with significance. + +"Well, I was that man. I didn't mean it; but some words of mine, I'm +afraid, gave Mr. Prout the impression--" + +Number Five laughed aloud. + +"You see it's just the same thing with you, Padre," said McTurk. "He +is quick to get an impression, ain't he? But you mustn't think we +don't love him, 'cause we do. There isn't an ounce of vice about +him." + +A double knock fell on the door. + +"The Head to see Number Five study in his study at once," said the +voice of Foxy, the school sergeant. + +"Whew!" said the Reverend John. "It seems to me that there is a great +deal of trouble coming for some people." + +"My word! Mr. Prout's gone and told the Head," said Stalky. "He's a +moral double-ender. Not fair, luggin' the Head into a house-row." + +"I should recommend a copy-book on a--h'm--safe and certain part," +said the Reverend John disinterestedly. + +"Huh! He licks across the shoulders, an' it would slam like a beastly +barn-door," said Beetle. "Good-night, Padre. We're in for it." + +Once more they stood in the presence of the Head--Belial, Mammon, and +Lucifer. But they had to deal with a man more subtle than them all. +Mr. Prout had talked to him, heavily and sadly, for half an hour; and +the Head had seen all that was hidden from the house-master. + +"You've been bothering Mr. Prout," he said pensively. "House-masters +aren't here to be bothered by boys more than is necessary. I don't +like being bothered by these things. You are bothering _me_. That is +a very serious offense. You see it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, now, I purpose to bother you, on personal and private grounds, +because you have broken into my time. You are much too big to lick, +so I suppose I shall have to mark my displeasure in some other way. +Say, a thousand lines apiece, a week's gating, and a few things of +that kind. Much too big to lick, aren't you?" + +"Oh, no, sir," said Stalky cheerfully; for a week's gating in the +summer term is serious. + +"Ve-ry good. Then we will do what we can. I wish you wouldn't bother +me." + +It was a fair, sustained, equable stroke, with a little draw to it, +hut what they felt most was his unfairness in stopping to talk +between executions. Thus: "Among the--lower classes this would lay me +open to a charge of--assault. You should be more grateful for +your--privileges than you are. There is a limit--one finds it by +experience, Beetle--beyond which it is never safe to pursue private +vendettas, because--don't move--sooner or later one comes--into +collision with the--higher authority, who has studied the animal. +_Et_ego_--McTurk, please--_in_Arcadia_vixi_. There's a certain +flagrant injustice about this that ought to appeal to--your +temperament. And that's all! You will tell your house-master that you +have been formally caned by me." + +"My word!" said McTurk, wriggling his shoulder-blades all down the +corridor. "That was business! The Prooshan Bates has an infernal +straight eye." + +"Wasn't it wily of me to ask for the lickin'," said Stalky, "instead +of those impots?" + +"Rot! We were in for it from the first. I knew the look of his old +eye," said Beetle. "I was within an inch of blubbing." + +"Well, I didn't exactly smile," Stalky confessed. + +"Let's go down to the lavatory and have a look at the damage. One of +us can hold the glass and t'others can squint." + +They proceeded on these lines for some ten minutes. The wales were +very red and very level. There was not a penny to choose between any +of them for thoroughness, efficiency, and a certain clarity of +outline that stamps the work of the artist. + +"What are you doing down there?" Mr. Prout was at the head of the +lavatory stairs, attracted by the noise of splashing. + +"We've only been caned by the Head, sir, and we're washing off the +blood. The Head said we were to tell you. We were coming to report +ourselves in a minute, sir. (_Sotto_voce_.) That's a score for +Heffy!" + +"Well, he deserves to score something, poor devil," said McTurk, +putting on his shirt. "We've sweated a stone and a half off him since +we began." + +"But look here, why aren't we wrathy with the Head? He said it was a +flagrant injustice. So it is!" said Beetle. + +"Dear man," said McTurk, and vouchsafed no further answer. + +It was Stalky who laughed till he had to hold on by the edge of a +basin. + +"You _are_ a funny ass! What's that for?" said Beetle. + +"I'm--I'm thinking of the flagrant injustice of it!" + + + +THE MORAL REFORMERS. + + +There was no disguising the defeat. The victory was to Prout, but they +grudged it not. If he had broken the rules of the game by calling in +the Head, they had had a good run for their money. + +The Reverend John sought the earliest opportunity of talking things +over. Members of a bachelor Common-room, of a school where masters' +studies are designedly dotted among studies and form-rooms, can, if +they choose, see a great deal of their charges. Number Five had spent +some cautious years in testing the Reverend John. He was emphatically +a gentleman. He knocked at a study door before entering; he comported +himself as a visitor and not a strayed lictor; he never prosed, and +he never carried over into official life the confidences of idle +hours. Prout was ever an unmitigated nuisance; King came solely as an +avenger of blood; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, +seldom forgot his office; but the Reverend John was a guest desired +and beloved by Number Five. + +Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent briar between his +teeth, chin down in three folds on his clerical collar, and blowing +like an amiable whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it +appeared to them, and specially of that last interview with the +Head--in the matter of usury. + +"One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good," he +said, twinkling and shaking all over; "and, as you say, you were +entirely in the right." + +"Ra-ather, Padre! We could have proved it if he'd let us talk," said +Stalky; "but he didn't. The Head's a downy bird." + +"He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! Well, you worked hard enough +for it." + +"But he's awfully fair. He doesn't lick a chap in the morning an' +preach at him in the afternoon," said Beetle. + +"He can't; he ain't in Orders, thank goodness," said McTurk. Number +Five held the very strongest views on clerical head-masters, and were +ever ready to meet their pastor in argument. + +"Almost all other schools have clerical Heads," said the Reverend John +gently. + +"It isn't fair on the chaps," Stalky replied. "Makes 'em sulky. Of +course it's different with you, sir. You belong to the school--same +as we do. I mean ordinary clergymen." + +"Well, I am a most ordinary clergyman; and Mr. Hartopp's in Orders, +too." + +"Ye--es, but he took 'em after he came to the Coll. We saw him go up +for his exam. That's all right," said Beetle. "But just think if the +Head went and got ordained!" + +"What would happen, Beetle?" + +"Oh, the Coll. 'ud go to pieces in a year, sir. There's no doubt o' +that." + +"How d'you know?" The Reverend John was smiling. + +"We've been here nearly six years now. There are precious few things +about the Coll. we don't know," Stalky replied. "Why, even you came +the term after I did, sir. I remember your asking our names in form +your first lesson. Mr. King, Mr. Prout, and the Head, of course, are +the only masters senior to us--in that way." + +"Yes, we've changed a good deal--in Common-room." + +"Huh!" said Beetle with a grunt. "They came here, an' they went away +to get married. Jolly good riddance, too!" + +"Doesn't our Beetle hold with matrimony?" + +"No, Padre; don't make fun of me. I've met chaps in the holidays +who've got married house-masters. It's perfectly awful! They have +babies and teething and measles and all that sort of thing right bung +_in_ the school; and the masters' wives give +tea-parties--tea-parties, Padre!--and ask the chaps to breakfast." + +"That don't matter so much," said Stalky. "But the house-masters let +their houses alone, and they leave everything to the prefects. Why, +in one school, a chap told me, there were big baize doors and a +passage about a mile long between the house and the master's house. +They could do just what they pleased." + +"Satan rebuking sin with a vengeance." + +"Oh, larks are right enough; but you know what we mean, Padre. After a +bit it gets worse an' worse. Then there's a big bust-up and a row +that gets into the papers, and a lot of chaps are expelled, you +know." + +"Always the wrong un's; don't forget that. Have a cup of cocoa, +Padre?" said McTurk with the kettle. + +"No, thanks; I'm smoking. Always the wrong 'uns? Pro-ceed, my +Stalky." + +"And then"--Stalky warmed to the work--"everybody says, 'Who'd ha' +thought it? Shock-in' boys! Wicked little kids!' It all comes of +havin' married house-masters, _I_ think." + +"A Daniel come to judgment." + +"But it does," McTurk interrupted. "I've met chaps in the holidays, +an' they've told me the same thing. It looks awfully pretty for one's +people to see--a nice separate house with a nice lady in charge, an' +all that. But it isn't. It takes the house-masters off their work, +and it gives the prefects a heap too much power, an'--an'--it rots up +everything. You see, it isn't as if we were just an ordinary school. +We take crammers' rejections as well as good little boys like Stalky. +We've got to do that to make our name, of course, and we get 'em into +Sandhurst somehow or other, don't we?" + +"True, O Turk. Like a book thou talkest, Turkey." + +"And so we want rather different masters, don't you think so, to other +places? We aren't like the rest of the schools." + +"It leads to all sorts of bullyin', too, a chap told me," said +Beetle. + +"Well, you _do_ need most of a single man's time, I must say." The +Reverend John considered his hosts critically. "But do you never feel +that the world--the Common-room--is too much with you sometimes?" + +"Not exactly--in summer, anyhow." Stalky's eye roved contentedly to +the window. "Our bounds are pretty big, too, and they leave us to +ourselves a good deal." + +"For example, here am I sitting in your study, very much in your way, +eh?" + +"Indeed you aren't, Padre. Sit down. Don't go, sir. You know we're +glad whenever you come." + +There was no doubting the sincerity of the voices. The Reverend John +flushed a little with pleasure and refilled his briar. + +"And we generally know where the Common-room are," said Beetle +triumphantly. "Didn't you come through our lower dormitories last +night after ten, sir?" + +"I went to smoke a pipe with your house-master. No, I didn't give him +any impressions. I took a short cut through your dormitories." + +"I sniffed a whiff of 'baccy, this mornin'. Yours is stronger than Mr. +Prout's. _I_ knew," said Beetle, wagging his head. + +"Good heavens!" said the Reverend John absently. It was some years +before Beetle perceived that this was rather a tribute to innocence +than observation. The long, light, blindless dormitories, devoid of +inner doors, were crossed at all hours of the night by masters +visiting one another; for bachelors sit up later than married folk. +Beetle had never dreamed that there might be a purpose in this steady +policing. + +"Talking about bullying," the Reverend John resumed, "you all caught +it pretty hot when you were fags, didn't you?" + +"Well, we must have been rather awful little beasts," said Beetle, +looking serenely over the gulf between eleven and sixteen. "My Hat, +what bullies they were then--Fairburn, 'Gobby' Maunsell, and all +that gang!" + +"'Member when 'Gobby' called us the Three Blind Mice, and we had to +get up on the lockers and sing while he buzzed inkpots at us?" said +Stalky. "They _were_ bullies if you like!" + +"But there isn't any of it now," said McTurk soothingly. + +"That's where you make a mistake. We're all inclined to say that +everything is all right as long we aren't ourselves hurt. I sometimes +wonder if it is extinct--bullying." + +"Fags bully each other horrid; but the upper forms are supposed to be +swottin' for exams. They've got something else to think about," said +Beetle. + +"Why? What do you think?" Stalky was watching the chaplain's face. + +"I have my doubts." Then, explosively, "On my word, for three +moderately intelligent boys you aren't very observant. I suppose you +were too busy making things warm for your house-master to see what +lay under your noses when you were in the form-rooms last week?" + +"What, sir? I--I swear we didn't see anything," said Beetle. + +"Then I'd advise you to look. When a little chap is whimpering in a +corner and wears his clothes like rags, and never does any work, and +is notoriously the dirtiest little 'corridor-caution' in the Coll., +something's wrong somewhere." + +"That's Clewer," said McTurk under his breath. + +"Yes, Clewer. He comes to me for his French. It's his first term, and +he's almost as complete a wreck as you were, Beetle. He's not +naturally clever, but he has been hammered till he's nearly an +idiot." + +"Oh, no. They sham silly to get off more tickings,'' said Beetle. "_I_ +know that." + +"I've never actually seen him knocked about," said the Reverend John. + +"The genuine article don't do that in public," said Beetle. "Fairburn +never touched me when any one was looking on." + +"You needn't swagger about it, Beetle," said McTurk. "We all caught it +in our time." + +"But I got it worse than any one," said Beetle. "If you want an +authority on bullyin', Padre, come to me. +Corkscrews--brush-drill--keys--head-knucklin'-- arm-twistin'--rockin' +-Ag Ags--and all the rest of it." + +"Yes. I do want you as an authority, or rather I want your authority +to stop it--all of you." + +"What about Abana and Pharpar, Padre--Harrison and Craye? They are Mr. +Prout's pets," said McTurk a little bitterly. "We aren't even +sub-prefects." + +"I've considered that, but on the other hand, since most bullying is +mere thoughtlessness--" + +"Not one little bit of it, Padre," said McTurk. "Bullies like +bullyin'. They mean it. They think it up in lesson and practise it in +the quarters." + +"Never mind. If the thing goes up to the prefects it may make another +house-row. You've had one already. Don't laugh. Listen to me. I ask +you--my own Tenth Legion--to take the thing up quietly. I want little +Clewer made to look fairly clean and decent--" + +"Blowed if _I_ wash him!" whispered Stalky. + +"Decent and self-respecting. As for the other boy, whoever he is, you +can use your influence"--a purely secular light flickered in the +chaplain's eye--"in any way you please to--to dissuade him. That's +all. I'll leave it to you. Good-night, _mes_enfants_." + +"Well, what are we goin' to do?" Number Five stared at each other. + +"Young Clewer would give his eyes for a place to be quiet in. _I_ know +that," said Beetle. "If we made him a study-fag, eh?" + +"No!" said McTurk firmly. "He's a dirty little brute, and he'd mess up +everything. Besides, we ain't goin' to have any beastly Erickin'. +D'you want to walk about with your arm round his neck?" + +"He'd clean out the jam-pots, anyhow; an' the burnt-porridge +saucepan--it's filthy now." + +"Not good enough," said Stalky, bringing up both heels with a crash on +the table. "If we find the merry jester who's been bullyin' him an' +make him happy, that'll be all right. Why didn't we spot him when we +were in the form-rooms, though?" + +"Maybe a lot of fags have made a dead set at Clewer. They do that +sometimes." + +"Then we'll have to kick the whole of the lower school in our +house--on spec. Come on," said McTurk. + +"Keep your hair on! We mustn't make a fuss about the biznai. Whoever +it is he's kept quiet or we'd have seen him," said Stalky. "We'll +walk round and sniff about till we're sure." + +They drew the house form-rooms, accounting for every junior and senior +against whom they had suspicions; investigated, at Beetle's +suggestion, the lavatories and box-rooms, but without result. +Everybody seemed to be present save Clewer. + +"Rum!" said Stalky, pausing outside a study door. "Golly!" + +A thin piping mixed with tears came muffled through the panels. + + "'As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping--'" + +"Louder, you young devil, or I'll buzz a book at you!" + + "'With a pitcher of milk--' + Oh, Campbell, _please_ don't! + 'To the fair of--" + +A book crashed on something soft, and squeals arose. + +"Well, I never thought it was a study-chap, anyhow. That accounts for +our not spotting him," said Beetle. "Sefton and Campbell are rather +hefty chaps to tackle. Besides, one can't go into their study like a +form-room." + +"What swine!" McTurk listened. "Where's the fun of it? I suppose +Clewer's faggin' for them." + +"They aren't prefects. That's one good job," said Stalky, with his +war-grin. "Sefton and Campbell! Um! Campbell and Sefton! Ah! One of +'em's a crammer's pup." + +The two were precocious hairy youths between seventeen and eighteen, +sent to the school in despair by parents who hoped that six months' +steady cram might, perhaps, jockey them into Sandhurst. Nominally +they were in Mr. Prout's house; actually they were under the Head's +eye; and since he was very careful never to promote strange new boys +to prefectships, they considered they had a grievance against the +school. Sefton had spent three months with a London crammer, and the +tale of his adventures there lost nothing in the telling. Campbell, +who had a fine taste in clothes and a fluent vocabulary, followed his +lead in looking down loftily on the rest of the world. This was only +their second term, and the school, used to what it profanely called +"crammers' pups," had treated them with rather galling reserve. But +their whiskers--Sefton owned a real razor--and their mustaches were +beyond question impressive. + +"Shall we go in an' dissuade 'em?" McTurk asked. "I've never had much +to do with 'em, but I'll bet my hat Campbell's a funk." + +"No--o! That's _oratio_directa_," said Stalky, shaking his head. "I +like _oratio_obliqua_. 'Sides, where'd our moral influence be then? +Think o' that!" + +"Rot! What are you goin' to do?" Beetle turned into Lower Number Nine +form-room, next door to the study. + +"Me?" The lights of war flickered over Stalky's face. "Oh, I want to +jape with 'em. Shut up a bit!" + +He drove his hands into his pockets and stared out of window at the +sea, whistling between his teeth. Then a foot tapped the floor; one +shoulder lifted; he wheeled, and began the short quick +double-shuffle--the war-dance of Stalky in meditation. Thrice he +crossed the empty form-room, with compressed lips and expanded +nostrils, swaying to the quick-step. Then he halted before the dumb +Beetle and softly knuckled his bead, Beetle bowing to the strokes. +McTurk nursed one knee and rocked to and fro. They could hear Clewer +howling as though his heart would break. + +"Beetle is the sacrifice," Stalky said at last, "I'm sorry for you, +Beetle. 'Member Galton's 'Art of Travel' [one of the forms had been +studying that pleasant work] an' the kid whose bleatin' excited the +tiger?" + +"Oh, curse!" said Beetle uneasily. It was not his first season as a +sacrifice. "Can't you get on without me?" + +"'Fraid not, Beetle, dear. You've got to be bullied by Turkey an' me. +The more you howl, o' course, the better it'll be. Turkey, go an' +covet a stump and a box-rope from somewhere. We'll tie him up for a +kill--_a'_la_ Galton. 'Member when 'Molly' Fairburn made us +cock-fight with our shoes off, an' tied up our knees?" + +"But that hurt like sin." + +"Course it did. What a clever chap you are, Beetle! Turkey'll knock +you all over the place. 'Member we've had a big row all round, an' +I've trapped you into doin' this. Lend us your wipe." Beetle was +trussed for cock-fighting; but, in addition to the transverse stump +between elbow and knee, His knees were bound with a box-rope. In this +posture, at a push from Stalky he rolled over sideways, covering +himself with dust. + +"Ruffle his hair, Turkey. Now you get down, too. 'The bleatin' of the +kid excites the tiger.' You two are in such a sweatin' wax with me +that you only curse. 'Member that. I'll tickle you up with a stump. +You'll have to blub, Beetle." + +"Right O! I'll work up to it in half a shake," said Beetle. + +"Now begin--and remember the bleatin' o' the kid." + +"Shut up, you brutes! Let me up! You've nearly cut my knees off. Oh, +you _are_ beastly cads! _Do_ shut up. 'Tisn't a joke!" Beetle's +protest was, in tone, a work of art. + +"Give it to him, Turkey! Kick him! Roll him over! Kill him! Don't +funk, Beetle, you brute. Kick him again, Turkey." + +"He's not blubbin' really. Roll up, Beetle, or I'll kick you into the +fender," roared McTurk. They made a hideous noise among them, and the +bait allured their quarry. + +"Hullo! What's the giddy jest?" Sefton and Campbell entered to find +Beetle on his side, his head against the fender, weeping copiously, +while McTurk prodded him in the back with his toes. + +"It's only Beetle," Stalky explained. "He's shammin' hurt. I can't get +Turkey to go for him properly." Sefton promptly kicked both boys, and +his face lighted. "All right, I'll attend to 'em. Get up an' +cock-fight, you two. Give me the stump. I'll tickle 'em. Here's a +giddy jest! Come on, Campbell. Let's cook 'em." + +Then McTurk turned on Stalky and called him very evil names. + +"You said you were goin' to cock-fight too, Stalky. Come on!" + +"More ass you for believin' me, then!" shrieked Stalky. + +"Have you chaps had a row?" said Campbell. "Row?" said Stalky. "Huh! +I'm only educatin' them. D'you know anythin' about cock-fighting, +Seffy?" + +"Do I know? Why, at Maclagan's, where I was crammin' in town, we used +to cock-fight in his drawing-room, and little Maclagan daren't say +anything. But we were just the same as men there, of course. Do I +know? _I_'ll show you." + +"Can't I get up?" moaned Beetle, as Stalky sat on his shoulder. + +"Don't jaw, you fat piffler. You're going to fight Seffy." + +"He'll slay me!" + +"Oh, lug 'em into our study," said Campbell. "It's nice an' quiet in +there. I'll cock-fight Turkey. This is an improvement on young +Clewer." + +"Right O! I move it's shoes-off for them an' shoes-on for us," said +Sefton joyously, and the two were flung down on the study floor. +Stalky rolled them behind an arm-chair. "Now I'll tie you two up an' +direct the bull-fight. Golly, what wrists you have, Seffy. They're +too thick for a wipe; got a box-rope?" said he. + +"Lots in the corner," Sefton replied. "Hurry up! Stop blubbin', you +brute, Beetle. We're goin' to have a giddy campaign. Losers have to +sing for the winners--sing odes in honor of the conqueror. You call +yourself a beastly poet, don't you, Beetle? I'll poet you." + +He wriggled into position by Campbell's side. Swiftly and +scientifically the stumps were thrust through the natural crooks, and +the wrists tied with well-stretched box-ropes to an accompaniment of +insults from McTurk, bound, betrayed, and voluble behind the chair. +Stalky set away Campbell and Sefton, and strode over to his allies, +locking the door on the way. + +"And that's all right," said he in a changed voice. + +"What the devil--?" Sefton began. Beetle's false tears had ceased; +McTurk, smiling, was on his feet. Together they bound the knees and +ankles of the enemy even more straitly. + +Stalky took the arm-chair and contemplated the scene with his blandest +smile. A man trussed for cook-fighting is, perhaps, the most helpless +thing in the world. + +"'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' Oh, you frabjous asses!" +He lay back and laughed till he could no more. The victims took in +the situation but slowly. "We'll give you the finest lickin' you +ever had in your young lives when we get up!" thundered Sefton from +the floor. "You'll laugh the other side of your mouth before you've +done. What the deuce d'you mean by this?" + +"You'll see in two shakes," said McTurk. "Don't swear like that. What +we want to know is, why you two hulkin' swine have been bullyin' +Clewer?" + +"It's none of your business." + +"What did you bully Clewer for?" The question was repeated with +maddening iteration by each in turn. They knew their work. + +"Because we jolly well chose!" was the answer at last. "Let's get up." +Even then they could not realize the game. + +"Well, now we're goin' to bully you because we jolly well choose. +We're goin' to be just as fair to you as you were to Clewer. He +couldn't do anything against you. You can't do anything to us. Odd, +ain't it?" + +"Can't we? You wait an' see." + +"Ah," said Beetle reflectively, "that shows you've never been properly +jested with. A public lickin' ain't in it with a gentle jape. Bet a +bob you'll weep an' promise anything." + +"Look here, young Beetle, we'll half kill you when we get up. I'll +promise you that, at any rate." + +"You're going to be half killed first, though. Did you give Clewer +Head-knuckles?" + +"Did you give Clewer Head-knuckles?" McTurk echoed. At the twentieth +repetition--no boy can stand the torture of one unvarying query, +which is the essence of bullying--came confession. + +"We did, confound you!" + +"Then you'll be knuckled;" and knuckled they were, according to +ancient experience. Head-knuckling is no trifle; "Molly" Fairburn of +the old days could not have done better. + +"Did you give Clewer Brush-drill?" This time the question was answered +sooner, and Brush-drill was dealt out for the space of five minutes +by Stalky's watch. They could not even writhe in their bonds. No +brush is employed in Brush-drill. + +"Did you give Clewer the Key?" + +"No; we didn't. I swear we didn't!" from Campbell, rolling in agony. + +"Then we'll give it to you, so you can see what it would be like if +you had." + +The torture of the Key--which has no key at all--hurts excessively. +They endured several minutes of it, and their language necessitated +the gag. + +"Did you give Clewer Corkscrews?" + +"Yes. Oh, curse your silly souls! Let us alone, you cads." + +They were corkscrewed, and the torture of the Corkscrew--this has +nothing to do with corkscrews--is keener than the torture of the +Key. + +The method and silence of the attacks was breaking their nerves. +Between each new torture came the pitiless, dazing rain of questions, +and when they did not answer to the point, Isabella-colored +handkerchiefs were thrust into their mouths. + +"Now are those all the things you did to Clewer? Take out the gag, +Turkey, and let 'em answer." + +"Yes, I swear that was all. Oh, you're killing us, Stalky!" cried +Campbell. + +"Pre-cisely what Clewer said to you. I heard him. Now we're goin' to +show you what real bullyin' is. 'What I don't like about you, Sefton, +is, you come to the Coll. with your stick-up collars an' +patent-leather boots, an' you think you can teach us something about +bullying. Do you think you can teach us anything about bullying? +Take out the gag and let him answer." + +"No!"--ferociously. + +"He says no. Rock him to sleep. Campbell can watch." + +It needs three beys and two boxing-gloves to rock a boy to sleep. +Again the operation has nothing to do with its name. Sefton was +"rocked" till his eyes set in his head and he gasped and crowed for +breath, sick and dizzy. + +"My Aunt!" said Campbell, appalled, from his corner, and turned +white. + +"Put him away," said Stalky. "Bring on Campbell. Now this _is_ +bullyin'. Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, what did you bully Clewer +for? Take out his gag and let him answer." + +"I--I don't know. Oh, let me off! I swear I'll make it _pax_. Don't +'rock' me!" + +"'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' He says he don't know. +Set him up, Beetle. Give me the glove an' put in the gag." + +In silence Campbell was "rocked" sixty-four times. + +"I believe I'm goin' to die!" he gasped. "He says he is goin' to die. +Put him away. Now, Sefton! Oh, I forgot! Sefton, what did you bully +Clewer for?" + +The answer is unprintable; but it brought not the faintest flush to +Stalky's downy cheek. + +"Make him an Ag Ag, Turkey!" + +And an Ag Ag was he made, forthwith. The hard-bought experience of +nearly eighteen years was at his disposal, but he did not seem to +appreciate it. + +"He says we are sweeps. Put him away! Now, Campbell! Oh, I forgot! I +say, Campbell, what did you bully Clewer for?" + +Then came the tears--scalding tears; appeals for mercy and abject +promises of peace. Let them cease the tortures and Campbell would +never lift hand against them. The questions began again--to an +accompaniment of small persuasions. + +"You seem hurt, Campbell. Are you hurt?" + +"Yes. Awfully!" + +"He says he is hurt. Are you broke?" + +"Yes, yes! I swear I am. Oh, stop!" + +"He says he is broke. Are you humble?" + +"Yes!" + +"He says he is humble. Are you devilish humble?" + +"Yes!" + +"He says he is devilish humble. Will you bully Clewer any more?" + +"No. No--ooh!" + +"He says he won't bully Clewer. Or any one else?" + +"No. I swear I won't." + +"Or any one else. What about that lickin' you and Sefton were goin' to +give us?" + +"I won't! I won't! I swear I won't!" + +"He says he won't lick us. Do you esteem yourself to know anything +about bullyin'?" + +"No, I don't!" + +"He says he doesn't know anything about bullyin'. Haven't we taught +you a lot?" + +"Yes--yes!" + +"He says we've taught him a lot. Aren't you grateful?" + +"Yes!" + +"He says he is grateful. Put him away. Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, +what did you bully Clewer for?" + +He wept anew; his nerves being raw. "Because I was a bully. I suppose +that's what you want me to say?" + +"He says he is a bully. Right he is. Put him in the corner. No more +japes for Campbell. Now, Sefton!" + +"You devils! You young devils!" This and much more as Sefton was +punted across the carpet by skilful knees. + +"'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' We're goin' to make you +beautiful. Where does he keep his shaving things? [Campbell told.] +Beetle, get some water. Turkey, make the lather. We're goin' to +shave you, Seffy, so you'd better lie jolly still, or you'll get cut. +I've never shaved any one before." + +"Don't! Oh, don't! Please don't!" + +"Gettin' polite, eh? I'm only goin' to take off one ducky little +whisker--" + +"I'll--I'll make it _pax_, if you don't. I swear I'll let you off your +lickin' when I get up!" + +"_And_ half that mustache we're so proud of. He says he'll let us off +our lickin'. Isn't he kind?" + +McTurk laughed into the nickel-plated shaving-cup, and settled +Sefton's head between Stalky's vise-like knees. + +"Hold on a shake," said Beetle, "you can't shave long hairs. You've +got to cut all that mustache short first, an' then scrape him." + +"Well, I'm not goin' to hunt about for scissors. Won't a match do? +Chuck us the match-box. He _is_ a hog, you know; we might as well +singe him. Lie still!" He lit a vesta, but checked his hand. "I only +want to take off half, though." + +"That's all right." Beetle waved the brush. "I'll lather up to the +middle--see? and you can burn off the rest." + +The thin-haired first mustache of youth fluffed off in flame to the +lather-line in the centre of the lip, and Stalky rubbed away the +burnt stumpage with his thumb. It was not a very gentle shave, but it +abundantly accomplished its purpose. + +"Now the whisker on the other side. Turn him over!" Between match and +razor this, too, was removed. "Give him his shaving-glass. Take the +gag out. I want to hear what he'll say." + +But there were no words. Sefton gazed at the lop-sided wreck in horror +and despair. Two fat tears rolled down his cheek. + +"Oh, I forgot! I say, Sefton, what did you bully Clewer for?" + +"Leave me alone! Oh, you infernal bullies, leave me alone! Haven't I +had enough?" + +"He says we must leave him alone," said McTurk. + +"He says we are bullies, an' we haven't even begun yet," said Beetle. +"You're ungrateful, Seffy. Golly! You do look an atrocity and a +half!" + +"He says he has had enough," said Stalky. "He errs!" + +"Well, to work, to work!" chanted McTurk, waving a stump. "Come on, my +giddy Narcissus. Don't fall in love with your own reflection!" + +"Oh, let him off," said Campbell from his corner; "he's blubbing, +too." + +Sefton cried like a twelve-year-old with pain, shame, wounded vanity, +and utter helplessness. + +"You'll make it _pax_, Sefton, won't you? You can't stand up to those +young devils--" + +"Don't be rude, Campbell, de-ah," said McTurk, "or you'll catch it +again!" + +"You _are_ devils, you know," said Campbell. + +"What? for a little bullyin'--same as you've been givin' Clewer! How +long have you been jestin' with him?" said Stalky. "All this term?" + +"We didn't always knock him about, though!" + +"You did when you could catch him," said Beetle, cross-legged on the +floor, dropping a stump from time to time across Sefton's instep. +"Don't I know it!" + +"I--perhaps we did." + +"And you went out of your way to catch him? Don't I know it! Because +he was an awful little beast, eh? Don't I know it! Now, you see, +_you_'re awful beasts, and you're gettin' what he got--for bein' a +beast. Just because we choose." + +"We never really bullied him--like you've done us." + +"Yah!" said Beetle. "They never really bully--'Molly' Fairburn +didn't. Only knock 'em about a little bit. That's what they say. Only +kick their souls out of 'em, and they go and blub in the box-rooms. +Shove their heads into the ulsters an' blub. Write home three times +a day--yes, you brute, I've done that--askin' to be taken away. +You've never been bullied properly, Campbell I'm sorry you made +_pax_." + +"I'm not!" said Campbell, who was a humorist in a way. "Look out, +you're slaying Sefton!" + +In his excitement Beetle had used the stump unreflectingly, and Sefton +was now shouting for mercy. + +"An' you!" he cried, wheeling where he sat. "You've never been +bullied, either. Where were you before you came here?" + +"I--I had a tutor." + +"Yah! You would. You never blubbed in your life. But you're blubbin' +now, by gum. Aren't you blubbin'?" + +"Can't you see, you blind beast?" Sefton fell over sideways, +tear-tracks furrowing the dried lather. Crack came the cricket-stump +on the curved latter-end of him. + +"Blind, am I," said Beetle, "and a beast? Shut up, Stalky. I'm goin' +to jape a bit with our friend, _a'_la_ 'Molly' Fairburn. _I_ think I +can see. Can't I see, Sefton?" + +"The point is well taken," said McTurk, watching the strap at work. +"You'd better say that he sees, Seffy." + +"You do--you can! I swear you do!" yelled Sefton, for strong arguments +were coercing him. + +"Aren't my eyes lovely?" The stump rose and fell steadily throughout +this catechism. + +"Yes." + +"A gentle hazel, aren't they?" + +"Yes--oh, yes!" + +"What a liar you are! They're sky-blue. Ain't they sky-blue?" + +"Yes--oh, yes!" + +"You don't know your mind from one minute to another. You must +learn--you must learn." + +"What a bait you're in!" said Stalky. "Keep your hair on, Beetle." + +"I've had it done to me," said Beetle. "Now--about my being a beast." + +"_Pax_--oh, _pax_!" cried Sefton; "make it _pax_. I'll give up! Let me +off! I'm broke! I can't stand it!" + +"Ugh! Just when we were gettin' our hand in!" grunted McTurk. + +"They didn't let Clewer off, I'll swear." + +"Confess--apologize--quick!" said Stalky. + +From the floor Sefton made unconditional surrender, more abjectly even +than Campbell He would never touch any one again. He would go softly +all the days of his life. + +"We've got to take it, I suppose?" said Stalky. "All right, Sefton. +You're broke? Very good. Shut up, Beetle! But before we let you up, +you an' Campbell will kindly oblige us with 'Kitty of +Coleraine'--_a'_la_ Clewer." + +"That's not fair," said Campbell; "we've surrendered." + +"'Course you have. Now you're goin' to do what we tell you--same as +Clewer would. If you hadn't surrendered you'd ha' been really +bullied. Havin' surrendered--do you follow, Seffy?--you sing odes in +honor of the conquerors. Hurry up!" + +They dropped into chairs luxuriously. Campbell and Sefton looked at +each other, and, neither taking comfort from that view, struck up +"Kitty of Coleraine." + +"Vile bad," said Stalky, as the miserable wailing ended. "If you +hadn't surrendered it would have been our painful duty to buzz books +at you for singin' out o' tune. Now then." + +He freed them from their bonds, but for several minutes they could not +rise. Campbell was first on his feet, smiling uneasily. Sefton +staggered to the table, buried his head in his arms, and shook with +sobs. There was no shadow of fight in either--only amazement, +distress, and shame. + +"Ca--can't he shave clean before tea, please?" said Campbell. "It's +ten minutes to bell." + +Stalky shook his head. He meant to escort the half-shaved one to the +meal. + +McTurk yawned in his chair and Beetle mopped his face. They were all +dripping with excitement and exertion. + +"If I knew anything about it, I swear I'd give you a moral lecture," +said Stalky severely. + +"Don't jaw; they've surrendered," said McTurk. "This moral suasion +biznai takes it out of a chap." + +"Don't you see how gentle we've been? We might have called Clewer in +to look at you," said Stalky. "'The bleatin' of the tiger excites the +kid.' But we didn't. We've only got to tell a few chaps in Coll. +about this and you'd be hooted all over the shop. Your life wouldn't +be worth havin'. But we aren't goin' to do that, either. We're +strictly moral suasers, Campbell; so, unless you or Seffy split about +this, no one will." + +"I swear you're a brick," said Campbell. "I suppose I was rather a +brute to Clewer." + +"It looked like it," said Stalky. "But I don't think Seffy need come +into hall with cock-eye whiskers. Horrid bad for the fags if they saw +him. He can shave. Ain't you grateful, Sefton?" + +The head did not lift. Sefton was deeply asleep. + +"That's rummy," said McTurk, as a snore mixed with a sob. "'Cheek, _I_ +think; or else he's shammin'." + +"No, 'tisn't," said Beetle. "'When 'Molly' Fairburn had attended to me +for an hour or so I used to go bung off to sleep on a form sometimes. +Poor devil! But he called me a beastly poet, though." + +"Well, come on." Stalky lowered his voice. "Good-by, Campbell. +'Member, if you don't talk, nobody will." + +There should have been a war-dance, but that all three were so utterly +tired that they almost went to sleep above the tea-cups in their +study, and slept till prep. + + + +"A most extraordinary letter. Are all parents incurably mad? What do +you make of it?" said the Head, handing a closely written eight pages +to the Reverend John. + +"'The only son of his mother, and she a widow.' That is the least +reasonable sort." The chaplain read with pursed lips. "If half those +charges are true he should be in the sick-house; whereas he is +disgustingly well. Certainly he has shaved. I noticed that." + +"Under compulsion, as his mother points out. How delicious! How +salutary!" + +"You haven't to answer her. It isn't often I don't know what has +happened in the school; but this is beyond me." + +"If you asked me I should say seek not to propitiate. When one is +forced to take crammers' pups--" + +"He was perfectly well at extra-tuition--with me--this morning," said +the Head, absently. "Unusually well behaved, too." + +"--they either educate the school, or the school, as in this case, +educates them. I prefer our own methods," the chaplain concluded. + +"You think it was that?" A lift of the Head's eyebrow. + +"I'm sure of it! And nothing excuses his trying to give the College a +bad name." + +"That's the line I mean to take with him," the Head answered. + +The Augurs winked. + + +A few days later the Reverend John called on Number Five. "Why haven't +we seen you before, Padre?" said they. + +"I've been watching times and seasons and events and men--and boys," +he replied. "I am pleased with my Tenth Legion. I make them my +compliments. Clewer was throwing ink-balls in form this morning, +instead of doing his work. He is now doing fifty lines +for--unheard-of audacity." + +"You can't blame us, sir," said Beetle. "You told us to remove +the--er--pressure. That's the worst of a fag." + +"I've known boys five years his senior throw ink-balls, Beetle. To +such an one have I given two hundred lines--not so long ago. And now +I come to think of it, were those lines ever shown up?" + +"Were they, Turkey?' said Beetle unblushingly. + +"Don't you think Clewer looks a little cleaner, Padre?" Stalky +interrupted. + +"We're no end of moral reformers," said McTurk. + +"It was all Stalky, but it was a lark," said Beetle. + +"I have noticed the moral reform in several quarters. Didn't I tell +you you had more influence than any boys in the Coll. if you cared to +use it?" + +"It's a trifle exhaustin' to use frequent--our kind of moral suasion. +Besides, you see, it only makes Clewer cheeky." + +"I wasn't thinking of Clewer; I was thinking of--the other people, +Stalky." + +"Oh, we didn't bother much about the other people," said McTurk. "Did +we?" + +"But _I_ did--from the beginning." + +"Then you knew, sir?" + +A downward puff of smoke. "Boys educate each other, they say, more +than we can or dare. If I had used one half of the moral suasion you +may or may not have employed--" + +"With the best motives in the world. Don't forget our pious motives, +Padre," said McTurk. + +"I suppose I should be now languishing in Bideford jail, shouldn't I? +Well, to quote the Head, in a little business which we have agreed to +forget, that strikes me as flagrant injustice ... What are you +laughing at, you young sinners? Isn't it true? I will not stay to be +shouted at. What I looked into this den of iniquity for was to find +out if any one cared to come down for a bathe off the Ridge. But I see +you won't." + +"Won't we, though! Half a shake, Padre Sahib, till we get our towels, +and _nous_sommes_avec_vous_!" + + + +A LITTLE PREP. + + + +Easter term was but a month old when Stettson major, a dayboy, +contracted diphtheria, and the Head was very angry. He decreed a new +and narrower set of bounds--the infection had been traced to an +out-lying farmhouse--urged the prefects severely to lick all +trespassers, and promised extra attentions from his own hand. There +were no words bad enough for Stettson major, quarantined at his +mother's house, who had lowered the school-average of health. This +he said in the gymnasium after prayers. Then he wrote some two +hundred letters to as many anxious parents and guardians, and bade +the school carry on. The trouble did not spread, but, one night, a +dog-cart drove to the Head's door, and in the morning the Head had +gone, leaving all things in charge of Mr. King, senior house-master. +The Head often ran up to town, where the school devoutly believed he +bribed officials for early proofs of the Army Examination papers; but +this absence was unusually prolonged. + +"Downy old bird!" said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in +the study. "He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under a +false name." + +"What for?" Beetle entered joyously into the libel. + +"Forty shillin's or a month for hackin' the chucker-out of the Pavvy +on the shins. Bates always has a spree when he goes to town. Wish he +was back, though. I'm about sick o' King's 'whips an' scorpions' an' +lectures on public-school spirit--yah!--and scholarship!" + +"'Crass an' materialized brutality of the middle-classes--readin' +solely for marks. Not a scholar in the whole school,'" McTurk +quoted, pensively boring holes in the mantel-piece with a hot poker. + +"That's rather a sickly way of spending an afternoon. Stinks too. +Let's come out an' smoke. Here's a treat." Stalky held up a long +Indian cheroot. "'Bagged it from my pater last holidays. I'm a bit +shy of it though; it's heftier than a pipe. We'll smoke it +palaver-fashion. Hand it round, eh? Let's lie up behind the old harrow +on the Monkey-farm Road." + +"Out of bounds. Bounds beastly strict these days, too. Besides, we +shall cat." Beetle sniffed the cheroot critically. "It's a regular +Pomposo Stinkadore." + +"You can; I shan't. What d'you say, Turkey?" + +"Oh, may's well, I s'pose." + +"Chuck on your cap, then. It's two to one. Beetle, out you come!" + +They saw a group of boys by the notice-board in the corridor; little +Foxy, the school sergeant, among them. + +"More bounds, I expect," said Stalky. "Hullo, Foxibus, who are you in +mournin' for?" There was a broad band of crape round Foxy's arm. + +"He was in my old regiment," said Foxy, jerking his head towards the +notices, where a newspaper cutting was thumb-tacked between callover +lists. + +"By gum!" quoth Stalky, uncovering as he read. "It's old +Duncan--Fat-Sow Duncan--killed on duty at something or other Kotal. +'_Rallyin'_his_men_with_ _conspicuous_gallantry._' He would, of +course. '_The_body_was_recovered_.' That's all right. They cut 'em up +sometimes, don't they, Foxy?" + +"Horrid," said the sergeant briefly. + +"Poor old Fat-Sow! I was a fag when he left. How many does that make +to us, Foxy?" + +"Mr. Duncan, he is the ninth. He come here when he was no bigger than +little Grey tertius. My old regiment, too. Yiss, nine to us, Mr. +Corkran, up to date." + +The boys went out into the wet, walking swiftly. + +"Wonder how it feels--to be shot and all that," said Stalky, as they +splashed down a lane. "Where did it happen, Beetle?" + +"Oh, out in India somewhere. We're always rowin' there. But look here, +Stalky, what _is_ the good o' sittin' under a hedge an' cattin'? It's +be-eastly cold. It's be-eastly wet, and we'll be collared as sure as +a gun." + +"Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess +yet?" Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats. +They pushed through a dripping hedge, landed among water-logged clods, +and sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with +sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to +the other between dosed forefinger and thumb. + +"Good job we hadn't one apiece, ain't it?" said Stalky, shivering +through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before +them, and they followed his example... + +"I told you," moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. "Oh, Stalky, you +are a fool!" + +"_Je_cat_, _tu_cat_, _il_cat_. _Nous cattons_!" McTurk handed up his +contribution and lay hopelessly on the cold iron. + +"Something's wrong with the beastly thing. I say, Beetle, have you +been droppin' ink on it?" + +But Beetle was in no case to answer. Limp and empty, they sprawled +across the harrow, the rust marking their ulsters in red squares and +the abandoned cheroot-end reeking under their very cold noses. +Then--they had heard nothing--the Head himself stood before them--the +Head who should have been in town bribing examiners--the Head +fantastically attired in old tweeds and a deer-stalker! + +"Ah," he said, fingering his mustache. "Very good. I might have +guessed who it was. You will go back to the College and give my +compliments to Mr. King and ask him to give you an extra-special +licking. You will then do me five hundred lines. I shall be back +to-morrow. Five hundred lines by five o'clock to-morrow. You are also +gated for a week. This is not exactly the time for breaking bounds. +Extra-special, please." + +He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had come. There was a +murmur of women's voices in the deep lane. + +"Oh, you Prooshan brute!" said McTurk as the voices died away. +"Stalky, it's all your silly fault." + +"Kill him! Kill him!" gasped Beetle. + +"I ca-an't. I'm going to cat again... I don't mind that, but King'll +gloat over us horrid. Extra-special, ooh!" + +Stalky made no answer--not even a soft one. They went to College and +received that for which they had been sent. King enjoyed himself most +thoroughly, for by virtue of their seniority the boys were exempt +from his hand, save under special order. Luckily, he was no expert +in the gentle art. + +"'Strange, how desire doth outrun performance,'" said Beetle +irreverently, quoting from some Shakespeare play that they were +cramming that term. They regained their study and settled down to the +imposition. + +"You're quite right, Beetle." Stalky spoke in silky and propitiating +tones. "Now, if the Head had sent us up to a prefect, we'd have got +something to remember!" + +"Look here," McTurk began with cold venom, "we aren't goin' to row you +about this business, because it's too bad for a row; but we want you +to understand you're jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. You're a +plain ass." + +"How was I to know that the Head 'ud collar us? What was he doin' in +those ghastly clothes, too?" + +"Don't try to raise a side-issue," Beetle grunted severely. + +"Well, it was all Stettson major's fault. If he hadn't gone an' got +diphtheria 'twouldn't have happened. But don't you think it rather +rummy--the Head droppin' on us that way?" + +"Shut up! You're dead!" said Beetle. "We've chopped your spurs off +your beastly heels. We've cocked your shield upside down and---and I +don't think you ought to be allowed to brew for a month." + +"Oh, stop jawin' at me. I want--" + +"Stop? Why--why, we're gated for a week." McTurk almost howled as the +agony of the situation over-came him. "A lickin' from King, five +hundred lines, _and_ a gatin'. D'you expect us to kiss you, Stalky, +you beast?" + +"Drop rottin' for a minute. I want to find out about the Head bein' +where he was." + +"Well, you have. You found him quite well and fit. Found him makin' +love to Stettson major's mother. That was her in the lane--I heard +her. And so we were ordered a lickin' before a day-boy's mother. Bony +old widow, too," said McTurk. "Anything else you'd like to find out?" + +"I don't care. I swear I'll get even with him some day," Stalky +growled. + +"Looks like it," said McTurk. "Extra-special, week's gatin' and five +hundred... and now you're goin' to row about it! Help scrag him, +Beetle!" Stalky had thrown his Virgil at them. + +The Head returned next day without explanation, to find the lines +waiting for him and the school a little relaxed under Mr. King's +viceroyalty. Mr. King had been talking at and round and over the +boys' heads, in a lofty and promiscuous style, of public-school +spirit and the traditions of ancient seats; for he always improved an +occasion. Beyond waking in two hundred and fifty young hearts a lively +hatred of all other foundations, he accomplished little--so little, +indeed, that when, two days after the Head's return, he chanced to +come across Stalky & Co., gated but ever resourceful, playing marbles +in the corridor, he said that he was not surprised--not in the least +surprised. This was what he had expected from persons of their +_morale_. + +"But there isn't any rule against marbles, sir. Very interestin' +game," said Beetle, his knees white with chalk and dust. Then he +received two hundred lines for insolence, besides an order to go to +the nearest prefect for judgment and slaughter. + +This is what happened behind the closed doors of Flint's study, and +Flint was then Head of the Games:-- + +"Oh, I say, Flint. King has sent me to you for playin' marbles in the +corridor an' shoutin' 'alley tor' an' 'knuckle down.'" + +"What does he suppose I have to do with that?" was the answer. + +"Dunno. Well?" Beetle grinned wickedly. "What am I to tell him? He's +rather wrathy about it." + +"If the Head chooses to put a notice in the corridor forbiddin' +marbles, I can do something; but I can't move on a house-master's +report. He knows that as well as I do." + +The sense of this oracle Beetle conveyed, all unsweetened, to King, +who hastened to interview Flint. + +Now Flint had been seven and a half years at the College, counting six +months with a London crammer, from whose roof he had returned, +homesick, to the Head for the final Army polish. There were four or +five other seniors who bad gone through much the same mill, not to +mention boys, rejected by other establishments on account of a +certain overwhelmingness, whom the Head had wrought into very fair +shape. It was not a Sixth to be handled without gloves, as King +found. + +"Am I to understand it is your intention to allow board-school games +under your study windows, Flint? If so, I can only say--" He said +much, and Flint listened politely. + +"Well, sir, if the Head sees fit to call a prefects' meeting we are +bound to take the matter up. But the tradition of the school is that +the prefects can't move in any matter affecting the whole school +without the Head's direct order." + +Much more was then delivered, both sides a little losing their +temper. + +After tea, at an informal gathering of prefects in his study, Flint +related the adventure. + +"He's been playin' for this for a week, and now he's got it. You know +as well as I do that if he hadn't been gassing at us the way he has, +that young devil Beetle wouldn't have dreamed of marbles." + +"We know that," said Perowne, "but that isn't the question. On Flint's +showin' King has called the prefects names enough to justify a +first-class row. Crammers' rejections, ill-regulated hobble-de-hoys, +wasn't it? Now it's impossible for prefects--" + +"Rot," said Flint. "King's the best classical cram we've got; and +'tisn't fair to bother the Head with a row. He's up to his eyes with +extra-tu. and Army work as it is. Besides, as I told King, we +_aren't_ a public school. We're a limited liability company payin' +four per cent. My father's a shareholder, too." + +"What's that got to do with it?" said Venner, a red-headed boy of +nineteen. + +"Well, seems to me that we should be interferin' with ourselves. We've +got to get into the Army or--get out, haven't we? King's hired by the +Council to teach us. All the rest's gumdiddle. Can't you see?" + +It might have been because he felt the air was a little thunderous +that the Head took his after-dinner cheroot to Flint's study; but he +so often began an evening in a prefect's room that nobody suspected +when he drifted in pensively, after the knocks that etiquette +demanded. + +"Prefects' meeting?" A cock of one wise eye-brow. + +"Not exactly, sir; we're just talking things over. Won't you take the +easy chair?" + +"Thanks. Luxurious infants, you are." He dropped into Flint's big +half-couch and puffed for a while in silence. "Well, since you're all +here, I may confess that I'm the mute with the bowstring." + +The young faces grew serious. The phrase meant that certain of their +number would be withdrawn from all further games for extra-tuition. +It might also mean future success at Sandhurst; but it was present +ruin for the First Fifteen. + +"Yes, I've come for my pound of flesh. I ought to have had you out +before the Exeter match; but it's our sacred duty to beat Exeter." + +"Isn't the Old Boys' match sacred, too, sir?" said Perowne. The Old +Boys' match was the event of the Easter term. + +"We'll hope they aren't in training. Now for the list. First I want +Flint. It's the Euclid that does it. You must work deductions with +me. Perowne, extra mechanical drawing. Dawson goes to Mr. King for +extra Latin, and Venner to me for German. Have I damaged the First +Fifteen much?" He smiled sweetly. + +"Ruined it, I'm afraid, sir," said Flint. "Can't you let us off till +the end of the term?" + +"Impossible. It will be a tight squeeze for Sandhurst this year." + +"And all to be cut up by those vile Afghans, too," said Dawson. +"Wouldn't think there'd be so much competition, would you?" + +"Oh, that reminds me. Crandall is coming down with the Old Boys--I've +asked twenty of them, but we shan't get more than a weak team. I +don't know whether he'll be much use, though. He was rather knocked +about, recovering poor old Duncan's body." + +"Crandall major--the Gunner?" Perowne asked. + +"No, the minor--'Toffee' Crandall--in a native infantry regiment. He +was almost before your time, Perowne." + +"The papers didn't say anything about him. We read about Fat-Sow, of +course. What's Crandall done. sir?" + +"I've brought over an Indian paper that his mother sent me. It was +rather a--hefty, I think you say--piece of work. Shall I read it?" +The Head knew how to read. When he had finished the quarter-column of +close type everybody thanked him politely. + +"Good for the old Coll.!" said Perowne. "Pity he wasn't in time to +save Fat-Sow, though. That's nine to us, isn't it, in the last three +years?" + +"Yes... And I took old Duncan off all games for extra-tu. five years +ago this term," said the Head. "By the way, who do you hand over the +Games to, Flint?" + +"Haven't thought yet. Who'd you recommend, sir?" + +"No, thank you. I've heard it casually hinted behind my back that the +Prooshan Bates is a downy bird, but he isn't going to make himself +responsible for a new Head of the Games. Settle it among yourselves. +Good-night." + +"And that's the man," said Flint, when the door shut, "that you want +to bother with a dame's school row." + +"I was only pullin' your fat leg," Perowne returned, hastily. "You're +so easy to draw, Flint." + +"Well, never mind that. The Head's knocked the First Fifteen to bits, +and we've got to pick up the pieces, or the Old Boys will have a +walk-over. Let's promote all the Second Fifteen and make Big Side +play up. There's heaps of talent somewhere that we can polish up +between now and the match." + +The case was represented so urgently to the school that even Stalky +and McTurk, who affected to despise football, played one Big-Side +game seriously. They were forthwith promoted ere their ardor had time +to cool, and the dignity of their Caps demanded that they should keep +some show of virtue. The match-team was worked at least four days out +of seven, and the school saw hope ahead. + +With the last week of the term the Old Boys begat to arrive, and their +welcome was nicely proportioned to their worth. Gentlemen cadets from +Sandhurst and Woolwich, who had only left a year ago, but who carried +enormous side, were greeted with a cheerful "Hullo! What's the Shop +like?" from those who had shared their studies. Militia subalterns +had more consideration, but it was understood they were not precisely +of the true metal. Recreants who, failing for the Army, had gone into +business or banks were received for old sake's sake, but in no way +made too much of. But when the real subalterns, officers and +gentlemen full-blown--who had been to the ends of the earth and back +again and so carried no side--came on the scene strolling about with +the Head, the school divided right and left in admiring silence. And +when one laid hands on Flint, even upon the Head of the Games crying, +"Good Heavens! What do you mean by growing in this way? You were a +beastly little fag when I left," visible haloes encircled Flint. They +would walk to and fro in the corridor with the little red +school-sergeant, telling news of old regiments; they would burst into +form-rooms sniffing the well-remembered smells of ink and whitewash; +they would find nephews and cousins in the lower forms and present +them with enormous wealth; or they would invade the gymnasium and +make Foxy show off the new stock on the bars. + +Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was father-confessor +and agent-general to them all; for what they shouted in their +unthinking youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhood--to wit, +that the Prooshan Bates was "a downy bird." Young blood who had +stumbled into an entanglement with a pastry-cook's daughter at +Plymouth; experience who had come into a small legacy but mistrusted +lawyers; ambition halting at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that +would lead him farthest; extravagance pursued by the money-lender; +arrogance in the thick of a regimental row--each carried his trouble +to the Head; and Chiron showed him, in language quite unfit for +little boys, a quiet and safe way round, out, or under. So they +overflowed his house, smoked his cigars, and drank his health as they +had drunk it all the earth over when two or three of the old school +had foregathered. + +"Don't stop smoking for a minute," said the Head. "The more you're out +of training the better for us. I've demoralized the First Fifteen +with extra-tu." + +"Ah, but we're a scratch lot. Have you told 'em we shall need a +substitute even if Crandall can play?" said a Lieutenant of Engineers +with a D.S.O. to his credit. + +"He wrote me he'd play, so he can't have been much hurt. He's coming +down to-morrow morning." + +"Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor Duncan's body?" The +Head nodded. "Where are you going to put him? We've turned you out +of house and home already, Head Sahib." This was a Squadron Commander +of Bengal Lancers, home on leave. + +"I'm afraid he'll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know old +boys can claim that privilege. Yes, I think little Crandall minor +must bed down there once more." + +"Bates Sahib "--a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head's +neck--"you've got something up your sleeve. Confess! I know that +twinkle." + +"Can't you see, you cuckoo?" a Submarine Miner interrupted. "Crandall +goes up to the dormitory as an object-lesson, for moral effect and so +forth. Isn't that true, Head Sahib?" + +"It is. You know too much, Purvis. I licked you for that in '79." + +"You did, sir, and it's my private belief you chalked the cane." + +"N-no. But I've a very straight eye. Perhaps that misled you." + +That opened the flood-gates of fresh memories, and they all told tales +out of school. + +When Crandall minor that was--Lieutenant R. Crandall of an ordinary +Indian regiment--arrived from Exeter on the morning of the match, he +was cheered along the whole front of the College, for the prefects +had repeated the sense of that which the Head had read them in +Flint's study. When Prout's house understood that he would claim his +Old Boy's right to a bed for one night, Beetle ran into King's house +next door and executed a public "gloat" up and down the enemy's big +form-room, departing in a haze of ink-pots. + +"What d'you take any notice of those rotters for?" said Stalky, +playing substitute for the Old Boys, magnificent in black jersey, +white knickers, and black stockings. "I talked to _him_ up in the +dormitory when he was changin'. Pulled his sweater down for him. He's +cut about all over the arms--horrid purply ones. He's goin' to tell +us about it to-night. I asked him to when I was lacin' his boots." + +"Well, you _have_ got cheek," said Beetle, enviously. + +"Slipped out before I thought. But he wasn't a bit angry. He's no end +of a chap. I swear, I'm goin' to play up like beans. Tell Turkey!" + +The technique of that match belongs to a bygone age. Scrimmages were +tight and enduring; hacking was direct and to the purpose; and around +the scrimmage stood the school, crying, "Put down your heads and +shove!" Toward the end everybody lost all sense of decency, and +mothers of day-boys too close to the touch-line heard language not +included in the bills. No one was actually carried off the field, but +both sides felt happier when time was called, and Beetle helped +Stalky and McTurk into their overcoats. The two had met in the +many-legged heart of things, and, as Stalky said, had "done each +other proud." As they swaggered woodenly behind the teams-- +substitutes do not rank as equals of hairy men--they passed a +pony-carriage near the wall, and a husky voice cried, "Well played. +Oh, played indeed!" It was Stettson major, white-checked and +hollow-eyed, who had fought his way to the ground under escort of an +impatient coachman. + +"Hullo, Stettson," said Stalky, checking. "Is it safe to come near you +yet?" + +"Oh, yes. I'm all right. They wouldn't let me out before, but I had to +come to the match. Your mouth looks pretty plummy." + +"Turkey trod on it accidental-done-a-purpose. Well, I'm glad you're +better, because we owe you something. You and your membranes got us +into a sweet mess, young man." + +"I heard of that," said the boy, giggling. "The Head told me." + +"Dooce he did! When?" + +"Oh, come on up to Coll. My shin'll stiffen if we stay jawin' here." + +"Shut up, Turkey. I want to find out about this. Well?" + +"He was stayin' at our house all the time I was ill." + +"What for? Neglectin' the Coll. that way? 'Thought he was in town." + +"I was off my head, you know, and they said I kept on callin' for +him." + +"Cheek! You're only a day-boy." + +"He came just the same, and he about saved my life. I was all bunged +up one night--just goin' to croak, the doctor said--and they stuck a +tube or somethin' in my throat, and the Head sucked out the stuff." + +"Ugh! 'Shot if _I_ would!" + +"He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the doctor said. So he +stayed on at our house instead of going back. I'd ha' croaked in +another twenty minutes, the doctor says." + +Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up and nearly ran over +the three. + +"My Hat!" said Beetle. "That's pretty average heroic." + +"Pretty average!" McTurk's knee in the small of his back cannoned him +into Stalky, who punted him back. "You ought to be hung!" + +"And the Head ought to get the V.C.," said Stalky. "Why, he might have +been dead _and_ buried by now. But he wasn't. But he didn't. Ho! ho! +He just nipped through the hedge like a lusty old blackbird. +Extra-special, five hundred lines, an' gated for a week--all +sereno!" + +"I've read o' somethin' like that in a book," said Beetle. "Gummy, +what a chap! Just think of it!" + +"I'm thinking," said McTurk; and he delivered a wild Irish yell that +made the team turn round. + +"Shut your fat mouth," said Stalky, dancing with impatience. "Leave it +to your Uncle Stalky, and he'll have the Head on toast. If you say a +word, Beetle, till I give you leave, I swear I'll slay you. +_Habeo_Capitem_crinibus_minimis._ I've got him by the short hairs! +Now look as if nothing had happened." + +There was no need of guile. The school was too busy cheering the drawn +match. It hung round the lavatories regardless of muddy boots while +the team washed. It cheered Crandall minor whenever it caught sight +of him, and it cheered more wildly than ever after prayers, because +the Old Boys in evening dress, openly twirling their mustaches, +attended, and instead of standing with the masters, ranged themselves +along the wall immediately before the prefects; and the Head called +them over, too--majors, minors, and tertiuses, after their old names. + +"Yes, it's all very fine," he said to his guests after dinner, "but +the boys are getting a little out of hand. There will be trouble and +sorrow later, I'm afraid. You'd better turn in early, Crandall. The +dormitory will be sitting up for you. I don't know to what dizzy +heights you may climb in your profession, but I do know you'll never +get such absolute adoration as you're getting now." + +"Confound the adoration. I want to finish my cigar, sir." + +"It's all pure gold. Go where glory waits, Crandall--minor." + +The setting of that apotheosis was a ten-bed attic dormitory, +communicating through doorless openings with three others. The gas +flickered over the raw pine washstands. There was an incessant +whistling of drafts, and outside the naked windows the sea beat on +the Pebbleridge. + +"Same old bed--same old mattress, I believe," said Crandall, yawning. +"Same old everything. Oh, but I'm lame! I'd no notion you chaps could +play like this." He caressed a battered shin. "You've given us all +something to remember you by." + +It needed a few minutes to put them at their ease; and, in some way +they could not understand, they were more easy when Crandall turned +round and said his prayers--a ceremony he had neglected for some +years. + +"Oh, I _am_ sorry. I've forgotten to put out the gas." + +"Please don't bother," said the prefect of the dormitory. "Worthington +does that." + +A nightgowned twelve-year-old, who had been waiting to show off, +leaped from his bed to the bracket and back again, by way of a +washstand. + +"How d'you manage when he's asleep?" said Crandall, chuckling. + +"Shove a cold cleek down his neck." + +"It was a wet sponge when I was junior in the dormitory... Hullo! +What's happening?" + +The darkness had filled with whispers, the sound of trailing rugs, +bare feet on bare boards, protests, giggles, and threats such as: + +"Be quiet, you ass!... Squattez-vous on the floor, then!... I swear +you aren't going to sit on _my_ bed!... Mind the tooth-glass," etc. + +Sta--Corkran said," the prefect began, his tone showing his sense of +Stalky's insolence, "that perhaps you'd tell us about that business +with Duncan's body." + +"Yes--yes--yes," ran the keen whispers. "Tell us" + +"There's nothing to tell. What on earth are you chaps hoppin' about in +the cold for?" + +"Never mind us," said the voices. "Tell about Fat-Sow." + +So Crandall turned on his pillow and spoke to the generation he could +not see. + +"Well, about three months ago he was commanding a treasure-guard--a +cart full of rupees to pay troops with--five thousand rupees in +silver. He was comin' to a place called Fort Pearson, near Kalabagh." + +"I was born there," squeaked a small fag. "It was called after my +uncle." + +"Shut up--you and your uncle! Never mind him, Crandall." + +"Well, ne'er mind. The Afridis found out that this treasure was on the +move, and they ambushed the whole show a couple of miles before he +got to the fort, and cut up the escort. Duncan was wounded, and the +escort hooked it. There weren't more than twenty Sepoys all told, and +there were any amount of Afridis. As things turned out, I was in +charge at Fort Pearson. Fact was, I'd heard the firing and was just +going to see about it, when Duncan's men came up. So we all turned +back together. They told me something about an officer, but I +couldn't get the hang of things till I saw a chap under the wheels of +the cart out in the open, propped up on one arm, blazing away with a +revolver. You see, the escort had abandoned the cart, and the +Afridis--they're an awfully suspicious gang --thought the retreat was +a trap--sort of draw, you know--and the cart was the bait. So they +had left poor old Duncan alone. 'Minute they spotted how few we were, +it was a race across the flat who should reach old Duncan first. We +ran, and they ran, and we won, and after a little hackin' about they +pulled off. I never knew it was one of us till I was right on top of +him. There are heaps of Duncans in the service, and of course the name +didn't remind me. He wasn't changed at all hardly. He'd been shot +through the lungs, poor old man, and he was pretty thirsty. I gave +him a drink and sat down beside him, and--funny thing, too--he said, +'Hullo, Toffee!' and I said, 'Hullo, Fat-Sow! hope you aren't hurt,' +or something of the kind. But he died in a minute or two--never +lifted his head off my knees... I say, you chaps out there will get +your death of cold. Better go to bed." + +"All right. In a minute. But your cuts--your cuts. How did you get +wounded?" + +"That was when we were taking the body back to the Fort. They came on +again, and there was a bit of a scrimmage." + +"Did you kill any one?" + +"Yes. Shouldn't wonder. Good-night." + +"Good-night. Thank you, Crandall. Thanks awf'ly, Crandall. +Good-night." + +The unseen crowds withdrew. His own dormitory rustled into bed and lay +silent for a while. + +"I say, Crandall"--Stalky's voice was tuned to a wholly foreign +reverence. + +"Well, what?" + +"Suppose a chap found another chap croaking with diphtheria--all +bunged up with it--and they stuck a tube in his throat and the chap +sucked the stuff out, what would you say?" + +"Um," said Crandall, reflectively. "I've only heard of one case, and +that was a doctor. He did it for a woman." + +"Oh, this wasn't a woman. It was just a boy." + +"Makes it all the finer, then. It's about the bravest thing a man can +do. Why?" + +"Oh, I heard of a chap doin' it. That's all." + +"Then he's a brave man." + +"Would _you_ funk it?" + +"Ra-ather. Anybody would. Fancy dying of diphtheria in cold blood." + +"Well--ah! Er! Look here!" The sentence ended in a grunt, for Stalky +had leaped out of bed and with McTurk was sitting on the head of +Beetle, who would have sprung the mine there and then. + +Next day, which was the last of the term and given up to a few wholly +unimportant examinations, began with wrath and war. Mr. King had +discovered that nearly all his house--it lay, as you know, next door +but one to Prout's in the long range of buildings--had unlocked the +doors between the dormitories and had gone in to listen to a story +told by Crandall. He went to the Head, clamorous, injured, appealing; +for he never approved of allowing so-called young men of tile world +to contaminate the morals of boyhood. Very good, said the Head, he +would attend to it. + +"Well, I'm awf'ly sorry," said Crandall guiltily. "I don't think I +told 'em anything they oughtn't to hear. Don't let them get into +trouble on my account." + +"Tck!" the Head answered, with the ghost of a wink. "It isn't the boys +that make trouble; it's the masters. However, Prout and King don't +approve of dormitory gatherings on this scale, and one must back up +the house-masters. Moreover, it's hopeless to punish two houses only, +so late in the term. We must be fair and include everybody. Let's +see. They have a holiday task for the Easters, which, of course, none +of them will ever look at. We will give the whole school, except +prefects and study-boys, regular prep. to-night; and the Common-room +will have to supply a master to take it. We must be fair to all." + +"Prep. on the last night of the term. Whew!" said Crandall, thinking +of his own wild youth. "I fancy there will be larks." + +The school, frolicking among packed trunks, whooping down the +corridor, and "gloating" in form-rooms, received the news with +amazement and rage. No school in the world did prep. on the last +night of the term. This thing was monstrous, tyrannical, subversive +of law, religion, and morality. They would go into the form-rooms, +and they would take their degraded holiday task with them, but--here +they smiled and speculated what manner of man the Common-room would +send up against them. The lot fell on Mason, credulous and +enthusiastic, who loved youth. No other master was anxious to take +that "prep.," for the school lacked the steadying influence of +tradition; and men accustomed to the ordered routine of ancient +foundations found it occasionally insubordinate. The four long +form-rooms, in which all below the rank of study-boys worked, +received him with thunders of applause. Ere he had coughed twice they +favored him with a metrical summary of the marriage laws of Great +Britain, as recorded by the High Priest of the Israelites and +commented on by the leader of the host. The lower forms reminded him +that it was the last day, and that therefore he must "take it all in +play." When he dashed off to rebuke them, the Lower Fourth and Upper +Third began with one accord to be sick, loudly and realistically. Mr. +Mason tried, of all vain things under heaven, to argue with them, and +a bold soul at a back desk bade him "take fifty lines for not 'olding +up 'is 'and before speaking." As one who prided himself upon the +perfection of his English this cut Mason to the quick, and while he +was trying to discover the offender, the Upper and Lower Second, +three form-rooms away, turned out the gas and threw ink-pots. It was +a pleasant and stimulating "prep." The study-boys and prefects heard +the echoes of it far off, and the Common-room at dessert smiled. + +Stalky waited, watch in hand, till half-past eight. "If it goes on +much longer the Head will come up," said he. "We'll tell the studies +first, and then the dorm-rooms. Look sharp!" + +He allowed no time for Beetle to be dramatic or McTurk to drawl. They +poured into study after study, told their tale, and went again so +soon as they saw they were understood, waiting for no comment; while +the noise of that unholy "prep." grew and deepened. By the door of +Flint's study they met Mason flying towards the corridor.--"He's +gone to fetch the Head. Hurry up! Come on!" They broke into Number +Twelve form-room abreast and panting. + +"The Head! The Head! The Head!" That call stilled the tumult for a +minute, and Stalky, leaping to a desk, shouted, "He went and sucked +the diphtheria stuff out of Stettson major's throat when we thought +he was in town. Stop rotting, you asses! Stettson major would have +croaked if the Head hadn't done it. The Head might have died himself. +Crandall says it's the bravest thing any livin' man can do, and +I"--his voice cracked--"the Head don't know we know!" + +McTurk and Beetle, jumping from desk to desk, drove the news home +among the junior forms. There was a pause, and then, Mason behind +him, the Head entered. It was in the established order of things that +no boy should speak or move under his eye. He expected the hush of +awe. He was received with cheers--steady, ceaseless cheering. Being +a wise man, he went away, and the forms were silent and a little +frightened. + +"It's all right," said Stalky. "He can't do much. 'Tisn't as if you'd +pulled the desks up like we did when old Carleton took prep. once. +Keep it up! Hear 'em cheering in the studies!" He rocketed out with a +yell, to find Flint and the prefects lifting the roof off the +corridor. + +When the Head of a limited liability company, paying four per cent., +is cheered on his saintly way to prayers, not only by four form-rooms +of boys waiting punishment, but by his trusted prefects, he can +either ask for an explanation or go his road with dignity, while the +senior house-master glares like an excited cat and points out to a +white and trembling mathematical master that certain methods--not +his, thank God---usually produce certain results. Out of delicacy the +Old Boys did not attend that call-over; and it was to the school +drawn up in the gymnasium that the Head spoke icily. + +"It is not often that I do not understand you; but I confess I do not +to-night. Some of you, after your idiotic performances at prep., seem +to think me a fit person to cheer. I am going to show you that I am +not." + +Crash--crash--crash--came the triple cheer that disproved it, and the +Head glowered under the gas. "That is enough. You will gain nothing. +The little boys (the Lower School did not like that form of address) +will do me three hundred lines apiece in the holidays. I shall take +no further notice of them. The Upper School will do me one thousand +lines apiece in the holidays, to be shown up the evening of the day +they come back. And further--" + +"Gummy, what a glutton!" Stalky whispered. + +"For your behavior towards Mr. Mason I intend to lick the whole of the +Upper School to-morrow when I give you your journey-money. This will +include the three study-boys I found dancing on the form-room desks +when I came up. Prefects will stay after call-over." + +The school filed out in silence, but gathered in groups by the +gymnasium door waiting what might befall. + +"And now, Flint," said the Head, "will you be good enough to give me +some explanation of your conduct?" + +"Well, sir," said Flint desperately, "if you save a chap's life at the +risk of your own when he's dyin' of diphtheria, and the Coll. finds +it out, wha-what can you expect, sir?" + +"Um, I see. Then that noise was not meant for--ah, cheek. I can +connive at immorality, but I cannot stand impudence. However, it does +not excuse their insolence to Mr. Mason. I'll forego the lines this +once, remember; but the lickings hold good." + +When this news was made public, the school, lost in wonder and +admiration, gasped at the Head as he went to his house. Here was a +man to be reverenced. On the rare occasions when he caned he did it +very scientifically, and the execution of a hundred boys would be +epic--immense. + +"It's all right, Head Sahib. _We_ know," said Crandall, as the Head +slipped off his gown with a grunt in his smoking-room. "I found out +just now from our substitute. He was gettin' my opinion of your +performance last night in the dormitory. I didn't know then that it +was you he was talkin' about. Crafty young animal. Freckled chap with +eyes---Corkran, I think his name is." + +"Oh, I know _him_, thank you," said the Head, and reflectively. +"Ye-es, I should have included them even if I hadn't seen 'em." + +"If the old Coll. weren't a little above themselves already, we'd +chair you down the corridor," said the Engineer. "Oh, Bates, how +could you? You might have caught it yourself, and where would we have +been, then?" + +"I always knew you were worth twenty of us any day. Now I'm sure of +it," said the Squadron Commander, looking round for contradictions. + +"He isn't fit to manage a school, though. Promise you'll never do it +again, Bates Sahib. We--we can't go away comfy in our minds if you +take these risks," said the Gunner. + +"Bates Sahib, you aren't ever goin' to cane the whole Upper School, +are you?" said Crandall. + +"I can connive at immorality, as I said, but I can't stand impudence. +Mason's lot is quite hard enough even when I back him. Besides, the +men at the golf-club heard them singing 'Aaron and Moses.' I shall +have complaints about that from the parents of day-boys. Decency must +be preserved." + +"We're coming to help," said all the guests. + + +The Upper School were caned one after the other, their overcoats over +their arms, the brakes waiting in the road below to take them to the +station, their journey-money on the table. The Head began with +Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle. He dealt faithfully by them. + +"And here's your journey-money. Good-by, and pleasant holidays." + +"Good-by. Thank you, sir. Good-by." + +They shook hands. "Desire don't outrun performance--much--this +mornin'. We got the cream of it," said Stalky. "Now wait till a few +chaps come out, and we'll really cheer him." + +"Don't wait on our account, please," said Crandall, speaking for the +Old Boys. "We're going to begin now." + +It was very well so long as the cheering was confined to the corridor, +but when it spread to the gymnasium, when the boys awaiting their +turn cheered, the Head gave it up in despair, and the remnant flung +themselves upon him to shake hands. Then they seriously devoted +themselves to cheering till the brakes were hustled off the premises +in dumb-show. + +"Didn't I say I'd get even with him?" said Stalky on the box-seat, as +they swung into the narrow Northam street. "Now all together--takin' +time from your Uncle Stalky: + "It's a way we have in the Army, + It's a way we have in the Navy, + It's a way we have at the Public Schools, + Which nobody can deny!" + + + +THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. + + +It was winter and bitter cold of mornings. Consequently Stalky and +Beetle--McTurk being of the offensive type that makes ornate toilet +under all circumstances-drowsed till the last moment before turning +out to call-over in the gas-lit gymnasium. It followed that they were +often late; and since every unpunctuality earned them a black mark, +and since three black marks a week meant defaulters' drill, equally +it followed that they spent hours under the Sergeant's hand. Foxy +drilled the defaulters with all the pomp of his old parade-ground. +"Don't think it's any pleasure to me" (his introduction never +varied). "I'd much sooner be smoking a quiet pipe in my own +quarters--but I see we 'ave the Old Brigade on our 'ands this +afternoon. If I only 'ad you regular, Muster Corkran," said he, +dressing the line. + +"You've had me for nearly six weeks, you old glutton. Number off from +the right!" + +"Not _quite_ so previous, please. I'm taking this drill. Left, +half--turn! Slow--march." Twenty-five sluggards, all old offenders, +filed into the gymnasium. "Quietly provide yourselves with the +requisite dumb-bells; returnin' quietly to your place. Number off +from the right, in a low voice. Odd numbers one pace to the front. +Even numbers stand fast. Now, leanin' forward from the 'ips, takin' +your time from me." + +The dumb-bells rose and fell, clashed and were returned as one. The +boys were experts at the weary game. + +"Ve-ry good. I shall be sorry when any of you resume your 'abits of +punctuality. Quietly return dumb-bells. We will now try some simple +drill." + +"Ugh! I know that simple drill." + +"It would he 'ighly to your discredit if you did not, Muster Corkran. +_At_ the same time, it is not so easy as it looks." + +"Bet you a bob, I can drill as well as you, Foxy." + +"We'll see later. Now try to imagine you ain't defaulters at all, but +an 'arf company on parade, me bein' your commandin' officer. There's +no call to laugh. If you're lucky, most of you will 'ave to take +drills 'arf your life. Do me a little credit. You've been at it long +enough, goodness knows." + +They were formed into fours, marched, wheeled, and countermarched, the +spell of ordered motion strong on them. As Foxy said, they had been +at it a long time. + +The gymnasium door opened, revealing McTurk in charge of an old +gentleman. + +The Sergeant, leading a wheel, did not see. "Not so bad," he murmured. +"Not 'arf so bad. The pivot-man of the wheel _honly_ marks time, +Muster Swayne. Now, Muster Corkran, you say you know the drill? +Oblige me by takin' over the command and, reversin' my words step by +step, relegate them to their previous formation." + +"What's this? What's this?" cried the visitor authoritatively. + +"A--a little drill, sir," stammered Foxy, saying nothing of first +causes. + +"Excellent--excellent. I only wish there were more of it," he +chirruped. "Don't let me interrupt. You were just going to hand over +to someone, weren't you?" + +He sat down, breathing frostily in the chill air. "I shall muck it. I +know I shall," whispered Stalky uneasily; and his discomfort was not +lightened by a murmur from the rear rank that the old gentleman was +General Collinson, a member of the College Board of Council. + +"Eh--what?" said Foxy. + +"Collinson, K.C.B.--He commanded the Pompadours-my father's old +regiment," hissed Swayne major. + +"Take your time," said the visitor. "_I_ know how it feels. Your first +drill--eh?" + +"Yes, sir." He drew an unhappy breath. "'Tention. Dress!" The echo of +his own voice restored his confidence. + +The wheel was faced about, flung back, broken into fours, and restored +to line without a falter. The official hour of punishment was long +passed, but no one thought of that. They were backing up +Stalky--Stalky in deadly fear lest his voice should crack. + +"He does you credit, Sergeant," was the visitor's comment. "A good +drill--and good material to drill. Now, it's an extraordinary thing: +I've been lunching with your head-master and he never told me you had +a cadet-corps in the College." + +"We 'aven't, sir. This is only a little drill," said the Sergeant. + +"But aren't they keen on it?" said McTurk, speaking for the first +time, with a twinkle in his deep-set eyes. + +"Why aren't you in it, though, Willy?" + +"Oh, I'm not punctual enough," said McTurk. "The Sergeant only takes +the pick of us." + +"Dismiss! Break off!" cried Foxy, fearing an explosion in the ranks. +"I--I ought to have told you, sir, that--" + +"But you should have a cadet-corps." The General pursued his own line +of thought. "You _shall_ have a cadet-corps, too, if my +recommendation in Council is any use. I don't know when I've been so +pleased. Boys animated by a spirit like yours should set an example +to the whole school." + +"They do," said McTurk. + +"Bless my soul! Can it be so late? I've kept my fly waiting half an +hoar. Well, I must run away. Nothing like seeing things for one's +self. Which end of the buildings does one get out at? Will you show +me, Willy? Who was that boy who took the drill?" + +"Corkran, I think his name is." + +"You ought to know him. That's the kind of boy you should cultivate. +Evidently an unusual sort. A wonderful sight. Five and twenty boys, +who, I dare say, would much sooner be playing cricket--"(it was the +depth of winter; but grown people, especially those who have lived +long in foreign parts, make these little errors, and McTurk did not +correct him)--"drilling for the sheer love of it. A shame to waste so +much good stuff; but I think I can carry my point." + +"An' who's your friend with the white whiskers?" demanded Stalky, on +McTurk's return to the study. + +"General Collinson. He comes over to shoot with my father sometimes. +Rather a decent old bargee, too. He said I ought to cultivate your +acquaintance, Stalky." + +"Did he tip you?" McTurk exhibited a blessed whole sovereign. + +"Ah," said Stalky, annexing it, for he was treasurer. "We'll have a +hefty brew. You'd pretty average cool cheek, Turkey, to jaw about +our keenness an' punctuality." + +"Didn't the old boy know we were defaulters?" said Beetle. + +"Not him. He came down to lunch with the Head. I found him pokin' +about the place on his own hook afterwards, an' I thought I'd show +him the giddy drill. When I found he was so pleased, I wasn't goin' +to damp his giddy ardor. He mightn't ha' given me the quid if I had." + +"Wasn't old Foxy pleased? Did you see him get pink behind the ears?" +said Beetle. "It was an awful score for him. Didn't we back him up +beautifully? Let's go down to Keyte's and get some cocoa and +sassingers." + +They overtook Foxy, speeding down to retail the adventure to Keyte, +who in his time had been Troop Sergeant-Major in a cavalry regiment, +and now, war-worn veteran, was local postmaster and confectioner. + +"You owe us something," said Stalky, with meaning. + +"I'm 'ighly grateful, Muster Corkran. I've 'ad to run against you +pretty hard in the way o' business, now and then, but I will say that +outside o' business--bounds an' smokin', an' such like--I don't wish +to have a more trustworthy young gentleman to 'elp me out of a hole. +The way you 'andled the drill was beautiful, though I say it. Now, +if you come regular henceforward--" + +"But he'll have to be late three times a week," said Beetle. "You +can't expect a chap to do that--just to please you, Foxy." + +"Ah, that's true. Still, if you could manage it--and you, Muster +Beetle--it would give you a big start when the cadet-corps is formed. +I expect the General will recommend it." + +They raided Keyte's very much at their own sweet will, for the old +man, who knew them well, was deep in talk with Foxy. "I make what +we've taken seven and six," Stalky called at last over the counter; +"but you'd better count for yourself." + +"No--no. I'd take your word any day, Muster Corkran.--In the +Pompadours, was he, Sergeant? We lay with them once at Umballa, I +think it was." + +"I don't know whether this ham-and-tongue tin is eighteen pence or one +an' four." + +"Say one an' fourpence, Muster Corkran... Of course, Sergeant, if it +was any use to give my time, I'd be pleased to do it, but I'm too +old. I'd like to see a drill again." + +"Oh, come on, Stalky," cried McTurk. "He isn't listenin' to you. Chuck +over the money." + +"I want the quid changed, you ass. Keyte! Private Keyte! Corporal +Keyte! Terroop-Sergeant-Major Keyte, will you give me change for a +quid?" + +"Yes--yes, of course. Seven an' six." He stared abstractedly, pushed +the silver over, and melted away into the darkness of the back room. + +"Now those two'll jaw about the Mutiny till tea-time," said Beetle. + +"Old Keyte was at Sobraon," said Stalky. "Hear him talk about that +sometimes! Beats Foxy hollow." + + +The Head's face, inscrutable as ever, was bent over a pile of +letters. + +"What do you think?" he said at last to the Reverend John Gillett. + +"It's a good idea. There's no denying that--an estimable idea." + +"We concede that much. Well?" + +"I have my doubts about it--that's all. The more I know of boys the +less do I profess myself capable of following their moods; but I own +I shall be very much surprised if the scheme takes. It--it isn't the +temper of the school. We prepare for the Army." + +"My business--in _this_ matter--is to carry out the wishes of the +Council. They demand a volunteer cadet-corps. A volunteer cadet-corps +will be furnished. I have suggested, however, that we need not embark +upon the expense of uniforms till we are drilled. General Collinson +is sending us fifty lethal weapons--cut-down Sniders, he calls +them--all carefully plugged." + +"Yes, that is necessary in a school that uses loaded saloon-pistols to +the extent we do." The Reverend John smiled. + +"Therefore there will be no outlay except the Sergeant's time." + +"But if he fails you will be blamed." + +"Oh, assuredly. I shall post a notice in the corridor this afternoon, +and--" + +"I shall watch the result." + + +"Kindly keep your 'ands off the new arm-rack." Foxy wrestled with a +turbulent crowd in the gymnasium. "Nor it won't do even a condemned +Snider any good to be continual snappin' the lock, Mr. Swayne.--Yiss, +the uniforms will come later, when we're more proficient; at present +we will confine ourselves to drill. I am 'ere for the purpose o' +takin' the names o' those willin' to join.--Put down that Snider, +Muster Hogan!" + +"What are you goin' to do, Beetle?" said a voice. + +"I've had all the drill _I_ want, thank you." + +"What! After all you've learned? Come on! Don't be a scab! They'll +make you corporal in a week," cried Stalky. + +"I'm not goin' up for the Army." Beetle touched his spectacles. + +"Hold on a shake, Foxy," said Hogan. "Where are you goin' to drill +us?" + +"Here--in the gym--till you are fit an' capable to be taken out on the +road." The Sergeant threw a chest. + +"For all the Northam cads to look at? Not good enough, Foxibus." + +"Well, we won't make a point of it. You learn your drill first, an' +later we'll see." + +"Hullo," said Ansell of Macrea's, shouldering through the mob. "What's +all this about a giddy cadet-corps?" + +"It will save you a lot o' time at Sandburst," the Sergeant replied +promptly. "You'll be dismissed your drills early if you go up with a +good groundin' before'and." + +"Hm! 'Don't mind learnin' my drill, but I'm not goin' to ass about the +country with a toy Snider. Perowne, what are you goin' to do? Hogan's +joinin'." + +"Don't know whether I've the time," said Perowne. "I've got no end of +extra-tu as it is." + +"Well, call this extra-tu," said Ansell. "'Twon't take us long to mug +up the drill." + +"Oh, that's right enough, but what about marchin' in public?" said +Hogan, not foreseeing that three years later he should die in the +Burmese sun-light outside Minhla Fort. + +"Afraid the uniform won't suit your creamy complexion?" McTurk asked +with a villainous sneer. + +"Shut up, Turkey. You aren't goin' up for the Army." + +"No, but I'm goin' to send a substitute. Hi! Morrell an' Wake! You two +fags by the arm-rack, you've got to volunteer." + +Blushing deeply--they had been too shy to apply before--the youngsters +sidled towards the Sergeant. + +"But I don't want the little chaps--not at first," said the Sergeant +disgustedly. "I want--I'd like some of the Old Brigade the +defaulters--to stiffen 'em a bit." + +"Don't be ungrateful, Sergeant. They're nearly as big as you get 'em +in the Army now." McTurk read the papers of those years and could be +trusted for general information, which he used as he used his +"tweaker." Yet he did not know that Wake minor would be a bimbashi of +the Egyptian Army ere his thirtieth year. + +Hogan, Swayne, Stalky, Perowne, and Ansell were deep in consultation +by the vaulting-horse, Stalky as usual laying down the law. The +Sergeant watched them uneasily, knowing that many waited on their +lead. + +"Foxy don't like my recruits," said McTurk, in a pained tone, to +Beetle. "You get him some." + +Nothing loath, Beetle pinioned two more fags--each no taller than a +carbine. "Here you are, Foxy. Here's food for powder. Strike for your +hearths an' homes, you young brutes--an' be jolly quick about it." + +"Still he isn't happy," said McTurk. + + "For the way we have with our Army + Is the way we have with our Navy." + +Here Beetle joined in. They had found the poem in an old volume of +"Punch," and it seemed to cover the situation: + + "An' both of 'em led to adversity, + Which nobody can deny!" + +"You be quiet, young gentlemen. If you can't 'elp--don't 'inder." +Foxy's eye was still on the council by the horse. Carter, White, and +Tyrrell, all boys of influence, had joined it. The rest fingered the +rifles irresolutely. "Wait a shake," cried Stalky. "Can't we turn out +those rotters before we get to work?" + +"Certainly," said Foxy. "Any one wishful to join will stay 'ere. Those +who do not so intend will go out, quietly closin' the door be'ind +'em." + +Half a dozen of the earnest-minded rushed at them, and they had just +time to escape into the corridor. + +"Well, why don't you join?" Beetle asked, resettling his collar. + +"Why didn't you?" + +"What's the good? We aren't goin' up for the Army. Besides, I know the +drill--all except the manual, of course. 'Wonder what they're doin' +inside?" + +"Makin' a treaty with Foxy. Didn't you hear Stalky say: 'That's what +we'll do--an' if he don't like it he can lump it'? They'll use Foxy +for a cram. Can't you see, you idiot? They're goin' up for Sandhurst +or the Shop in less than a year. They'll learn their drill an' then +they'll drop it like a shot. D'you suppose chaps with their amount of +extra-tu are takin' up volunteerin' for fun?" + +"Well, I don't know. I thought of doin' a poem about it--rottin' 'em, +you know--'The Ballad of the Dogshooters'--eh?" + +"I don't think you can, because King'll be down on the corps like a +cartload o' bricks. He hasn't been consulted, he's sniffin' round the +notice-board now. Let's lure him." They strolled up carelessly +towards the honse-master--a most meek couple. + +"How's this?" said King with a start of feigned surprise. "Methought +you would be learning to fight for your country." + +"I think the company's full, sir," said McTurk. + +"It's a great pity," sighed Beetle. + +"Forty valiant defenders, have we, then? How noble! What devotion! I +presume that it is possible that a desire to evade their normal +responsibilities may be at the bottom of this zeal. Doubtless they +will be accorded special privileges, like the Choir and the Natural +History Society--one must not say Bug-hunters." + +"Oh, I suppose so, sir," said McTurk, cheerily. "The Head hasn't said +anything about it yet, but he will, of course." + +"Oh, sure to." + +"It is just possible, my Beetle," King wheeled on the last speaker, +"that the house-masters--a necessary but somewhat neglected factor in +our humble scheme of existence--may have a word to say on the matter. +Life, for the young at least, is not all weapons and munitions of +war. Education is incidentally one of our aims." + +"What a consistent pig he is," cooed McTurk, when they were out of +earshot. "One always knows where to have him. Did you see how he rose +to that draw about the Head and special privileges?" + +"Confound him, he might have had the decency to have backed the +scheme. I could do such a lovely ballad, rottin' it; and now I'll +have to be a giddy enthusiast. It don't bar our pulling Stalky's leg +in the study, does it?" + +"Oh, no; but in the Coll. we must be pro-cadet-corps like anything. +Can't you make up a giddy epigram, _a'_la_Catullus_, about King +objectin' to it?" Beetle was at this noble task when Stalky returned +all hot from his first drill. + +"Hullo, my ramrod-bunger!" began McTurk. "Where's your dead dog? Is it +Defence or Defiance?" + +"Defiance," said Stalky, and leaped on him at that word. "Look here, +Turkey, you mustn't rot the corps. We've arranged it beautifully. +Foxy swears he won't take us out into the open till we say we want to +go." + +"_Dis_-gustin' exhibition of immature infants apin' the idiosyncrasies +of their elders. Snff!" + +"Have you drawn King, Beetle?" Stalky asked in a pause of the +scuffle. + +"Not exactly; but that's his genial style." + +"Well, listen to your Uncle Stalky--who is a great man. Moreover and +subsequently, Foxy's goin' to let us drill the corps in +turn--_privatim_et_seriatim_--so that we'll all know how to handle a +half company anyhow. _Ergo_, an' _propter_hoc_, when we go to the +Shop we shall be dismissed drill early; thus, my beloved 'earers, +combinin' education with wholesome amusement." + +"I knew you'd make a sort of extra-tu of it, you cold-blooded brute," +said McTurk. "Don't you want to die for your giddy country?" + +"Not if I can jolly well avoid it. So you mustn't rot the corps." + +"We'd decided on that, years ago," said Beetle, scornfully. "King'll +do the rottin'." + +"Then you've got to rot King, my giddy poet. Make up a good catchy +Limerick, and let the fags sing it." + +"Look here, you stick to volunteerin', and don't jog the table." + +"He won't have anything to take hold of," said Stalky, with dark +significance. + +They did not know what that meant till, a few days later, they +proposed to watch the corps at drill. They found the gymnasium door +locked and a fag on guard. "This is sweet cheek," said McTurk, +stooping. + +"Mustn't look through the key-hole," said the sentry. + +"I like that. Why, Wake, you little beast, I made you a volunteer." + +"Can't help it. My orders are not to allow any one to look." + +"S'pose we do?" said McTurk. "S'pose we jolly well slay you?" + +"My orders are, I am to give the name of anybody who interfered with +me on my post, to the corps, an' they'd deal with him after drill, +accordin' to martial law." + +"What a brute Stalky is!" said Beetle. They never doubted for a moment +who had devised that scheme. + +"You esteem yourself a giddy centurion, don't you?" said Beetle, +listening to the crash and rattle of grounded arms within. + +"My ordcrs are, not to talk except to explain my orders--they'll lick +me if I do." + +McTurk looked at Beetle. The two shook their heads and turned away. + +"I swear Stalky _is_ a great man," said Beetle after a long pause. +"One consolation is that this sort of secret-society biznai will +drive King wild." + +It troubled many more than King, but the members of the corps were +muter than oysters. Foxy, being bound by no vow, carried his woes to +Keyte. + +"I never come across such nonsense in my life. They've tiled the +lodge, inner and outer guard, all complete, and then they get to +work, keen as mustard." + +"But what's it all for?" asked the ex-Troop Sergeant-Major. + +"To learn their drill. You never saw anything like it. They begin +after I've dismissed 'em--practisin' tricks; but out into the open +they will _not_ come--not for ever so. The 'ole thing is +pre-posterous. If you're a cadet-corps, _I_ say, be a cadet-corps, +instead o' hidin' be'ind locked doors." + +"And what do the authorities say about it?" + +"That beats me again." The Sergeant spoke fretfully. "I go to the 'Ead +an' 'e gives me no help. There's times when I think he's makin' fun +o' me. I've never been a Volunteer-sergeant, thank God--but I've +always had the consideration to pity 'em. I'm glad o' that." + +"I'd like to see 'em," said Keyte. "From your statements, Sergeant, I +can't get at what they're after." + +"Don't ask me, Major! Ask that freckle-faced young Corkran. He's +their generalissimo." + +One does not refuse a warrior of Sobraon, or deny the only pastry-cook +within bounds. So Keyte came, by invitation, leaning upon a stick, +tremulous with old age, to sit in a corner and watch. + +"They shape well. They shape uncommon well," he whispered between +evolutions. + +"Oh, this isn't what they're after. Wait till I dismiss 'em." + +At the "break-off" the ranks stood fast. Perowne fell out, faced them, +and, refreshing his memory by glimpses at a red-bound, metal-clasped +book, drilled them for ten minutes. (This is that Perowne who was +shot in Equatorial Africa by his own men.) Ansell followed him, and +Hogan followed Ansell. All three were implicitly obeyed. Then Stalky +laid aside his Snider, and, drawing a long breath, favored the +company with a blast of withering invective. + +"'Old 'ard, Muster Corkran. That ain't in any drill," cried Foxy. + +"All right, Sergeant. You never know what you may have to say to your +men.--For pity's sake, try to stand up without leanin' against each +other, you blear-eyed, herrin'-gutted gutter-snipes. It's no pleasure +to me to comb you out. That ought to have been done before you came +here, you--you militia broom-stealers." + +"The old touch--the old touch. _We_ know it," said Keyte, wiping his +rheumy eyes. "But where did he pick it up?" + +"From his father--or his uncle. Don't ask me! Half of 'em must have +been born within earshot o' the barracks." (Foxy was not far wrong in +his guess.) "I've heard more back-talk since this volunteerin' +nonsense began than I've heard in a year in the service." + +"There's a rear-rank man lookin' as though his belly were in the +pawn-shop. Yes, you, Private Ansell," and Stalky tongue-lashed the +victim for three minutes, in gross and in detail. + +"Hullo!" He returned to his normal tone. "First blood to me. You +flushed, Ansell. You wriggled." + +"Couldn't help flushing," was the answer. "Don't think I wriggled, +though." + +"Well, it's your turn now." Stalky resumed his place in the ranks. + +"Lord, Lord! It's as good as a play," chuckled the attentive Keyte. +Ansell, too, had been blessed with relatives in the service, and +slowly, in a lazy drawl--his style was more reflective than +Stalky's--descended the abysmal depths of personality. + +"Blood to me!" he shouted triumphantly. "You couldn't stand it, +either." Stalky was a rich red, and his Snider shook visibly. + +"I didn't think I would," he said, struggling for composure, "but +after a bit I got in no end of a bait. Curious, ain't it?" + +"Good for the temper," said the slow-moving Hogan, as they returned +arms to the rack. + +"Did you ever?" said Foxy, hopelessly, to Keyte. + +"I don't know much about volunteers, but it's the rummiest show I ever +saw. I can see what they're gettin' at, though. Lord! how often I've +been told off an' dressed down in my day! They shape well--extremely +well they shape." + +"If I could get 'em out into the open, there's nothing I couldn't do +with 'em, Major. Perhaps when the uniforms come down, they'll change +their mind." + +Indeed it was time that the corps made some concession to the +curiosity of the school. Thrice had the guard been maltreated and +thrice had the corps dealt out martial law to the offender. The +school raged. What was the use, they asked, of a cadet-corps which +none might see? Mr. King congratulated them on their invisible +defenders, and they could not parry his thrusts. Foxy was growing +sullen and restive. A few of the corps expressed openly doubts as to +the wisdom of their course; and the question of uniforms loomed on +the near horizon. If these were issued, they would be forced to wear +them. + +But, as so often happens in this life, the matter was suddenly settled +from without. + +The Head had duly informed the Council that their recommendation had +been acted upon, and that, so far as he could learn, the buys were +drilling. He said nothing of the terms on which they drilled. +Naturally, General Collinson was delighted and told his friends. One +of his friends rejoiced in a friend, a Member of Parliament--a +zealous, an intelligent, and, above all, a patriotic person, anxious +to do the most good in the shortest possible time. But we cannot +answer, alas! for the friends of our friends. If Collinson's friend +had introduced him to the General, the latter would have taken his +measure and saved much. But the friend merely spoke of his friend; +and since no two people in the world see eye to eye, the picture +conveyed to Collinson was inaccurate. Moreover, the man was an M.P., +an impeccable Conservative, and the General had the English soldier's +lurking respect for any member of the Court of Last Appeal. He was +going down into the West country, to spread light in somebody's +benighted constituency. Wouldn't it be a good idea if, armed with the +General's recommendation, he, taking the admirable and newly +established cadet-corps for his text, spoke a few words--"Just talked +to the boys a little--eh? You know the kind of thing that would be +acceptable; and he'd be the very man to do it. The sort of talk that +boys understand, you know." + +"They didn't talk to 'em much in my time," said the General, +suspiciously. + +"Ah! but times change--with the spread of education and so on. The +boys of to-day are the men of to-morrow. An impression in youth is +likely to be permanent. And in these times, you know, with the +country going to the dogs?" + +"You're quite right." The island was then entering on five years of +Mr. Gladstone's rule; and the General did not like what he had seen +of it. He would certainly write to the Head, for it was beyond +question that the boys of to-day made the men of to-morrow. That, if +he might say so, was uncommonly well put. + +In reply, the Head stated that he should be delighted to welcome Mr. +Raymond Martin, M.P., of whom he had heard so much; to put him up for +the night, and to allow him to address the school on any subject that +he conceived would interest them. If Mr. Martin had not yet faced an +audience of this particular class of British youth, the Head had no +doubt that he would find it an interesting experience. + +"And I don't think I am very far wrong in that last," he confided to +the Reverend John. "Do you happen to know anything of one Raymond +Martin?" + +"I was at College with a man of that name," the chaplain replied. "He +was without form and void, so far as I remember, but desperately +earnest." + +"He will address the Coll. on 'Patriotism' next Saturday." + +"If there is one thing our boys detest more than another it is having +their Saturday evenings broken into. Patriotism has no chance beside +'brewing.'" + +"Nor art either. D'you remember our 'Evening with Shakespeare'?" The +Head's eyes twinkled. "Or the humorous gentleman with the magic +lantern?" + + +"An' who the dooce is this Raymond Martin, M.P.?" demanded Beetle, +when he read the notice of the lecture in the corridor. "Why do the +brutes always turn up on a Saturday?" + +"Ouh! Reomeo, Reomeo. Wherefore art thou Reomeo?" said McTurk over his +shoulder, quoting the Shakespeare artiste of last term. "Well, he +won't be as bad as _her_, I hope. Stalky, are you properly patriotic? +Because if you ain't, this chap's goin' to make you." + +"Hope he won't take up the whole of the evening. I suppose we've got +to listen to him." + +"Wouldn't miss him for the world," said McTurk. "A lot of chaps +thought that Romeo-Romeo woman was a bore. _I_ didn't. I liked her! +'Member when she began to hiccough in the middle of it? P'raps he'll +hiccough. Whoever gets into the Gym first, bags seats for the other +two." + + +There was no nervousness, but a brisk and cheery affability about Mr. +Raymond Martin, M.P., as he drove up, watched by many eyes, to the +Head's house. + +"Looks a bit of a bargee," was McTurk's comment. "Shouldn't be +surprised if he was a Radical. He rowed the driver about the fare. I +heard him." + +"That was his giddy patriotism," Beetle explained. After tea they +joined the rush for seats, secured a private and invisible corner, +and began to criticise. Every gas-jet was lit. On the little dais at +the far end stood the Head's official desk, whence Mr. Martin would +discourse, and a ring of chairs for the masters. + +Entered then Foxy, with official port, and leaned something like a +cloth rolled round a stick against the desk. No one in authority was +yet present, so the school applauded, crying: "What's that, Foxy? +What are you stealin' the gentleman's brolly for?--We don't birch +here. We cane! Take away that bauble!--Number off from the right" +--and so forth, till the entry of the Head and the masters ended all +demonstrations. + +"One good job--the Common-room hate this as much as we do. Watch King +wrigglin' to get out of the draft." + +"Where's the Raymondiferous Martin? Punctuality, my beloved 'earers, +is the image o' war--" + +"Shut up. Here's the giddy Dook. Golly, what a dewlap!" Mr. Martin, in +evening dress, was undeniably throaty--a tall, generously designed, +pink-and-white man. Still, Beetle need not have been coarse. + +"Look at his back while he's talkin' to the Head. Vile bad form to +turn your back on the audience! He's a Philistine--a Bopper--a +Jebusite--an' a Hivite." McTurk leaned back and sniffed +contemptuously. + +In a few colorless words, the Head introduced the speaker and sat down +amid applause. When Mr. Martin took the applause to himself, they +naturally applauded more than ever. It was some time before be could +begin. He had no knowledge of the school--its tradition or heritage. +He did not know that the last census showed that eighty per cent. of +the boys had been born abroad--in camp, cantonment, or upon the high +seas; or that seventy-five per cent. were sons of officers in one or +other of the services--Willoughbys, Paulets, De Castros, Maynes, +Randalls, after their kind--looking to follow their fathers' +profession. The Head might have told him this, and much more; but, +after an hour-long dinner in his company, the Head decided to say +nothing whatever. Mr. Raymond Martin seemed to know so much already. + +He plunged into his speech with a long-drawn, rasping "Well, boys," +that, though they were not conscious of it, set every young nerve +ajar. He supposed they knew--hey?--what he had come down for? It was +not often that he had an opportunity to talk to boys. He supposed +that boys were very much the same kind of persons--some people +thought them rather funny persons--as they had been in his youth. + +"This man," said McTurk, with conviction, "is _the_ Gadarene Swine." + +But they must remember that they would not always be boys. They would +grow up into men, because the boys of to-day made the men of +to-morrow, and upon the men of to-morrow the fair fame of their +glorious native land depended. + +"If this goes on, my beloved 'earers, it will be my painful duty to +rot this bargee." Stalky drew a long breath through his nose. + +"Can't do that," said McTurk. "He ain't chargin' anything for his +Romeo." + +And so they ought to think of the duties and responsibilities of the +life that was opening before them. Life was not all--he enumerated a +few games, and, that nothing might be lacking to the sweep and impact +of his fall, added "marbles." "Yes, life was not," he said, "all +marbles." + +There was one tense gasp--among the juniors almost a shriek--of +quivering horror, he was a heathen--an outcast---beyond the extremest +pale of toleration--self-damned before all men. Stalky bowed his head +in his hands. McTurk, with a bright and cheerful eye, drank in every +word, and Beetle nodded solemn approval. + +Some of them, doubtless, expected in a few years to have the honor of +a commission from the Queen, and to wear a sword. Now, he himself had +had some experience of these duties, as a Major in a volunteer +regiment, and he was glad to learn that they had established a +volunteer corps in their midst. The establishment of such an +establishment conduced to a proper and healthy spirit, which, if +fostered, would be of great benefit to the land they loved and were +so proud to belong to. Some of those now present expected, he had no +doubt--some of them anxiously looked forward to leading their men +against the bullets of England's foes; to confronting the stricken +field in all the pride of their youthful manhood. + +Now the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, +she being made for one end only by blind Nature, but man for several. +With a large and healthy hand, he tore down these veils, and trampled +them under the well-intentioned feet of eloquence. In a raucous +voice, he cried aloud little matters, like the hope of Honor and the +dream of Glory, that boys do not discuss even with their most +intimate equals, cheerfully assuming that, till he spoke, they had +never considered these possibilities. He pointed them to shining +goals, with fingers which smudged out all radiance on all horizons. +He profaned the most secret places of their souls with outcries and +gesticulations, he bade them consider the deeds of their ancestors in +such a fashion that they were flushed to their tingling ears. Some of +them--the rending voice cut a frozen stillness--might have had +relatives who perished in defence of their country. They thought, not +a few of them, of an old sword in a passage, or above a +breakfast-room table, seen and fingered by stealth since they could +walk. He adjured them to emulate those illustrious examples; and they +looked all ways in their extreme discomfort. + +Their years forbade them even to shape their thoughts clearly to +themselves. They felt savagely that they were being outraged by a fat +man who considered marbles a game. + +And so he worked towards his peroration--which, by the way, he used +later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors--while they +sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many, many words, he +reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. +This--this was the concrete symbol of their land--worthy of all honor +and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to +worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them--a +large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colors, and waited for +the thunder of applause that should crown his effort. + +They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before--down +at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high +when a brig went ashore on Braunton Sands; above the roof of the +Golf-club, and in Keyte's window, where a certain kind of striped +sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never +displayed it; it was no part of the scheme of their lives; the Head +had never alluded to it; their fathers had not declared it unto them. +It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of +everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before +their eyes? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk. + +The Head saved the situation by rising swiftly to propose a vote of +thanks, and at his first motion, the school clapped furiously, from a +sense of relief. + +"And I am sure," he concluded, the gaslight full on his face, "that +you will all join me in a very hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Raymond +Martin for the most enjoyable address he has given us." + +To this day we shall never know the rights of the case. The Head vows +that he did no such thing; or that, if he did, it must have been +something in his eye; but those who were present are persuaded that +he winked, once, openly and solemnly, after the word "enjoyable." Mr. +Raymond Martin got his applause full tale. As he said, "Without +vanity, I think my few words went to their hearts. I never knew boys +could cheer like that." + +He left as the prayer-bell rang, and the boys lined up against the +wall. The flag lay still unrolled on the desk, Foxy regarding it with +pride, for he had been touched to the quick by Mr. Martin's +eloquence. The Head and the Common-room, standing back on the dais, +could not see the glaring offence, but a prefect left the line, +rolled it up swiftly, and as swiftly tossed it into a glove and foil +locker. + +Then, as though he had touched a spring, broke out the low murmur of +content, changing to quick-volleyed hand-clapping. + +They discussed the speech in the dormitories. There was not one +dissentient voice. Mr. Raymond Martin, beyond question, was born in +a gutter, and bred in a board-school, where they played marbles. He +was further (I give the barest handful from great store) a Flopshus +Cad, an Outrageous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper (this was +Stalky's contribution), and several other things which it is not +seemly to put down. + +The volunteer cadet-corps fell in next Monday, depressedly, with a +face of shame. Even then, judicious silence might have turned the +corner. + +Said Foxy: "After a fine speech like what you 'eard night before last, +you ought to take 'old of your drill with _re_-newed activity. I +don't see how you can avoid comin' out an' marchin' in the open now." + +"Can't we get out of it, then, Foxy?" Stalky's fine old silky tone +should have warned him. + +"No, not with his giving the flag so generously. He told me before he +left this morning that there was no objection to the corps usin' it +as their own. It's a handsome flag." + +Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead silence, and fell out. +His example was followed by Hogan and Ansell. Perowne hesitated. +"Look here, oughtn't we--?" he began. + +"I'll get it out of the locker in a minute," said the Sergeant, his +back turned. "Then we can--" + +"Come on!" shouted Stalky. "What the devil are you waiting for? +Dismiss! Break off." + +"Why--what the--where the--?" + +The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as +boy after boy fell out. + +"I--I don't know that I shan't have to report this to the Head," he +stammered. + +"Report, then, and be damned to you," cried Stalky, white to the lips, +and ran out. + + +"Rummy thing!" said Beetle to McTurk. "I was in the study, doin' a +simply lovely poem about the Jelly-Bellied Flag-Flapper, an' Stalky +came in, an' I said 'Hullo!' an' he cursed me like a bargee, and then +he began to blub like anything. Shoved his head on the table and +howled. Hadn't we better do something?" + +McTurk was troubled. "P'raps he's smashed himself up somehow." + +They found him, with very bright eyes, whistling between his teeth. + +"Did I take you in, Beetle? I thought I would. Wasn't it a good draw? +Didn't you think I was blubbin'? Didn't I do it well? Oh, you fat old +ass!" And he began to pull Beetle's ears and checks, in the fashion +that was called "milking." + +"I knew you were blubbin'," Beetle replied, composedly. "Why aren't +you at drill?" + +"Drill! What drill?" + +"Don't try to be a clever fool. Drill in the Gym." + +"'Cause there isn't any. The volunteer cadet-corps is broke +up--disbanded--dead--putrid--corrupt---stinkin'. An' if you look at +me like that, Beetle, I'll slay you too... Oh, yes, an' I'm goin' to +be reported to the Head for swearin'." + + + + +THE LAST TERM. + + + +It was within a few days of the holidays, the term-end examinations, +and, more important still, the issue of the College paper which +Beetle edited. He had been cajoled into that office by the +blandishments of Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study +law. Once installed, he discovered, as others have done before him, +that his duty was to do the work while his friends criticized. Stalky +christened it the "Swillingford Patriot," in pious memory of +Sponge--and McTurk compared the output unfavorably with Ruskin and De +Quincey. Only the Head took an interest in the publication, and his +methods were peculiar. He gave Beetle the run of his brown-bound, +tobacco-scented library; prohibiting nothing, recommending nothing. +There Beetle found a fat arm-chair, a silver inkstand, and unlimited +pens and paper. There were scores and scores of ancient dramatists; +there were Hakluyt, his voyages; French translations of Muscovite +authors called Pushkin and Lermontoff; little tales of a heady and +bewildering nature, interspersed with unusual songs--Peacock was that +writer's name; there was Borrow's "Lavengro"; an odd theme, purporting +to be a translation of something, called a "Ruba'iyat," which the +Head said was a poem not yet come to its own; there were hundreds of +volumes of verse---Crashaw; Dryden; Alexander Smith; L. E. L.; Lydia +Sigourney; Fletcher and a purple island; Donne; Marlowe's "Faust "; +and--this made McTurk (to whom Beetle conveyed it) sheer drunk for +three days--Ossian; "The Earthly Paradise"; "Atalanta in Calydon"; +and Rossetti--to name only a few. Then the Head, drifting in under +pretense of playing censor to the paper, would read here a verse and +here another of these poets, opening up avenues. And, slow breathing, +with half-shut eyes above his cigar, would he speak of great men +living, and journals, long dead, founded in their riotous youth; of +years when all the planets were little new-lit stars trying to find +their places in the uncaring void, and he, the Head, knew them as +young men know one another. So the regular work went to the dogs, +Beetle being full of other matters and meters, hoarded in secret and +only told to McTurk of an afternoon, on the sands, walking high and +disposedly round the wreck of the Armada galleons, shouting and +declaiming against the long-ridged seas. + +Thanks in large part to their house-master's experienced distrust, the +three for three consecutive terms had been passed over for promotion +to the rank of prefect--an office that went by merit, and carried +with it the honor of the ground-ash, and liberty, under restrictions, +to use it. + +"_But_," said Stalky, "come to think of it, we've done more giddy +jesting with the Sixth since we've been passed over than any one else +in the last seven years." + +He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of +stick-up collars, which custom decreed could be worn only by the +Sixth. And the Sixth saw those collars and said no word. "Pussy," +Abanazar, or Dick Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded +in five minutes or... But the Sixth of that term was made up mostly +of young but brilliantly clever boys, pets of the house-masters, too +anxious for their dignity to care to come to open odds with the +resourceful three. So they crammed their caps at the extreme back of +their heads, instead of a trifle over one eye as the Fifth should, +and rejoiced in patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous +made-up ties on Sundays--no man rebuking. McTurk was going up for +Cooper's Hill, and Stalky for Sandhurst, in the spring; and the Head +had told them both that, unless they absolutely collapsed during the +holidays, they were safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head seldom +erred in an estimate of form. + +He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him much good advice, not +one word of which did Beetle remember when he dashed up to the study, +white with excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It demanded +a great belief. + +"You begin on a hundred a year?" said McTurk unsympathetically. +"Rot!" + +"And my passage out! It's all settled. The Head says he's been +breaking me in for this for ever so long, and I never knew--I never +knew. One don't begin with writing straight off, y'know. Begin by +filling in telegrams and cutting things out o' papers with scissors." + +"Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you'll make of it," said Stalky. +"But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my +dearly beloved 'earers--though not prefects." + +"Not half bad years, either," said McTurk. "I shall be sorry to leave +the old Coll.; shan't you?" + +They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebbleridge in the +clear winter light. "Wonder where we shall all be this time next +year?" said Stalky absently. + +"This time five years," said McTurk. + +"Oh," said Beetle, "my leavin's between ourselves. The Head hasn't +told any one. I know he hasn't, because Prout grunted at me to-day +that if I were more reasonable--yah!--I might be a prefect next +term. I s'ppose he's hard up for his prefects." + +"Let's finish up with a row with the Sixth," suggested McTurk. + +"Dirty little schoolboys!" said Stalky, who already saw himself a +Sandhurst cadet. "What's the use?" + +"Moral effect," quoth McTurk. "Leave an imperishable tradition, and +all the rest of it." + +"Better go into Bideford an' pay up our debts," said Stalky. "I've got +three quid out of my father--_ad_hoc_. Don't owe more than thirty +bob, either. Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say you +want to correct the 'Swillingford Patriot.'" + +"Well, I do," said Beetle. "It'll be my last issue, and I'd like it to +look decent. I'll catch him before he goes to his lunch." + +Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace released from +five o'clock call-over, and all the afternoon lay before them. So +also unluckily did King, who never passed without witticisms. But +brigades of Kings could not have ruffled Beetle that day. + +"Aha! Enjoying the study of light literature, my friends," said he, +rubbing his hands. "Common mathematics are not for such soaring minds +as yours, are they?" + +("One hundred a year," thought Beetle, smiling into vacancy.) + +"Our open incompetence takes refuge in the flowery paths of inaccurate +fiction. But a day of reckoning approaches, Beetle mine. I myself +have prepared a few trifling foolish questions in Latin prose which +can hardly be evaded even by your practised acts of deception. Ye-es, +Latin prose. I think, if I may say so--but we shall see when the +papers are set--'Ulpian serves your need.' Aha! '_Elucescebat_, quoth +our friend.' We shall see! We shall see!" + +Still no sign from Beetle. He was on a steamer, his passage paid into +the wide and wonderful world--a thousand leagues beyond Lundy Island. + +King dropped him with a snarl. + +"He doesn't know. He'll go on correctin' exercises an' jawin' an' +showin' off before the little boys next term--and next." Beetle +hurried after his companions up the steep path of the furze-clad hill +behind the College. + +They were throwing pebbles on the top of the gasometer, and the grimy +gas-man in change bade them desist. They watched him oil a turncock +sunk in the ground between two furze-bushes. + +"Cokey, what's that for?" said Stalky. + +"To turn the gas on to the kitchens," said Cokey. "If so be I didn't +turn her on, yeou young gen'lemen 'ud be larnin' your book by +candlelight." + +"Um!" said Stalky, and was silent for at least a minute. + +"Hullo! Where are you chaps going?" A bend of the lane brought them +face to face with Tulke, senior prefect of King's house--a smallish, +white-haired boy, of the type that must be promoted on account of its +intellect, and ever afterwards appeals to the Head to support its +authority when zeal has outrun discretion. + +The three took no sort of notice. They were on lawful pass. Tulke +repeated his question hotly, for he had suffered many slights from +Number Five study, and fancied that he had at last caught them +tripping. + +"What the devil is that to you?" Stalky replied with his sweetest +smile. + +"Look here, I'm not goin'--I'm not goin' to be sworn at by the Fifth!" +sputtered Tulke. + +"Then cut along and call a prefects' meeting," said McTurk, knowing +Tulke's weakness. + +The prefect became inarticulate with rage. + +"Mustn't yell at the Fifth that way," said Stalky. "It's vile bad +form." + +"Cough it up, ducky!" McTurk said calmly. + +"I--I want to know what you chaps are doing out of bounds?" This with +an important flourish of his ground-ash. + +"Ah," said Stalky. "Now we're gettin' at it. Why didn't you ask that +before?" + +"Well, I ask it now. What are you doing?" + +"We're admiring you, Tulke," said Stalky. "We think you're no end of a +fine chap, don't we?" + +"We do! We do!" A dog-cart with some girls in it swept round the +corner, and Stalky promptly kneeled before Tulke in the attitude of +prayer; so Tulke turned a color. + +"I've reason to believe--" he began. + +"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" shouted Beetle, after the manner of Bideford's +town crier, "Tulke has reason to believe! Three cheers for Tulke!" + +They were given. "It's all our giddy admiration," said Stalky. "You +know how we love you, Tulke. We love you so much we think you ought +to go home and die. You're too good to live, Tulke." + +"Yes," said McTurk. "Do oblige us by dyin'. Think how lovely you'd +look stuffed!" + +Tulke swept up the road with an unpleasant glare in his eye. + +"That means a prefects' meeting--sure pop," said Stalky. "Honor of the +Sixth involved, and all the rest of it. Tulke'll write notes all this +afternoon, and Carson will call us up after tea. They daren't +overlook that." + +"Bet you a bob he follows us!" said McTurk. "He's King's pet, and it's +scalps to both of 'em if we're caught out. We must be virtuous." + +"Then I move we go to Mother Yeo's for a last gorge. We owe her about +ten bob, and Mary'll weep sore when she knows we're leaving," said +Beetle. + +"She gave me an awful wipe on the head last time--Mary," said Stalky. + +"She does if you don't duck," said McTurk. "But she generally kisses +one back. Let's try Mother Yeo." + +They sought a little bottle-windowed half dairy, half restaurant, a +dark-brewed, two-hundred-year-old house, at the head of a narrow side +street. They had patronized it from the days of their fagdom, and +were very much friends at home. + +"We've come to pay our debts, mother," said Stalky, sliding his arm +round the fifty-six-inch waist of the mistress of the establishment. +"To pay our debts and say good-by--and--and we're awf'ly hungry." + +"Aie!" said Mother Yeo, "makkin' love to me! I'm shaamed of 'ee." + +"'Rackon us wouldn't du no such thing if Mary was here," said McTurk, +lapsing into the broad North Devon that the boys used on their +campaigns. + +"Who'm takin' my name in vain?" The inner door opened, and Mary, +fair-haired, blue-eyed, and apple-checked, entered with a bowl of +cream in her bands. McTurk kissed her. Beetle followed suit, with +exemplary calm. Both boys were promptly cuffed. + +"Niver kiss the maid when 'e can kiss the mistress," said Stalky, +shamelessly winking at Mother Yeo, as he investigated a shelf of +jams. + +"Glad to see one of 'ee don't want his head slapped no more?" said +Mary invitingly, in that direction. + +"Neu! Reckon I can get 'em give me," said Stalky, his back turned. + +"Not by me--yeou little masterpiece!" + +"Niver asked 'ee. There's maids to Northam. Yiss--an' Appledore." An +unreproducible sniff, half contempt, half reminiscence, rounded the +retort. + +"Aie! Yeou won't niver come to no good end. Whutt be 'baout, smellin' +the cream?" + +"'Tees bad," said Stalky. "Zmell 'un." + +Incautiously Mary did as she was bid. + +"Bidevoor kiss." + +"Niver amiss," said Stalky, taking it without injury. + +"Yeou--yeou--yeou--" Mary began, bubbling with mirth. + +"They'm better to Northam--more rich, laike an' us gets them give back +again," he said, while McTurk solemnly waltzed Mother Yeo out of +breath, and Beetle told Mary the sad news, as they sat down to +clotted cream, jam, and hot bread. + +"Yiss. Yeou'll niver zee us no more, Mary. We're goin' to be passons +an' missioners." + +"Steady the Buffs! "said McTurk, looking through the blind. "Tulke has +followed us. He's comin' up the street now." + +"They've niver put us out o' bounds," said Mother Yeo. "Bide yeou +still, my little dearrs." She rolled into the inner room to make the +score. + +"Mary," said Stalky, suddenly, with tragic intensity. "Do 'ee lov' me, +Mary?" + +"Iss--fai! Talled 'ee zo since yeou was zo high!" the damsel replied. + +"Zee 'un comin' up street, then?" Stalky pointed to the unconscious +Tulke. "He've niver been kissed by no sort or manner o' maid in hees +borned laife, Mary. Oh, 'tees shaamful!" + +"Whutt's to do with me? 'Twill come to 'un in the way o' nature, I +rackon." She nodded her head sagaciously. "You niver want me to kiss +un--sure-_ly_?" + +"Give 'ee half-a-crown if 'ee will," said Stalky, exhibiting the +coin. + +Half-a-crown was much to Mary Yeo, and a jest was more; but + +Yeu'm afraid," said McTurk, at the psychological moment. + +"Aie!" Beetle echoed, knowing her weak point. "There's not a maid to +Northam 'ud think twice. An' yeou such a fine maid, tu!" + +McTurk planted one foot firmly against the inner door lest Mother Yeo +should return inopportunely, for Mary's face was set. It was then +that Tulke found his way blocked by a tall daughter of Devon--that +county of easy kisses, the pleasantest under the sun. He dodged aside +politely. She reflected a moment, and laid a vast hand upon his +shoulder. + +"Where be 'ee gwaine tu, my dearr?" said she. + +Over the handkerchief he had crammed into his mouth Stalky could see +the boy turn scarlet. + +"Gie I a kiss! Don't they larn 'ee manners to College?" + +Tulke gasped and wheeled. Solemnly and conscientiously Mary kissed him +twice, and the luckless prefect fled. + +She stepped into the shop, her eyes full of simple wonder. "Kissed +'un?" said Stalky, handing over the money. + +"Iss, fai! But, oh, my little body, he'm no Colleger. 'Zeemed +tu-minded to cry, like." + +"Well, we won't. Yell couldn't make us cry that way," said McTurk. +"Try." + +Whereupon Mary cuffed them all round. + +As they went out with tingling cars, said Stalky generally, "Don't +think there'll be much of a prefects' meeting." + +"Won't there, just!" said Beetle. "Look here. If he kissed her--which +is our tack--he is a cynically immoral hog, and his conduct is +blatant indecency. _Confer_orationes_Regis_furiosissimi_, when he +collared me readin' "Don Juan.'" + +"'Course he kissed her," said McTurk. "In the middle of the street. +With his house-cap on!" + +"Time, 3.57 p.m. Make a note o' that. What d'you mean, Beetle?" said +Stalky. + +"Well! He's a truthful little beast. He may say he was kissed." + +"And then?" + +"Why, then!" Beetle capered at the mere thought of it. "Don't you see? +The corollary to the giddy proposition is that the Sixth can't +protect 'emselves from outrages an' ravishin's. Want nursemaids to +look after 'em! We've only got to whisper that to the Coll. Jam for +the Sixth! Jam for us! Either way it's jammy!" + +"By Gum!" said Stalky. "Our last term's endin' well. Now you cut along +an' finish up your old rag, and Turkey and me will help. We'll go in +the back way. No need to bother Randall." + +"Don't play the giddy garden-goat, then?" Beetle knew what help meant, +though he was by no means averse to showing his importance before his +allies. The little loft behind Randall's printing office was his own +territory, where he saw himself already controlling the "Times." +Here, under the guidance of the inky apprentice, he had learned to +find his way more or less circuitously about the case, and considered +himself an expert compositor. + +The school paper in its locked formes lay on a stone-topped table, a +proof by the side; but not for worlds would Beetle have corrected +from the mere proof. With a mallet and a pair of tweezers, he knocked +out mysterious wedges of wood that released the forme, picked a +letter here and inserted a letter there, reading as he went along and +stopping much to chuckle over his own contributions. + +"You won't show off like that," said McTurk, "when you've got to do it +for your living. Upside down and backwards, isn't it? Let's see if I +can read it." + +"Get out!" said Beetle. "Go and read those formes in the rack there, +if you think you know so much." + +"Formes in a rack! What's that? Don't be so beastly professional." + +McTurk drew off with Stalky to prowl about the office. They left +little unturned. + +"Come here a shake, Beetle. What's this thing?" aid Stalky, in a few +minutes. "Looks familiar." + +Said Beetle, after a glance: "It's King's Latin prose exam. paper. +_In_--_In_Varrem: _actio_prima_. What a lark!" + +"Think o' the pure-souled, high-minded boys who'd give their eyes for +a squint at it!" said McTurk. + +"No, Willie dear," said Stalky; "that would be wrong and painful to +our kind teachers. You wouldn't crib, Willie, would you?" + +"Can't read the beastly stuff, anyhow," was the reply. "Besides, we're +leavin' at the end o' the term, so it makes no difference to us." + +"'Member what the Considerate Bloomer did to Spraggon's account of the +Puffin'ton Hounds? We must sugar Mr. King's milk for him," said +Stalky, all lighted from within by a devilish joy. "Let's see what +Beetle can do with those forceps he's so proud of." + +"Don't see now you can make Latin prose much more cock-eye than it is, +but we'll try," said Beetle, transposing an _aliud_ and _Asiae_ from +two sentences. "Let's see! We'll put that full-stop a little further +on, and begin the sentence with the next capital. Hurrah! Here's +three lines that can move up all in a lump." + +"'One of those scientific rests for which this eminent huntsman is so +justly celebrated.'" Stalky knew the Puffington run by heart. + +"Hold on! Here's a _vol_--_voluntate_quidnam_ all by itself," said +McTurk. + +"I'll attend to her in a shake. _Quidnam_ goes after _Dolabella_." + +"Good old Dolabella," murmured Stalky. "Don't break him. Vile prose +Cicero wrote, didn't he? He ought to be grateful for--" + +"Hullo!" said McTurk, over another forme. "What price a giddy ode? +_Qui_--_quis_ --oh, it's _Quis_multa_gracilis_, o' course." + +"Bring it along. We've sugared the milk here," said Stalky, after a +few minutes' zealous toil. "Never thrash your hounds unnecessarily." + +"_Quis_munditiis_? I swear that's not bad," began Beetle, plying the +tweezers. "Don't that interrogation look pretty? +_Heu_quoties_fidem_! That sounds as if the chap were anxious an' +excited. _Cui_flavam_religas_in_rosa_--Whose flavor is relegated to a +rose. _Mutatosque_Deos_flebit_in_antro." + +"Mute gods weepin' in a cave," suggested Stalky. "'Pon my Sam, Horace +needs as much lookin' after as--Tulke." + +They edited him faithfully till it was too dark to see. + + +"'Aha! Elucescebat, quoth our friend.' Ulpian serves my need, does it? +If King can make anything out of _that_, I'm a blue-eyed squatteroo," +said Beetle, as they slid out of the loft window into a back alley of +old acquaintance and started on a three-mile trot to the College. But +the revision of the classics had detained them too long. They halted, +blown and breathless, in the furze at the back of the gasometer, the +College lights twinkling below, ten minutes at least late for tea and +lock-up. + +"It's no good," puffed McTurk. "Bet a bob Foxy is waiting for +defaulters under the lamp by the Fives Court. It's a nuisance, too, +because the Head gave us long leave, and one doesn't like to break +it." + +"'Let me now from the bonded ware'ouse of my knowledge,'" began +Stalky. + +"Oh, rot! Don't Jorrock. Can we make a run for it?" snapped McTurk. + +"'Bishops' boots Mr. Radcliffe also condemned, an' spoke 'ighly in +favor of tops cleaned with champagne an' abricot jam.' Where's that +thing Cokey was twiddlin' this afternoon?" + +They heard him groping in the wet, and presently beheld a great +miracle. The lights of the Coastguard cottages near the sea went out; +the brilliantly illuminated windows of the Golf-club disappeared, and +were followed by the frontages of the two hotels. Scattered villas +dulled, twinkled, and vanished. Last of all, the College lights died +also. They were left in the pitchy darkness of a windy winter's +night. + +"'Blister my kidneys. It _is_ a frost. The dahlias are dead!'" said +Stalky. "Bunk!" + +They squattered through the dripping gorse as the College hummed like +an angry hive and the dining-rooms chorused, "Gas! gas! gas!" till +they came to the edge of the sunk path that divided them from their +study. Dropping that ha-ha like bullets, and rebounding like boys, +they dashed to their study, in less than two minutes had changed into +dry trousers and coat, and, ostentatiously slippered, joined the mob +in the dining-hall, which resembled the storm-centre of a South +American revolution. + +"'Hellish dark and smells of cheese.'" Stalky elbowed his way into the +press, howling lustily for gas. "Cokey must have gone for a walk. +Foxy'll have to find him." + +Prout, as the nearest house-master, was trying to restore order, for +rude boys were flicking butter-pats across chaos, and McTurk had +turned on the fags' tea-urn, so that many were parboiled and wept +with an unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke into the +school song, the "Vive la Compagnie," to the accompaniment of +drumming knife-handles; and the junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks +and raided one another's victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high +condition, seeking for more light, are truly earnest inquirers. + +When a most vile smell of gas told them that supplies had been +renewed, Stalky, waistcoat unbuttoned, sat gorgedly over what might +have been his fourth cup of tea. "And that's all right," he said. +"Hullo! 'Ere's Pomponius Ego!" + +It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, straight-minded soul, +and a pillar of the First Fifteen, who crossed over from the +prefects' table and in a husky, official voice invited the three to +attend in his study in half an hour. "Prefects' meetin'! Prefects' +meetin'!" hissed the tables, and they imitated barbarically the +actions and effects of the ground-ash. + +"How are we goin' to jest with 'em?" said Stalky, turning half-face to +Beetle. "It's your play this time!" + +"Look here," was the answer, "all I want you to do is not to laugh. +I'm goin' to take charge o' young Tulke's immorality--_a'_la_ King, +and it's goin' to be serious. If you can't help laughin' don't look +at me, or I'll go pop." + +"I see. All right," said Stalky. + +McTurk's lank frame stiffened in every muscle and his eyelids dropped +half over his eyes. That last was a war-signal. + +The eight or nine seniors, their faces very set and sober, were ranged +in chairs round Carson's severely Philistine study. Tulke was not +popular among them, and a few who had had experience of Stalky and +Company doubted that he might, perhaps, have made an ass of himself. +But the dignity of the Sixth was to be upheld. So Carson began +hurriedly: "Look here, you chaps, I've--we've sent for you to tell +you you're a good deal too cheeky to the Sixth--have been for some +time--and--and we've stood about as much as we're goin' to, and it +seems you've been cursin' and swearin' at Tulke on the Bideford road +this afternoon, and we're goin' to show you you can't do it. That's +all." + +"Well, that's awfully good of you," said Stalky, "but we happen to +have a few rights of our own, too. You can't, just because you happen +to be made prefects, haul up seniors and jaw 'em on spec., like a +house-master. We aren't fags, Carson. This kind of thing may do for +Davies Tertius, but it won't do for us." + +"It's only old Prout's lunacy that we weren't prefects long ago. You +know that," said McTurk. "You haven't any tact." + +"Hold on," said Beetle. "A prefects' meetin' has to be reported to the +Head. I want to know if the Head backs Tulke in this business?" + +"Well--well, it isn't exactly a prefects' meeting," said Carson. "We +only called you in to warn you." + +"But all the prefects are here," Beetle insisted. "Where's the +difference?" + +"My Gum!" said Stalky. "Do you mean to say you've just called us in +for a jaw--after comin' to us before the whole school at tea an' +givin' 'em the impression it was a prefects' meeting? 'Pon my Sam, +Carson, you'll get into trouble, you will." + +"Hole-an'-corner business--hole-an'-corner business," said McTurk, +wagging his head. "Beastly suspicious." + +The Sixth looked at each other uneasily. Tulke had called three +prefects' meetings in two terms, till the Head had informed the Sixth +that they were expected to maintain discipline without the recurrent +menace of his authority. Now, it seemed that they had made a blunder +at the outset, but any right-minded boy would have sunk the legality +and been properly impressed by the Court. Beetle's protest was +distinct "cheek." + +"Well, you chaps deserve a lickin'," cried one Naughten incautiously. +Then was Beetle filled with a noble inspiration. + +"For interferin' with Tulke's amours, eh?" Tulke turned a rich sloe +color. "Oh, no, you don't! "Beetle went on. "You've had your innings. +We've been sent up for cursing and swearing at you, and we're goin' +to be let off with a warning! _Are_ we? Now then, you're going to +catch it." + +"I--I--I" Tulke began. "Don't let that young devil start jawing." + +"If you've anything to say you must say it decently,'' said Carson. + +"Decently? I will. Now look here. When we went into Bideford we met +this ornament of the Sixth--is that decent enough?--hanging about on +the road with a nasty look in his eye. We didn't know _then_ why he +was so anxious to stop us, _but_ at five minutes to four, when we +were in Yeo's shop, we saw Tulke in broad daylight, with his +house-cap on, kissin' an' huggin' a woman on the pavement. Is that +decent enough for you?" + +"I didn't--I wasn't." + +"We saw you!" said Beetle. "And now--I'll be decent, Carson--you sneak +back with her kisses" (not for nothing had Beetle perused the later +poets) "hot on your lips and call prefects' meetings, which aren't +prefects' meetings, to uphold the honor of the Sixth." A new and +heaven-cleft path opened before him that instant. "And how do we +know," he shouted--"how do we know how many of the Sixth are mixed up +in this abominable affair?" + +"Yes, that's what we want to know," said McTurk, with simple dignity. + +"We meant to come to you about it quietly, Carson, but you would have +the meeting," said Stalky sympathetically. + +The Sixth were too taken aback to reply. So, carefully modelling his +rhetoric on King, Beetle followed up the attack, surpassing and +surprising himself, "It--it isn't so much the cynical immorality of +the biznai, as the blatant indecency of it, that's so awful. As far +as we can see, it's impossible for us to go into Bideford without +runnin' up against some prefect's unwholesome amours. There's nothing +to snigger over, Naughten. I don't pretend to know much about these +things--but it seems to me a chap must be pretty far dead in sin" +(that was a quotation from the school chaplain) "when he takes to +embracing his paramours" (that was Hakluyt) "before all the city" (a +reminiscence of Milton). "He might at least have the decency--you're +authorities on decency, I believe--to wait till dark. But he didn't. +You didn't! Oh, Tulke. You--you incontinent little animal!" + +"Here, shut up a minute. What's all this about, Tulke?" said Carson. + +"I--look here. I'm awfully sorry. I never thought Beetle would take +this line." + +"Because--you've--no decency--you--thought--I hadn't," cried Beetle +all in one breath. + +"Tried to cover it all up with a conspiracy, did you?" said Stalky. + +"Direct insult to all three of us," said McTurk. "A most filthy mind +you have, Tulke." + +"I'll shove you fellows outside the door if you go on like this," said +Carson angrily. + +"That proves it's a conspiracy," said Stalky, with the air of a virgin +martyr. + +"I--I was goin' along the street--I swear I was," cried Tulke, +"and--and I'm awfully sorry about it--a woman came up and kissed me. +I swear I didn't kiss her." + +There was a pause, filled by Stalky's long, liquid whistle of +contempt, amazement, and derision. + +"On my honor," gulped the persecuted one. "Oh, do stop him jawing." + +"Very good," McTurk interjected. "We are compelled, of course, to +accept your statement." + +"Confound it!" roared Naughten. "You aren't head-prefect here, +McTurk." + +"Oh, well," returned the Irishman, "you know Tulke better than we do. +I am only speaking for ourselves. _We_ accept Tulke's word. But all I +can say is that if I'd been collared in a similarly disgustin' +situation, and had offered the same explanation Tulke has, I--I +wonder what you'd have said. However, it seems on Tulke's word of +honor--" + +"And Tulkus--beg pardon--_kiss_, of course---Tulkiss is an honorable +man," put in Stalky. + +"--that the Sixth can't protect 'emselves from bein' kissed when they +go for a walk!" cried Beetle, taking up the running with a rush. +"Sweet business, isn't it? Cheerful thing to tell the fags, ain't +it? We aren't prefects, of course, but we aren't kissed very much. +Don't think that sort of thing ever enters our heads; does it, +Stalky?" + +"Oh, no!" said Stalky, turning aside to hide his emotions. McTurk's +face merely expressed lofty contempt and a little weariness. + +"Well, you seem to know a lot about it," interposed a prefect. + +"Can't help it--when you chaps shove it under our noses." Beetle +dropped into a drawling parody of King's most biting colloquial +style--the gentle rain after the thunder-storm. "Well, it's all very +sufficiently vile and disgraceful, isn't it? I don't know who comes +out of it worst: Tulke, who happens to have been caught; or the other +fellows who haven't. And we--" here he wheeled fiercely on the other +two--"we've got to stand up and be jawed by them because we've +disturbed their intrigues." + +"Hang it! I only wanted to give you a word of warning," said Carson, +thereby handing himself bound to the enemy. + +"Warn? You?" This with the air of one who finds loathsome gifts in his +locker. "Carson, would you be good enough to tell us what +conceivable thing there is that you are entitled to warn us about +after this exposure? Warn? Oh, it's a little too much! Let's go +somewhere where it's clean." + +The door banged behind their outraged innocence. + +"Oh, Beetle! Beetle! Beetle! Golden Beetle!" sobbed Stalky, hurling +himself on Beetle's panting bosom as soon as they reached the study. +"However did you do it?" + +"Dear-r man" said McTurk, embracing Beetle's head with both arms, +while he swayed it to and fro on the neck, in time to this ancient +burden-- + + "Pretty lips--sweeter than--cherry or plum. + Always look--jolly and--never look glum; + Seem to say--Come away. Kissy!--come, come! + Yummy-yum! Yummy-yum! Yummy-yum-yum!" + +"Look out. You'll smash my gig-lamps," puffed Beetle, emerging. +"Wasn't it glorious? Didn't I 'Eric' 'em splendidly? Did you spot my +cribs from King? Oh, blow!" His countenance clouded. "There's one +adjective I didn't use--obscene. Don't know how I forgot that. It's +one of King's pet ones, too." + +"Never mind. They'll be sendin' ambassadors round in half a shake to +beg us not to tell the school. It's a deuced serious business for +them," said McTurk. "Poor Sixth--poor old Sixth!" + +"Immoral young rips," Stalky snorted. "What an example to pure-souled +boys like you and me!" + +And the Sixth in Carson's study sat aghast, glowering at Tulke, who +was on the edge of tears. "Well," said the head-prefect acidly. +"You've made a pretty average ghastly mess of it, Tulke." + +"Why--why didn't you lick that young devil Beetle before he began +jawing?" Tulke wailed. + +"I knew there'd be a row," said a prefect of Prout's house. "But you +would insist on the meeting, Tulke." + +"Yes, and a fat lot of good it's done us," said Naughten. "They come +in here and jaw our heads off when we ought to be jawin' them. Beetle +talks to us as if we were a lot of blackguards and--and all that. And +when they've hung us up to dry, they go out and slam the door like a +house-master. All your fault, Tulke." + +"But I didn't kiss her." + +"You ass! If you'd said you _had_ and stuck to it, it would have been +ten times better than what you did," Naughten retorted. "Now they'll +tell the whole school--and Beetle'll make up a lot of beastly rhymes +and nick-names." + +"But, hang it, she kissed me!" Outside of his work, Tulke's mind moved +slowly. + +"I'm not thinking of you. I'm thinking of us. I'll go up to their +study and see if I can make 'em keep quiet!" + +"Tulke's awf'ly cut up about this business," Naughten began, +ingratiatingly, when he found Beetle. + +"Who's kissed him this time?" + +"--and I've come to ask you chaps, and especially you, Beetle, not to +let the thing be known all over the school. Of course, fellows as +senior as you are can easily see why." + +"Um!" said Beetle, with the cold reluctance of one who foresees an +unpleasant public duty. "I suppose I must go and talk to the Sixth +again." + +"Not the least need, my dear chap, I assure you," said Naughten +hastily. "I'll take any message you care to send." + +But the chance of supplying the missing adjective was too tempting. So +Naughten returned to that still undissolved meeting, Beetle, white, +icy, and aloof, at his heels. + +"There seems," he began, with laboriously crisp articulation, "there +seems to be a certain amount of uneasiness among you as to the steps +we may think fit to take in regard to this last revelation of +the--ah--obscene. If it is any consolation to you to know that we +have decided--for the honor of the school, you understand--to keep +our mouths shut as to these--ah--obscenities, you--ah--have it." + +He wheeled, his head among the stars, and strode statelily back to his +study, where Stalky and McTurk lay side by side upon the table wiping +their tearful eyes--too weak to move. + + +The Latin prose paper was a success beyond their wildest dreams. +Stalky and McTurk were, of course, out of all examinations (they did +extra-tuition with the Head), but Beetle attended with zeal. + +"This, I presume, is a par-ergon on your part," said King, as he dealt +out the papers. "One final exhibition ere you are translated to +loftier spheres?. A last attack on the classics? It seems to confound +you already." + +Beetle studied the print with knit brows. "I can't make head or tail +of it," he murmured. "What does it mean?" + +"No, no!" said King, with scholastic coquetry. "We depend upon you to +give us the meaning. This is an examination, Beetle mine, not a +guessing-competition. You will find your associates have no +difficulty in--" + +Tulke left his place and laid the paper on the desk. King looked, +read, and turned a ghastly green. + +"Stalky's missing a heap," thought Beetle. "Wonder hew King'll get out +of it!" + +"There seems," King began with a gulp, "a certain modicum of truth in +our Beetle's remark. I am--er--inclined to believe that the worthy +Randall must have dropped this in ferule--if you know what that +means. Beetle, you purport to be an editor. Perhaps you can enlighten +the form as to formes." + +"What, sir! Whose form! I don't see that there's any verb in this +sentence at all, an'--an'--the Ode is all different, somehow." + +"I was about to say, before you volunteered your criticism, that an +accident must have befallen the paper in type, and that the printer +reset it by the light of nature. No--" he held the thing at arm's +length--"our Randall is not an authority on Cicero or Horace." + +"Rather mean to shove it off on Randall," whispered Beetle to his +neighbor. "King must ha' been as screwed as an owl when he wrote it +out." + +"But we can amend the error by dictating it." + +"No, sir." The answer came pat from a dozen throats at once. "That +cuts the time for the exam. Only two hours allowed, sir. 'Tisn't +fair. It's a printed-paper exam. How're we goin' to be marked for +it! It's all Randall's fault. It isn't our fault, anyhow. An exam.'s +an exam.," etc., etc. + +Naturally Mr. King considered this was an attempt to undermine his +authority, and, instead of beginning dictation at once, delivered a +lecture on the spirit in which examinations should be approached. As +the storm subsided, Beetle fanned it afresh. + +"Eh? What? What was that you were saying to MacLagan?" + +"I only said I thought the papers ought to have been looked at before +they were given out, sir." + +"Hear, hear!" from a back bench. Mr. King wished to know whether +Beetle took it upon himself personally to conduct the traditions of +the school. His zeal for knowledge ate up another fifteen minutes, +during which the prefects showed unmistakable signs of boredom. + +"Oh, it was a giddy time," said Beetle, afterwards, in dismantled +Number Five. "He gibbered a bit, and I kept him on the gibber, and +then he dictated about a half of Dolabella & Co." + +"Good old Dolabella! Friend of mine. Yes?" said Stalky, pensively. + +"Then we had to ask him how every other word was spelt, of course, and +he gibbered a lot more. He cursed me and MacLagan (Mac played up like +a trump) and Randall, and the 'materialized ignorance of the +unscholarly middle classes,' 'lust for mere marks,' and all the rest. +It was what you might call a final exhibition--a last attack--a giddy +par-ergon." + +"But o' course he was blind squiffy when he wrote the paper. I hope +you explained that?" said Stalky. + +"Oh, yes. I told Tulke so. I said an immoral prefect an' a drunken +house-master were legitimate inferences. Tulke nearly blubbed. He's +awfully shy of us since Mary's time." + +Tulke preserved that modesty till the last moment--till the +journey-money had been paid, and the boys were filling the brakes +that took them to the station. Then the three tenderly constrained +him to wait a while. + +"You see, Tulke, you may be a prefect," said Stalky, "but I've left +the Coll. Do you see, Tulke, dear?" + +"Yes, I see. Don't bear malice, Stalky." + +"Stalky? Curse your impudence, you young cub," shouted Stalky, +magnificent in top-hat, stiff collar, spats, and high-waisted, +snuff-colored ulster. "I want you to understand that _I'm_ Mister +Corkran, an' you're a dirty little schoolboy." + +"Besides bein' frabjously immoral," said McTurk. "Wonder you aren't +ashamed to foist your company on pure-minded boys like us." + +"Come on, Tulke,' cried Naughten, from the prefects' brake. + +"Yes, we're comin'. Shove up and make room, you Collegers. You've all +got to be back next term, with your 'Yes, sir,' and 'Oh, sir,' an' +'No sir' an' 'Please sir'; but before we say good-by we're going to +tell you a little story. Go on, Dickie" (this to the driver); "we're +quite ready. Kick that hat-box under the seat, an' don't crowd your +Uncle Stalky." + +"As nice a lot of high-minded youngsters as you'd wish to see," said +McTurk, gazing round with bland patronage. "A trifle immoral, but +then--boys will be boys. It's no good tryin' to look stuffy, Carson. +_Mister_ Corkran will now oblige with the story of Tulke an' Mary +Yeo!" + + + + +SLAVES OF THE LAMP. + +Part II. + + +That very Infant who told the story of the capture of Boh Na Ghee +[_A_Conference_ _of_the_Powers_: "Many Inventions"] to Eustace +Cleaver, novelist, inherited an estateful baronetcy, with vast +revenues, resigned the service, and became a landholder, while his +mother stood guard over him to see that he married the right girl. +But, new to his position, he presented the local volunteers with a +full-sized magazine-rifle range, two miles long, across the heart of +his estate, and the surrounding families, who lived in savage +seclusion among woods full of pheasants, regarded him as an erring +maniac. The noise of the firing disturbed their poultry, and Infant +was cast out from the society of J.P.'s and decent men till such time +as a daughter of the county might lure him back to right thinking. He +took his revenge by filling the house with choice selections of old +schoolmates home on leave--affable detrimentals, at whom the +bicycle-riding maidens of the surrounding families were allowed to +look from afar. I knew when a troop-ship was in port by the Infant's +invitations. Sometimes he would produce old friends of equal +seniority; at others, young and blushing giants whom I had left small +fags far down in the Lower Second; and to these Infant and the elders +expounded the whole duty of man in the Army. + +"I've had to cut the service," said the Infant; "but that's no reason +why my vast stores of experience should be lost to posterity." He was +just thirty, and in that same summer an imperious wire drew me to his +baronial castle: "Got good haul; ex _Tamar_. Come along." + +It was an unusually good haul, arranged with a single eye to my +benefit. There was a baldish, broken-down captain of Native Infantry, +shivering with ague behind an indomitable red nose--and they called +him Captain Dickson. There was another captain, also of Native +Infantry, with a fair mustache; his face was like white glass, and +his hands were fragile, but he answered joyfully to the cry of +Tertius. There was an enormously big and well-kept man, who had +evidently not campaigned for years, clean-shaved, soft-voiced, and +cat-like, but still Abanazar for all that he adorned the Indian +Political Service; and there was a lean Irishman, his face tanned +blue-black with the suns of the Telegraph Department. Luckily the +baize doors of the bachelors' wing fitted tight, for we dressed +promiscuously in the corridor or in each other's rooms, talking, +calling, shouting, and anon waltzing by pairs to songs of Dick Four's +own devising. + +There were sixty years of mixed work to be sifted out between us, and +since we had met one another from time to time in the quick +scene-shifting of India--a dinner, camp, or a race-meeting here; a +dak-bungalow or railway station up country somewhere else--we had +never quite lost touch. Infant sat on the banisters, hungrily and +enviously drinking it in. He enjoyed his baronetcy, but his heart +yearned for the old days. + +It was a cheerful babel of matters personal, provincial, and imperial, +pieces of old call-over lists, and new policies, cut short by the +roar of a Burmese gong, and we went down not less than a quarter of a +mile of stairs to meet Infant's mother, who had known us all in our +school-days and greeted us as if those had ended a week ago. But it +was fifteen years since, with tears of laughter, she had lent me a +gray princess-skirt for amateur theatricals. + +That was a dinner from the "Arabian Nights," served in an eighty-foot +hall full of ancestors and pots of flowering roses, and, what was +more impressive, heated by steam. When it was ended and the little +mother had gone away--("You boys want to talk, so I shall say +good-night now")--we gathered about an apple-wood fire, in a gigantic +polished steel grate, under a mantelpiece ten feet high, and the +Infant compassed us about with curious liqueurs and that kind of +cigarette which serves best to introduce your own pipe. + +"Oh, bliss!" grunted Dick Four from a sofa, where he had been packed +with a rug over him. "First time I've been warm since I came home." + +We were all nearly on top of the fire, except Infant, who had been +long enough at home to take exercise when he felt chilled. This is a +grisly diversion, but much affected by the English of the Island. + +"If you say a word about cold tubs and brisk walks," drawled McTurk, +"I'll kill you, Infant. I've got a liver, too. 'Member when we used +to think it a treat to turn out of our beds on a Sunday +morning--thermometer fifty-seven degrees if it was summer--and bathe +off the Pebbleridge? Ugh!" + +"'Thing I don't understand," said Tertius, "was the way we chaps used +to go down into the lavatories, boil ourselves pink, and then come up +with all our pores open into a young snow-storm or a black frost. Yet +none of our chaps died, that I can remember." + +"Talkin' of baths," said McTurk, with a chuckle, "'member our bath in +Number Five, Beetle, the night Rabbits-Eggs rocked King? What +wouldn't I give to see old Stalky now! He is the only one of the two +Studies not here." + +"Stalky is the great man of his Century," said Dick Four. + +"How d'you know?" I asked. + +"How do I know?" said Dick Four, scornfully. "If you've ever been in a +tight place with Stalky you wouldn't ask." + +"I haven't seen him since the camp at Pindi in '87," I said. "He was +goin' strong then--about seven feet high and four feet through." + +"Adequate chap. Infernally adequate," said Tertius, pulling his +mustache and staring into the fire. + +"Got dam' near court-martialed and broke in Egypt in '84," the Infant +volunteered. "I went out in the same trooper with him--as raw as he +was. Only _I_ showed it, and Stalky didn't." + +"What was the trouble?" said McTurk, reaching forward absently to +twitch my dress-tie into position. + +"Oh, nothing. His colonel trusted him to take twenty Tommies out to +wash, or groom camels, or something at the back of Suakin, and Stalky +got embroiled with Fuzzies five miles in the interior. He conducted a +masterly retreat and wiped up eight of 'em. He knew jolly well he'd +no right to go out so far, so he took the initiative and pitched in a +letter to his colonel, who was frothing at the mouth, complaining of +the 'paucity of support accorded to him in his operations.' Gad, it +might have been one fat brigadier slangin' another! Then he went into +the Staff Corps." + +"That--is--entirely--Stalky," said Abanazar from his arm-chair. + +"You've come across him, too?" I said. + +"Oh, yes," he replied in his softest tones. "I was at the tail of +that--that epic. Don't you chaps know?" + +We did not--Infant, McTurk, and I; and we called for information very +politely. + +"'Twasn't anything," said Tertius. "We got into a mess up in the +Khye-Kheen Hills a couple o' years ago, and Stalky pulled us through. +That's all." + +McTurk gazed at Tertius with all an Irishman's contempt for the +tongue-tied Saxon. + +"Heavens!" he said. "And it's you and your likes govern Ireland. +Tertius, aren't you ashamed?" + +"Well, I can't tell a yarn. I can chip in when the other fellow starts +_bukhing_. Ask him." He pointed to Dick Four, whose nose gleamed +scornfully over the rug. + +"I knew you wouldn't," said Dick Four. "Give me a whiskey and soda. +I've been drinking lemon-squash and ammoniated quinine while you +chaps were bathin' in champagne, and my head's singin' like a top." + +He wiped his ragged mustache above the drink; and, his teeth +chattering in his head, began: "You know the Khye-Kheen-Malo't +expedition, when we scared the souls out of 'em with a field force +they daren't fight against? Well, both tribes--there was a coalition +against us--came in without firing a shot; and a lot of hairy +villains, who had no more power over their men than I had, promised +and vowed all sorts of things. On that very slender evidence, Pussy +dear--" + +"I was at Simla," said Abanazar, hastily. + +"Never mind, you're tarred with the same brush. On the strength of +those tuppenny-ha'penny treaties, your asses of Politicals reported +the country as pacified, and the Government, being a fool, as usual, +began road-makin'--dependin' on local supply for labor. 'Member +_that_, Pussy? 'Rest of our chaps who'd had no look-in during the +campaign didn't think there'd be any more of it, and were anxious to +get back to India. But I'd been in two of these little rows before, +and I had my suspicions. I engineered myself, _summa_ingenio_, into +command of a road-patrol--no shovellin', only marching up and down +genteelly with a guard. They'd withdrawn all the troops they could, +but I nucleused about forty Pathans, recruits chiefly, of my +regiment, and sat tight at the base-camp while the road-parties went +to work, as per Political survey." + +"Had some rippin' sing-songs in camp, too," said Tertius. + +"My pup"--thus did Dick Four refer to his subaltern--"was a pious +little beast. He didn't like the sing-songs, and so he went down with +pneumonia. I rootled round the camp, and found Tertius gassing about +as a D.A.Q.M.G., which, God knows, he isn't cut out for. There were +six or eight of the old Coll. at base-camp (we're always in force for +a frontier row), but I'd heard of Tertius as a steady old hack, and I +told him he had to shake off his D.A.Q.M.G. breeches and help _me_. +Tertius volunteered like a shot, and we settled it with the +authorities, and out we went--forty Pathans, Tertius, and me, looking +up the road-parties. Macnamara's--'member old Mac, the Sapper, who +played the fiddle so damnably at Umballa?--Mac's party was the last +but one. The last was Stalky's. He was at the head of the road with +some of his pet Sikhs. Mac said he believed he was all right." + +"Stalky _is_ a Sikh," said Tertius. "He takes his men to pray at the +Durbar Sahib at Amritzar, regularly as clockwork, when he can." + +"Don't interrupt, Tertius. It was about forty miles beyond Mac's +before I found him; and my men pointed out gently, but firmly, that +the country was risin'. What kind o' country, Beetle? Well, _I_'m no +word-painter, thank goodness, but _you_ might call it a hellish +country! When we weren't up to our necks in snow, we were rolling +down the khud. The well-disposed inhabitants, who were to supply +labor for the road-making (don't forget that, Pussy dear), sat behind +rocks and took pot-shots at us. 'Old, old story! We all legged it in +search of Stalky. I had a feeling that he'd be in good cover, and +about dusk we found him and his road-party, as snug as a bug in a +rug, in an old Malo't stone fort, with a watch-tower at one corner. It +overhung the road they had blasted out of the cliff fifty feet below; +and under the road things went down pretty sheer, for five or six +hundred feet, into a gorge about half a mile wide and two or three +miles long. There were chaps on the other side of the gorge +scientifically gettin' our range. So I hammered on the gate and nipped +in, and tripped over Stalky in a greasy, bloody old poshteen, +squatting on the ground, eating with his men. I'd only seen him for +half a minute about three months before, but I might have met him +yesterday. He waved his hand all sereno. + +"'Hullo, Aladdin! Hullo, Emperor!' he said. 'You're just in time for +the performance.'" + +"I saw his Sikhs looked a bit battered. 'Where's your command? Where's +your subaltern?' I said. + +"'Here--all there is of it,' said Stalky. 'If you want young Everett, +he's dead, and his body's in the watch-tower. They rushed our +road-party last week, and got him and seven men. We've been besieged +for five days. I suppose they let you through to make sure of you. +The whole country's up. 'Strikes me you've walked into a first-class +trap.' He grinned, but neither Tertius nor I could see where the deuce +the fun was. We hadn't any grub for our men, and Stalky had only +four days' whack for his. That came of dependin' upon your asinine +Politicals, Pussy dear, who told us that the inhabitants were +friendly. + +"To make us _quite_ comfy, Stalky took us up to the watch-tower to see +poor Everett's body, lyin' in a foot o' drifted snow. It looked like +a girl of fifteen--not a hair on the little fellow's face. He'd been +shot through the temple, but the Malo'ts had left their mark on him. +Stalky unbuttoned the tunic, and showed it to us--a rummy +sickle-shaped cut on the chest. 'Member the snow all white on his +eyebrows, Tertius? 'Member when Stalky moved the lamp and it looked as +if he was alive?" + +"Ye-es," said Tertius, with a shudder. "'Member the beastly look on +Stalky's face, though, with his nostrils all blown out, same as he +used to look when he was bullyin' a fag? That was a lovely evening." + +"We held a council of war up there over Everett's body. Stalky said +the Malo'ts and Khye-Kheens were up together; havin' sunk their blood +feuds to settle us. The chaps we'd seen across the gorge were +Khye-Kheens. It was about half a mile from them to us as a bullet +flies, and they'd made a line of sungars under the brow of the hill +to sleep in and starve us out. The Malo'ts, he said, were in front of +us promiscuous. There wasn't good cover behind the fort, or they'd +have been there, too. Stalky didn't mind the Malo'ts half as much as +he did the Khye-Kheens. He said the Malo'ts were treacherous curs. +What I couldn't understand was, why in the world the two gangs didn't +join in and rush us. There must have been at least five hundred of +'em. Stalky said they didn't trust each other very well, because they +were ancestral enemies when they were at home; and the only time +they'd tried a rush he'd hove a couple of blasting-charges among 'em, +and that had sickened 'em a bit. + +"It was dark by the time we finished, and Stalky, always serene, said: +'You command now. I don't suppose you mind my taking any action I may +consider necessary to reprovision the fort?' I said, 'Of course not,' +and then the lamp blew out. So Tertius and I had to climb down the +tower steps (we didn't want to stay with Everett) and got back to our +men. Stalky had gone off--to count the stores, I supposed. Anyhow, +Tertius and I sat up in case of a rush (they were plugging at us +pretty generally, you know), relieving each other till the mornln'. + +"Mornin' came. No Stalky. Not a sign of him. I took counsel with his +senior native officer--a grand, white-whiskered old chap--Rutton +Singh, from Jullunder-way. He only grinned, and said it was all +right. Stalky had been out of the fort twice before, somewhere or +other, accordin' to him. He said Stalky 'ud come back unchipped, and +gave me to understand that Stalky was an invulnerable _Guru_ of +sorts. All the same, I put the whole command on half rations, and set +'em to pickin' out loopholes. + +"About noon there was no end of a snow-storm, and the enemy stopped +firing. We replied gingerly, because we were awfully short of +ammunition. Don't suppose we fired five shots an hour, but we +generally got our man. Well, while I was talking with Rutton Singh I +saw Stalky coming down from the watch-tower, rather puffy about the +eyes, his poshteen coated with claret-colored ice. + +"'No trustin' these snow-storms,' he said. 'Nip out quick and snaffle +what you can get. There's a certain amount of friction between the +Khye-Kheens and the Malo'ts just now.' + +"I turned Tertius out with twenty Pathans, and they bucked about in +the snow for a bit till they came on to a sort of camp about eight +hundred yards away, with only a few men in charge and half a dozen +sheep by the fire. They finished off the men, and snaffled the sheep +and as much grain as they could carry, and came back. No one fired a +shot at 'em. There didn't seem to be anybody about, but the snow was +falling pretty thick. + +"'That's good enough,' said Stalky when we got dinner ready and he was +chewin' mutton-kababs off a cleanin' rod. 'There's no sense riskin' +men. They're holding a pow-wow between the Khye-Kheens and the +Malo'ts at the head of the gorge. I don't think these so-called +coalitions are much good.' + +"Do you know what that maniac had done? Tertius and I shook it out of +him by instalments. There was an underground granary cellar-room +below the watch-tower, and in blasting the road Stalky had blown a +hole into one side of it. Being no one else _but_ Stalky, he'd kept +the hole open for his own ends; and laid poor Everett's body slap +over the well of the stairs that led down to it from the watch-tower. +He'd had to move and replace the corpse every time he used the +passage. The Sikhs wouldn't go near the place, of course. Well, he'd +got out of this hole, and dropped on to the road. Then, in the night +_and_ a howling snow-storm, he'd dropped over the edge of the khud, +made his way down to the bottom of the gorge, forded the nullah, which +was half frozen, climbed up on the other side along a track he'd +discovered, and come out on the right flank of the Khye-Kheens. He +had then--listen to this!--crossed over a ridge that paralleled their +rear, walked half a mile behind that, and come out on the left of +their line where the gorge gets shallow and where there was a regular +track between the Malo't and the Khye-Kheen camps. That was about two +in the morning, and, as it turned out, a man spotted him--a +Khye-Kheen. So Stalky abolished him quietly, and left him--_with_ the +Malo't mark on his chest, same as Everett had. + +"'I was just as economical as I could be,' Stalky said to us. 'If he'd +shouted I should have been slain. I'd never had to do that kind of +thing but once before, and that was the first time I tried that path. +It's perfectly practicable for infantry, you know.' + +"'What about your first man?' I said. + +"'Oh, that was the night after they killed Everett, and I went out +lookin' for a line of retreat for my men. A man found me. I abolished +him--_privatim_--scragged him. But on thinkin' it over it occurred to +me that if I could find the body (I'd hove it down some rocks) I +might decorate it with the Malo't mark and leave it to the +Khye-Kheens to draw inferences. So I went out again the next night and +did. The Khye-Kheens are shocked at the Malo'ts perpetratin' these +two dastardly outrages after they'd sworn to sink all bleed feuds. I +lay up behind their sungars early this morning and watched 'em. They +all went to confer about it at the head of the gorge. Awf'ly annoyed +they are. Don't wonder.' You know the way Stalky drops out his words, +one by one." + +"My God!" said the Infant, explosively, as the full depth of the +strategy dawned on him. + +"Dear-r man!" said McTurk, purring rapturously. + +"Stalky stalked," said Tertius. "That's all there is to it." + +"No, he didn't," said Dick Four. "Don't you remember how he insisted +that he had only applied his luck? Don't you remember how Rutton +Singh grabbed his boots and grovelled in the snow, and how our men +shouted?" + +"None of our Pathans believed that was luck," said Tertius. "They +swore Stalky ought to have been born a Pathan, and--'member we nearly +had a row in the fort when Rutton Singh said Stalky was a Pathan? +Gad, how furious the old chap was with my Jemadar! But Stalky just +waggled his finger and they shut up. + +"Old Rutton Singh's sword was half out, though, and he swore he'd +cremate every Khye-Kheen and Malo't he killed. That made the Jemadar +pretty wild, because he didn't mind fighting against his own creed, +but he wasn't going to crab a fellow Mussulman's chances of Paradise. +Then Stalky jabbered Pushtu and Punjabi in alternate streaks. Where +the deuce did he pick up his Pushtu from, Beetle?" + +"Never mind his language, Dick," said I. "Give us the gist of it." + +"I flatter myself I can address the wily Pathan on occasion, but, hang +it all, I can't make puns in Pushtu, or top off my arguments with a +smutty story, as he did. He played on those two old dogs o' war like +a--like a concertina. Stalky said--and the other two backed up his +knowledge of Oriental nature--that the Khye-Kheens and the Malo'ts +between 'em would organize a combined attack on us that night, as a +proof of good faith. They wouldn't drive it home, though, because +neither side would trust the other on account, as Rutton Singh put +it, of the little accidents. Stalky's notion was to crawl out at +dusk with his Sikhs, manoeuvre 'em along this ungodly goat-track that +he'd found, to the back of the Khye-Kheen position, and then lob in a +few long shots at the Malo'ts when the attack was well on. 'That'll +divert their minds and help to agitate 'em,' he said. 'Then you chaps +can come out and sweep up the pieces, and we'll rendezvous at the +head of the gorge. After that, I move we get back to Mac's camp and +have something to eat." + +"_You_ were commandin'?" the Infant suggested. + +"I was about three months senior to Stalky, and two months Tertius's +senior," Dick Four replied. "_But_ we were all from the same old +Coll. I should say ours was the only little affair on record where +some one wasn't jealous of some one else." + +"_We_ weren't," Tertius broke in, "but there was another row between +Gul Sher Khan and Rutton Singh. Our Jemadar said--he was quite +right--that no Sikh living could stalk worth a damn; and that Koran +Sahib had better take out the Pathans, who understood that kind of +mountain work. Rutton Singh said that Koran Sahib jolly well knew +every Pathan was a born deserter, and every Sikh was a gentleman, even +if he couldn't crawl on his belly. Stalky struck in with some woman's +proverb or other, that had the effect of doublin' both men up with a +grin. He said the Sikhs and the Pathans could settle their claims on +the Khye-Kheens and Malo'ts later on, but he was going to take his +Sikhs along for this mountain-climbing job, because Sikhs could +shoot. They can, too. Give 'em a mule-load of ammunition apiece, and +they're perfectly happy." + +"And out he gat," said Dick Four. "As soon as it was dark, and he'd +had a bit of a snooze, him and thirty Sikhs went down through the +staircase in the tower, every mother's son of 'em salutin' little +Everett where It stood propped up against the wall. The last I heard +him say was, 'Kubbadar! tumbleinga! [Look out; you'll fall!] and they +tumbleingaed over the black edge of nothing. Close upon 9 p.m. the +combined attack developed; Khye-Kheens across the valley, and Malo'ts +in front of us, pluggin' at long range and yellin' to each other to +come along and cut our infidel throats. Then they skirmished up to +the gate, and began the old game of calling our Pathans renegades, +and invitin' 'em to join the holy war. One of our men, a young fellow +from Dera Ismail, jumped on the wall to slang 'em back, and jumped +down, blubbing like a child. He'd been hit smack in the middle of the +hand. 'Never saw a man yet who could stand a hit in the hand without +weepin' bitterly. It tickles up all the nerves. So Tertius took his +rifle and smote the others on the head to keep them quiet at the +loopholes. The dear children wanted to open the gate and go in at 'em +generally, but that didn't suit our book. + +"At last, near midnight, I heard the wop, wop, wop, of Stalky's +Martinis across the valley, and some general cursing among the +Malo'ts, whose main body was hid from us by a fold in the hillside. +Stalky was brownin' 'em at a great rate, and very naturally they +turned half right and began to blaze at their faithless allies, the +Khye-Kheens--regular volley firin'. In less than ten minutes after +Stalky opened the diversion they were going it hammer and tongs, both +sides the valley. When we could see, the valley was rather a mixed-up +affair. The Khye-Kheens had streamed out of their sungars above the +gorge to chastise the Malo'ts, and Stalky--I was watching him through +my glasses--had slipped in behind 'em. Very good. The Khye-Kheens had +to leg it along the hillside up to where the gorge got shallow and +they could cross over to the Malo'ts, who were awfully cheered to see +the Khye-Kheens taken in the rear. + +"Then it occurred to me to comfort the Khye-Kheens. So I turned out +the whole command, and we advanced _a'_la_pas_de_charge_, doublin' up +what, for the sake of argument, we'll call the Malo'ts' left flank. +Even then, if they'd sunk their differences, they could have eaten us +alive; but they'd been firin' at each other half the night, and they +went on firin'. Queerest thing you ever saw in your born days! As +soon as our men doubled up to the Malo'ts, they'd blaze at the +Khye-Kheens more zealously than ever, to show they were on our side, +run up the valley a few hundred yards, and halt to fire again. The +moment Stalky saw our game he duplicated it his side the gorge; and, +by Jove! the Khye-Kheens did just the same thing." + +"Yes, but," said Tertius, "you've forgot him playin' 'Arrah, Patsy, +mind the baby' on the bugle to hurry us up." + +"Did he?" roared McTurk. Somehow we all began to sing it, and there +was an interruption. + +"Rather," said Tertius, when we were quiet. No one of the Aladdin +company could forget that tune. "Yes, he played 'Patsy.' Go on, +Dick." + +"Finally," said Dick Four, "we drove both mobs into each other's arms +on a bit of level ground at the head of the valley, and saw the whole +crew whirl off, fightin' and stabbin' and swearin' in a blindin' +snow-storm. They were a heavy, hairy lot, and we didn't follow 'em. + +"Stalky had captured one prisoner--an old pensioned Sepoy of +twenty-five years' service, who produced his discharge--an awf'ly +sportin' old card. He had been tryin' to make his men rush us early +in the day. He was sulky--angry with his own side for their +cowardice, and Rutton Singh wanted to bayonet him--Sikhs don't +understand fightin' against the Government after you've served it +honestly--but Stalky rescued him, and froze on to him tight--with +ulterior motives, I believe. When we got back to the fort, we buried +young Everett--Stalky wouldn't hear of blowin' up the place--and +bunked. We'd only lost ten men, all told." + +"Only ten, out of seventy. How did you lose 'em?" I asked. + +"Oh, there was a rush on the fort early in the night, and a few +Malo'ts got over the gate. It was rather a tight thing for a minute +or two, but the recruits took it beautifully. Lucky job we hadn't any +badly wounded men to carry, because we had forty miles to Macnamara's +camp. By Jove, how we legged it! Half way in, old Rutton Singh +collapsed, so we slung him across four rifles and Stalky's overcoat; +and Stalky, his prisoner, and a couple of Sikhs were his bearers. +After that I went to sleep. You can, you know, on the march, when +your legs get properly numbed. Mac swears we all marched into his +camp snoring and dropped where we halted. His men lugged us into the +tents like gram-bags. I remember wakin' up and seeing Stalky asleep +with his head on old Rutton Singh's chest. _He_ slept twenty-four +hours. I only slept seventeen, but then I was coming down with +dysentery." + +"Coming down? What rot! He had it on him before we joined Stalky in +the fort," said Tertius. + +"Well, _you_ needn't talk! You hove your sword at Macnamara and +demanded a drumhead court-martial every time you saw him. The only +thing that soothed you was putting you under arrest every half hour. +You were off your head for three days." + +"Don't remember a word of it," said Tertius, placidly. "I remember my +orderly giving me milk, though." + +"How did Stalky come out?" McTurk demanded, purling hard over his +pipe. + +"Stalky? Like a serene Brahmini bull. Poor old Mac was at his Royal +Engineers' wits' end to know what to do. You see I was putrid with +dysentery, Tertius was ravin', half the men had frost-bite, and +Macnamara's orders were to break camp and come in before winter. So +Stalky, who hadn't turned a hair, took half his supplies to save him +the bother o' luggin' 'em back to the plains, and all the ammunition +he could get at, and, _consilio_et_auxilio_ Rutton Singhi, tramped +back to his fort with all his Sikhs and his precious prisoners, and a +lot of dissolute hangers-on that he and the prisoner had seduced into +service. He had sixty men of sorts--and his brazen cheek. Mac nearly +wept with joy when he went. You see there weren't any explicit orders +to Stalky to come in before the passes were blocked: Mac is a great +man for orders, and Stalky's a great man for orders--when they suit +his book." + +"He told me he was goin' to the Engadine," said Tertius. "Sat on my +cot smokin' a cigarette, and makin' me laugh till I cried. Macnamara +bundled the whole lot of us down to the plains next day. We were a +walkin' hospital." + +"Stalky told me that Macnamara was a simple godsend to him," said Dick +Four. "I used to see him in Mac's tent listenin' to Mac playin' the +fiddle, and, between the pieces, wheedlin' Mac out of picks and +shovels and dynamite cartridges hand-over-fist. Well, that was the +last we saw of Stalky. A week or so later the passes were shut with +snow, and I don't think Stalky wanted to be found particularly just +then." + +"He didn't," said the fair and fat Abanazar. "He didn't. Ho, ho!" + +Dick Four threw up his thin, dry hand with the blue veins at the back +of it. "Hold on a minute, Pussy; I'll let you in at the proper time. +I went down to my regiment, and that spring, five mouths later, I got +off with a couple of companies on detachment: nominally to look after +some friends of ours across the border; actually, of course, to +recruit. It was a bit unfortunate, because an ass of a young Naick +carried a frivolous blood-feud he'd inherited from his aunt into those +hills, and the local gentry wouldn't volunteer into my corps. Of +course, the Naick had taken short leave to manage the business; that +was all regular enough; _but_ he'd stalked my pet orderly's uncle. It +was an infernal shame, because I knew Harris of the Ghuznees would be +covering that ground three months later, and he'd snaffle all the +chaps I had my eyes on. Everybody was down on the Naick, because they +felt he ought to have had the decency to postpone his--his disgustful +amours till our companies were full strength. + +"Still the beast had a certain amount of professional feeling left. He +sent one of his aunt's clan by night to tell me that, if I'd take +safeguard, he'd put me on to a batch of beauties. I nipped over the +border like a shot, and about ten miles the other side, in a nullah, +my rapparee-in-charge showed me about seventy men variously armed, +but standing up like a Queen's company. Then one of 'em stepped out +and lugged round an old bugle, just like--who's the man?--Bancroft, +ain't it?--feeling for his eye-glass in a farce, and played 'Arrah, +Patsy, mind the baby. Arrah, Patsy, mind'--that was as for as he +could get." + +That, also, was as far as Dick Four could get, because we had to sing +the old song through twice, again and once more, and subsequently, in +order to repeat it. + +"He explained that if I knew the rest of the song he had a note for me +from the man the song belonged to. Whereupon, my children, I finished +that old tune on that bugle, and _this_ is what I got. I knew you'd +like to look at it. Don't grab." (We were all struggling for a sight +of the well-known unformed handwriting.) "I'll read it aloud. + + "'Fort Everett, February 19. + +"'Dear Dick, or Tertius: The bearer of this is in charge of +seventy-five recruits, all pukka devils, but desirous of +leading new lives. They have been slightly polished, and +after being boiled may shape well. I want you to give thirty +of them to my adjutant, who, though God's own ass, will +need men this spring. The rest you can keep. You will be +interested to learn that I have extended my road to the end +of the Malo't country. All headmen and priests concerned in +last September's affair worked one month each, supplying +road metal from their own houses. Everett's grave is +covered by a forty-foot mound, which should serve well as a +base for future triangulations. Rutton Singh sends his best +salaams. I am making some treaties, and have given my +prisoner--who also sends his salaams--local rank of Khan +Bahadur. + "'A. L. Cockran.' + +"Well, that was all," said Dick Four, when the roaring, the shouting, +the laughter, and, I think, the tears, had subsided. "I chaperoned +the gang across the border as quick as I could. They were rather +homesick, but they cheered up when they recognized some of my chaps, +who had been in the Khye-Kheen row, and they made a rippin' good lot. +It's rather more than three hundred miles from Fort Everett to where +I picked 'em up. Now, Pussy, tell 'em the latter end o' Stalky as you +saw it." + +Abanazar laughed a little nervous, misleading, official laugh. + +"Oh, it wasn't much. I was at Simla in the spring, when our Stalky, +out of his snows, began corresponding direct with the Government." + +"After the manner of a king," suggested Dick Four. "My turn now, Dick. +He'd done a whole let of things he shouldn't have done, and +constructively pledged the Government to all sorts of action." + +"'Pledged the State's ticker, eh?" said McTurk, with a nod to me. + +"About that; but the embarrassin' part was that it was all so +thunderin' convenient, so well reasoned, don't you know? Came in as +pat as if he'd had access to all sorts of information--which he +couldn't, of course." + +"Pooh!" said Tertius, "I back Stalky against the Foreign Office any +day." + +"He'd done pretty nearly everything he could think of, except strikin' +coins in his own image and superscription, all under cover of +buildin' this infernal road and bein' blocked by the snow. His report +was simply amazin'. Von Lennaert tore his hair over it at first, and +then he gasped, 'Who the dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He +must be slain. He must be slain officially! The Viceroy'll never +stand it. It's unheard of. He must be slain by his Excellency in +person. Order him up here and pitch in a stinger.' Well, I sent him +no end of an official stinger, and I pitched in an unofficial +telegram at the same time." + +"You!" This with amazement from the Infant, for Abanazar resembled +nothing so much as a fluffy Persian cat. + +"Yes--me," said Abanazar. "'Twasn't much, but after what you've said, +Dicky, it was rather a coincidence, because I wired: + "'Aladdin now has got his wife, + Your Emperor is appeased. + I think you'd better come to life: + We hope you've all been pleased.' + +"Funny how that old song came up in my head. That was fairly +non-committal and encouragin'. The only flaw was that his Emperor +wasn't appeased by very long chalks. Stalky extricated himself from +his mountain fastnesses and leafed up to Simla at his leisure, to be +offered up on the horns of the altar." + +"But," I began, "surely the Commander-in-Chief is the proper--" + +"His Excellency had an idea that if he blew up one single junior +captain--same as King used to blow us up--he was holdin' the reins of +empire, and, of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert +encouraged him. I'm not sure Von Lennaert didn't put that notion into +his head." + +"They've changed the breed, then, since my time," I said. + +"P'r'aps. Stalky was sent up for his wiggin' like a bad little boy. +I've reason to believe that His Excellency's hair stood on end. He +walked into Stalky for one hour--Stalky at attention in the middle of +the floor, and (so he vowed) Von Lennaert pretending to soothe down +His Excellency's topknot in dumb show in the background. Stalky +didn't dare to look up, or he'd have laughed." + +"Now, wherefore was Stalky not broken publicly?" said the Infant, with +a large and luminous leer. + +"Ah, wherefore?" said Abanazar. "To give him a chance to retrieve his +blasted career, and not to break his father's heart. Stalky hadn't a +father, but that didn't matter. He behaved like a--like the Sanawar +Orphan Asylum, and His Excellency graciously spared him. Then he came +round to my office and sat opposite me for ten minutes, puffing out +his nostrils. Then he said, 'Pussy, if I thought that +basket-hanger--'" + +"Hah! He remembered that," said McTurk. + +"'That two-anna basket-hanger governed India, I swear I'd become a +naturalized Muscovite to-morrow. I'm a _femme_incomprise_. This +thing's broken my heart. It'll take six months' shootin'-leave in +India to mend it. Do you think I can get it, Pussy?' + +"He got it in about three minutes and a half, and seventeen days later +he was back in the arms of Rutton Singh--horrid disgraced--with +orders to hand over his command, etc., to Cathcart MacMonnie." + +"Observe!" said Dick Four. "One colonel of the Political Department in +charge of thirty Sikhs, on a hilltop. Observe, my children!" + +"Naturally, Cathcart not being a fool, even if he _is_ a Political, +let Stalky do his shooting within fifteen miles of Fort Everett for +the next six months, and I always understood they and Rutton Singh +and the prisoner were as thick as thieves. Then Stalky loafed back +to his regiment, I believe. I've never seen him since." + +"I have, though," said McTurk, swelling with pride. + +We all turned as one man. "It was at the beginning of this hot +weather. I was in camp in the Jullunder doab and stumbled slap on +Stalky in a Sikh village; sitting on the one chair of state, with +half the population grovellin' before him, a dozen Sikh babies on his +knees, an old harridan clappin' him on the shoulder, and a garland o' +flowers round his neck. Told me he was recruitin'. We dined together +that night, but he never said a word of the business at the Fort. +Told me, though, that if I wanted any supplies I'd better say I was +Koran Sahib's _bhai_; and I did, and the Sikhs wouldn't take my +money." + +"Ah! That must have been one of Rutton Singh's villages," said Dick +Four; and we smoked for some time in silence. + +"I say," said McTurk, casting back through the years, "did Stalky ever +tell you _how_ Rabbits-Eggs came to rock King that night?" + +"No," said Dick Four. Then McTurk told. "I see," said Dick Four, +nodding. "Practically he duplicated that trick over again. There's +nobody like Stalky." + +"That's just where you make the mistake," I said. "India's full of +Stalkies--Cheltenham and Haileybury and Marlborough chaps--that we +don't know anything about, and the surprises will begin when there is +really a big row on." + +"Who will be surprised?" said Dick Four. + +"The other side. The gentlemen who go to the front in first-class +carriages. Just imagine Stalky let loose on the south side of Europe +with a sufficiency of Sikhs and a reasonable prospect of loot. +Consider it quietly." + +"There's something in that, but you're too much of an optimist, +Beetle," said the Infant. + +"Well, I've a right to be. Ain't I responsible for the whole thing? +You needn't laugh. Who wrote 'Aladdin now has got his wife'--eh?" + +"What's that got to do with it?" said Tertius. + +"Everything," said I. + +"Prove it," said the Infant. + +And I have. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling + diff --git a/old/stlky10.zip b/old/stlky10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e89a84 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/stlky10.zip diff --git a/old/stlky11.txt b/old/stlky11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..63a5283 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/stlky11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8878 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world; be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by A Elizabeth Warren MD, Sacramento, CA +aewarren2@aol.com + + + + + +STALKY & CO. + +By Rudyard Kipling + + + + +"Let us now praise famous men"-- + Men of little showing-- +For their work continueth, +And their work continueth, + Greater than their knowing. + +Western wind and open surge + Tore us from our mothers; +Flung us on a naked shore +(Twelve bleak houses by the shore! +Seven summers by the shore!) + 'Mid two hundred brothers. + +There we met with famous men + Set in office o'er us. +And they beat on us with rods-- +Faithfully with many rods-- +Daily beat us on with rods-- + For the love they bore us! + +Out of Egypt unto Troy-- + Over Himalaya-- +Far and sure our bands have gone-- +Hy-Brasil or Babylon, +Islands of the Southern Run, + And cities of Cathaia! + +And we all praise famous men-- + Ancients of the College; +For they taught us common sense--- +Tried to teach us common sense-- +Truth and God's Own Common Sense + Which is more than knowledge! + +Each degree of Latitude + Strung about Creation +Seeth one (or more) of us, +(Of one muster all of us-- +Of one master all of us--) + Keen in his vocation. + +This we learned from famous men + Knowing not its uses +When they showed in daily work +Man must finish off his work-- +Right or wrong, his daily work-- + And without excuses. + +Servants of the staff and chain, + Mine and fuse and grapnel-- +Some before the face of Kings, +Stand before the face of Kings; +Bearing gifts to divers Kings-- + Gifts of Case and Shrapnel. + +This we learned from famous men + Teaching in our borders. +Who declare'd it was best, +Safest, easiest and best-- +Expeditious, wise and best-- + To obey your orders. + +Some beneath the further stars + Bear the greater burden. +Set to serve the lands they rule, +(Save he serve no man may rule) +Serve and love the lands they rule; + Seeking praise nor guerdon. + +This we learned from famous men + Knowing not we learned it. +Only, as the years went by-- +Lonely, as the years went by-- +Far from help as years went by + Plainer we discerned it. + +Wherefore praise we famous men + Prom whose bays we borrow-- +They that put aside Today-- +All the joys of their Today-- +And with toil of their Today + Bought for us Tomorrow! + +Bless and praise we famous men + Men of little showing! +For their work continueth +And their work continueth +Broad and deep continueth + Great beyond their knowing! + +Copyright, 1899. by Rudyard Kipling + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. IN AMBUSH +II. SLAVES OF THE LAMP--PART I. +III. AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE +IV. THE IMPRESSIONISTS +V. THE MORAL REFORMERS +VI. A LITTLE PREP. +VII. THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY +VIII. THE LAST TERM +IX. SLAVES OF THE LAMP --PART II. + + + + +"IN AMBUSH." + + +In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind +the College--little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly +bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they +were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight. And for the fifth summer +in succession, Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle (this was before they +reached the dignity of a study) had built like beavers a place of +retreat and meditation, where they smoked. + +Now, there was nothing in their characters as known to Mr. Prout, +their house-master, at all commanding respect; nor did Foxy, the +subtle red-haired school Sergeant, trust them. His business was to +wear tennis-shoes, carry binoculars, and swoop hawklike upon evil +boys. Had he taken the field alone, that hut would have been raided, +for Foxy knew the manners of his quarry; but Providence moved Mr. +Prout, whose school-name, derived from the size of his feet, was +Hoofer, to investigate on his own account; and it was the cautious +Stalky who found the track of his pugs on the very floor of their +lair one peaceful afternoon when Stalky would fain have forgotten +Prout and his works in a volume of Surtees and a new briar-wood pipe. +Crusoe, at sight of the footprint, did not act more swiftly than +Stalky. He removed the pipes, swept up all loose match-ends, and +departed to warn Beetle and McTurk. + +But it was characteristic of the boy that he did not approach his +allies till he had met and conferred with little Hartopp, President +of the Natural History Society, an institution which Stalky held in +contempt, Hartopp was more than surprised when the boy meekly, as he +knew how, begged to propose himself, Beetle, and McTurk as +candidates; confessed to a long-smothered interest in +first-flowerings, early butterflies, and new arrivals, and +volunteered, if Mr. Hartopp saw fit, to enter on the new life at +once. Being a master, Hartopp was suspicious; but he was also an +enthusiast, and his gentle little soul had been galled by chance-heard +remarks from the three, and specially Beetle. So he was gracious to +that repentant sinner, and entered the three names in his book. + +Then, and not till then, did Stalky seek Beetle and McTurk in their +house form-room. They were stowing away books for a quiet afternoon +in the furze, which they called the "wuzzy." + +"All up," said Stalky, serenely. "I spotted Heffy's fairy feet round +our hut after dinner. 'Blessing they're so big." + +"Con-found! Did you hide our pipes?" said Beetle. + +"Oh, no. Left 'em in the middle of the hut, of course. What a blind +ass you are, Beetle! D'you think nobody thinks but yourself? Well, we +can't use the hut any more. Hoofer will be watchin' it." + +"'Bother! Likewise blow!'" said McTurk thoughtfully, unpacking the +volumes with which his chest was cased. The boys carried their +libraries between their belt and their collar. "Nice job! This means +we're under suspicion for the rest of the term." + +"Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. He and Foxy will watch it. +It's nothing to do with us; only we mustn't be seen that way for a +bit." + +"Yes, and where else are we to go?" said Beetle. "You chose that +place, too--an'--an' I wanted to read this afternoon." + +Stalky sat on a desk drumming his heels on the form. + +"You're a despondin' brute, Beetle. Sometimes I think I shall have to +drop you altogether. Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky forget you +yet? _His_rebus_infectis_--after I'd seen Heffy's man-tracks +marchin' round our hut, I found little +Hartopp--_destricto_ense_--wavin' a butterfly-net. I conciliated +Hartopp. 'Told him that you'd read papers to the Bug-hunters if he'd +let you join, Beetle. 'Told him you liked butterflies, Turkey. +Anyhow, I soothed the Hartoffles, and we're Bug-hunters now." + +"What's the good of that?" said Beetle. + +"Oh, Turkey, kick him!" + +In the interests of science bounds were largely relaxed for the +members of the Natural History Society. They could wander, if they +kept clear of all houses, practically where they chose; Mr. Hartopp +holding himself responsible for their good conduct. + +Beetle began to see this as McTurk began the kicking. + +"I'm an ass, Stalky!" he said, guarding the afflicted part. "_Pax_, +Turkey. I'm an ass." + +"Don't stop, Turkey. Isn't your Uncle Stalky a great man?" + +"Great man," said Beetle. + +"All the same bug-huntin's a filthy business," said McTurk. "How the +deuce does one begin?" + +"This way," said Stalky, turning to some fags' lockers behind him. +"Fags are dabs at Natural History. Here's young Braybrooke's +botany-case." He flung out a tangle of decayed roots and adjusted the +slide. "'Gives one no end of a professional air, I think. Here's Clay +Minor's geological hammer. Beetle can carry that. Turkey, you'd +better covet a butterfly-net from somewhere." + +"I'm blowed if I do," said McTurk, simply, with immense feeling. +"Beetle, give me the hammer." + +"All right. I'm not proud. Chuck us down that net on top of the +lockers, Stalky." + +"That's all right. It's a collapsible jamboree, too. Beastly luxurious +dogs these fags are. Built like a fishin'-rod. 'Pon my sainted Sam, +but we look the complete Bug-hunters! Now, listen to your Uncle +Stalky! We're goin' along the cliffs after butterflies. Very few +chaps come there. We're goin' to leg it, too. You'd better leave your +book behind." + +"Not much!" said Beetle, firmly. "I'm not goin' to be done out of my +fun for a lot of filthy butterflies." + +"Then you'll sweat horrid. You'd better carry my Jorrocks. 'Twon't +make you any hotter." + +They all sweated; for Stalky led them at a smart trot west away along +the cliffs under the furze-hills, crossing combe after gorzy combe. +They took no heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and +all that Turkey said of geology was utterly unquotable. + +"Are we going to Clovelly?" he puffed at last, and they flung +themselves down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the +sea below and the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were +looking into a combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that +ran up to a fringe of brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and +hollies. It was as though one-half the combe were filled with golden +fire to the cliff's edge. The side nearest to them was open grass, +and fairly bristled with notice-boards. + +"Fee-rocious old cove, this," said Stalky, reading the nearest. +"'_Prosecuted_with_the_utmost_rigour_of_the_law_. G. M. Dabney, Col., +J.P.,' an' all the rest of it. 'Don't seem to me that any chap in his +senses would trespass here, does it?" + +"You've got to prove damage 'fore you can prosecute for anything! +'Can't prosecute for trespass," said McTurk, whose father held many +acres in Ireland. "That's all rot!" + +"Glad of that, 'cause this looks like what we wanted. Not straight +across, Beetle, you blind lunatic! Anyone could spot us half a mile +off. This way; and furl up your beastly butterfly-net." + +Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up +the handle to a two-foot stave, and slid the cane-ring round his +waist. Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter +of a mile from the sea, and reached the fringe of the brambles. + +"_Now_ we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up +at all," said the tactician. "Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf! Snf! +Beastly stink of fox somewhere!" + +On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into +the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had +found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky +pinched him _a_tergo_. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was +evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their +inexpressible joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few +square feet of dry turf walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse. + +"By gum! There isn't a single thing to do except lie down," said +Stalky, returning a knife to his pocket. "Look here!" + +He parted the tough stems before him, and it was as a window opened on +a far view of Lundy, and the deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles a +couple of hundred feet below. They could hear young jackdaws +squawking on the ledges, the hiss and jabber of a nest of hawks +somewhere out of sight; and, with great deliberation, Stalky spat on +to the back of a young rabbit sunning himself far down where only a +cliff-rabbit could have found foot-hold. Great gray and black gulls +screamed against the jackdaws; the heavy-scented acres of bloom round +them were alive with low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the +shadow of the wheeling hawks passed and returned; and on the naked +turf across the combe rabbits thumped and frolicked. + +"Whew! What a place! Talk of natural history; this is it," said +Stalky, filling himself a pipe. "Isn't it scrumptious? Good old sea!" +He spat again approvingly, and was silent. + +McTurk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their +stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snored and gurgled; the birds, +scattered for the moment by these new animals, returned to their +businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm, sleepy silence. + +"Hullo, here's a keeper," said Stalky, shutting "Handley Cross" +cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared +on the sky-line to the east. "Confound him, he's going to sit down." + +"He'd swear we were poachin', too," said Beetle. "What's the good of +pheasants' eggs? They're always addled, too." + +"Might as well get up to the wood, I think," said Stalky. "We don't +want G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up +the wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know." + +Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp +indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through +the furze. + +"Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!" The keeper threw the gun to +his shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets +dusted the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky's +legs, and ran over the cliff-edge. + +They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, disheveled, hot, +but unseen. + +"Narrow squeak," said Stalky. "I'll swear some of the pellets went +through my hair." + +"Did you see him?" said Beetle. "I almost put my hand on him. Wasn't +he a wopper! Didn't he stink! Hullo, Turkey, what's the matter? Are +you hit?" + +McTurk's lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half +open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him +like this save once in a sad time of civil war. + +"Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?" he said, in a +grating voice, as he brushed prickles from his head. + +"Well, he didn't hit us," said Stalky. "I think it was rather a lark. +Here, where are you going?" + +"I'm going up to the house, if there is one," said McTurk, pushing +through the hollies. "I am going to tell this Colonel Dabney." + +"Are you crazy? He'll swear it served us jolly well right. He'll +report us. It'll be a public lickin'. Oh, Turkey, don't be an ass! +Think of us!" + +"You fool!" said McTurk, turning savagely. "D'you suppose I'm thinkin' +of _us_? It's the keeper." + +"He's cracked," said Beetle, miserably, as they followed. Indeed, this +was a new Turkey--a haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey--whom they +accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a white-whiskered +old gentleman with a cleek was alternately putting and blaspheming +vigorously. + +"Are you Colonel Dabney?" McTurk began in this new creaking voice of +his. + +"I--I am, and--" his eyes traveled up and down the boy--"who--what the +devil d'you want? Ye've been disturbing my pheasants. Don't attempt +to deny it. Ye needn't laugh at it." (McTurk's not too lovely +features had twisted themselves into a horrible sneer at the word +pheasant.) "You've been birds'-nesting. You needn't hide your hat. I +can see that you belong to the College. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye +do! Your name and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me--Eh? +You saw my notice-boards? Must have. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye +did! Damnable, oh damnable!" + +He choked with emotion. McTurk's heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered +a little--two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why +should he, the offender, be angry? + +"Lo-look here, sir. Do--do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don't, +your keeper does. We've seen him! I do-don't care what you call +us--but it's an awful thing. It's the ruin of good feelin' among +neighbors. A ma-man ought to say once and for all how he stands about +preservin'. It's worse than murder, because there's no legal remedy." +McTurk was quoting confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman +made noises in his throat. + +"Do you know who I am?" he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle +quaking. + +"No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer +me now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?" + +And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked McTurk +out of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a +sunstroke, and as assuredly he would be slain--once by the old +gentleman and once by the Head. A public licking for the throe was +the least they could expect. Yet--if their eyes and ears were to be +trusted--the old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before +the storm, but-- + +"I do not." He was still gurgling. + +"Then you must sack your keeper. He's not fit to live in the same +county with a God-fearin' fox. An' a vixen, too--at this time o' +year!" + +"Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this?" + +"Of course I did, ye silly man," with a stamp of the foot. "Would you +not have done as much for me if you'd seen that thing happen on my +land, now?" + +Forgotten--forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders! +McTurk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy +West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand +naked acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a +crazy fishing-boat, and the idol of his father's shiftless tenantry. +It was the landed man speaking to his equal--deep calling to +deep--and the old gentleman acknowledged the cry. + +"I apologize," said he. "I apologize unreservedly--to you, and to the +Old Country. Now, will you be good enough to tell me your story?" + +"We were in your combe," McTurk began, and he told his tale +alternately as a schoolboy and, when the iniquity of the thing +overcame him, as an indignant squire; concluding: "So you see he must +be in the habit of it. I--we---one never wants to accuse a neighbor's +man; but I took the liberty in this case--" + +"I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous---oh, infamous!" + +The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and +Colonel Dabney was talking as one man to another. "This comes of +promoting a fisherman--a fisherman--from his lobster-pots. It's +enough to ruin the reputation of an archangel. Don't attempt to deny +it. It is! Your father has brought you up well. He has. I'd much like +the pleasure of his acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young +gentlemen? English they are. Don't attempt to deny it. They came up +with you, too? Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present +state of education I shouldn't have thought any three boys would be +well enough grounded. But out of the mouths of--No--no! Not that by +any odds. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye're not! Sherry always catches +me under the liver, but--beer, now? Eh? What d'you say to beer, and +something to eat? It's long since I was a boy--abominable nuisances; +but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, too!" They were fed on +the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely +ate, but McTurk with bright eyes continued a free and lofty +discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a brother. + +"My dear man, of course ye can come again. Did I not say exceptions +prove the rule? The lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so +long as you do not disturb my pheasants. The two are not +incompatible. Don't attempt to deny it. They're not! I'll never allow +another gun, though. Come and go as ye please. I'll not see you, and +ye needn't see me. Ye've been well brought up. Another glass of beer, +now? I tell you a fisherman he was and a fisherman he shall be +to-night again. He shall! Wish I could drown him. I'll convoy you to +the Lodge. My people are not precisely--ah--broke to boy, but they'll +know you again." + +He dismissed them with many compliments by the high Lodge-gate in the +split-oak park palings and they stood still; even Stalky, who had +played second, not to say a dumb, fiddle, regarding McTurk as one +from another world. The two glasses of strong home-brewed had brought +a melancholy upon the boy, for, slowly strolling with his hands in +his pockets, he crooned:--"Oh, Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news +that's goin' round?" + +Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle would have fallen upon +him, for that song was barred utterly--anathema--the sin of +witchcraft. But seeing what he had wrought, they danced round him in +silence, waiting till it pleased him to touch earth. + +The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile from College. +McTurk shivered and came out of dreams. The glory of his holiday +estate had left him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking +English once more. + +"Turkey, it was immense!" said Stalky, generously. "I didn't know you +had it in you. You've got us a hut for the rest of the term, where +we simply _can't_ be collared. Fids! Fids! Oh, Fids! I gloat! Hear +me gloat!" + +They spun wildly on their heels, jodeling after the accepted manner of +a "gloat," which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man's song +of triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer +just in time to meet their house-master, who had spent the afternoon +watching their abandoned hut in the "wuzzy." + +Unluckily, all Mr. Prout's imagination leaned to the darker side of +life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys +that he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for +at any moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricket--even +house-matches; Beetle's views on the honor of the house he knew were +incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky +was laughing at him. Consequently--since human nature is what it +is--those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was +nothing very serious, but... + +"_Ti-ra-ra-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" Stalky, still on his heels, +whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining-hall. + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" Beetle spun behind him with +outstretched arms. + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" McTurk's voice cracked. + +Now was there or was there not a distinct flavor of beer as they shot +past Mr. Prout? + +He was unlucky in that his conscience as a house-master impelled him +to consult his associates. Had he taken his pipe and his troubles to +little Hartopp's rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved confusion, +for Hartopp believed in boys, and knew something about them. His fate +led him to King, a fellow house-master, no friend of his, but a +zealous hater of Stalky & Co. + +"Ah-haa!" said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. +"Curious! Now _my_ house never dream of doing these things." + +"But you see I've no proof, exactly." + +"Proof? With the egregious Beetle! As if one wanted it! I suppose it +is not impossible for the Sergeant to supply it? Foxy is considered +at least a match for any evasive boy in my house. Of course they were +smoking and drinking somewhere. That type of boy always does. They +think it manly." + +"But they've no following in the school, and they are distinctly--er +brutal to their juniors," said Prout, who had from a distance seen +Beetle return, with interest, his butterfly-net to a tearful fag. + +"Ah! They consider themselves superior to ordinary delights. +Self-sufficient little animals! There's something in McTurk's +Hibernian sneer that would make me a little annoyed. And they are so +careful to avoid all overt acts, too. It's sheer calculated +insolence. I am strongly opposed, as you know, to interfering with +another man's house; but they need a lesson, Prout. They need a sharp +lesson, if only to bring down their over-weening self-conceit. Were I +you, I should devote myself for a week to their little performances. +Boys of that order--and I may flatter myself, but I think I know +boys--don't join the Bug-hunters for love. Tell the Sergeant to keep +his eye open; and, of course, in my peregrinations I may casually keep +mine open, too." + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" far down the corridor. + +"Disgusting!" said King. "Where do they pick up these obscene noises? +One sharp lesson is what they want." + +The boys did not concern themselves with lessons for the next few +days. They had all Colonel Dabney's estate to play with, and they +explored it with the stealth of Red Indians and the accuracy of +burglars. They could enter either by the Lodge-gates on the upper +road--they were careful to ingratiate themselves with the Lodge-keeper +and his wife--drop down into the combe, and return along the cliffs; +or they could begin at the combe and climb up into the road. + +They were careful not to cross the Colonel's path--he had served his +turn, and they would not out-wear their welcome--nor did they show up +on the sky-line when they could move in cover. The shelter of the +gorze by the cliff-edge was their chosen retreat. Beetle christened +it the Pleasant Isle of Aves, for the peace and the shelter of it; +and here, the pipes and tobacco once cache'd in a convenient ledge an +arm's length down the cliff, their position was legally unassailable. + +For, observe, Colonel Dabney had not invited them to enter his house. +Therefore, they did not need to ask specific leave to go visiting; +and school rules were strict on that point. He had merely thrown open +his grounds to them; and, since they were lawful Bug-hunters, their +extended bounds ran up to his notice-boards in the combe and his +Lodge-gates on the hill. + +They were amazed at their own virtue. + +"And even if it wasn't," said Stalky, flat on his back, staring into +the blue. "Even suppose we were miles out of bounds, no one could get +at us through this wuzzy, unless he knew the tunnel. Isn't this +better than lyin' up just behind the Coll.--in a blue funk every time +we had a smoke? Isn't your Uncle Stalky--?" + +"No," said Beetle--he was stretched at the edge of the cliff spitting +thoughtfully. "We've got to thank Turkey for this. Turkey is the +Great Man. Turkey, dear, you're distressing Heffles." + +"Gloomy old ass!" said McTurk, deep in a book. + +"They've got us under suspicion," said Stalky. "Hoophats _is_ so +suspicious somehow; and Foxy always makes every stalk he does a sort +of--sort of--" + +"Scalp," said Beetle. "Foxy's a giddy Chingangook." + +"Poor Foxy," said Stalky. "He's goin' to catch us one of these days. +'Said to me in the Gym last night, 'I've got my eye on you, Mister +Corkran. I'm only warning you for your good.' Then I said: 'Well, you +jolly well take it off again, or you'll get into trouble. I'm only +warnin' you for your good.' Foxy was wrath." + +"Yes, but it's only fair sport for Foxy," said Beetle. "It's +Hefflelinga that has the evil mind. 'Shouldn't wonder if he thought +we got tight." + +"I never got squiffy but once--that was in the holidays," said Stalky, +reflectively; "an' it made me horrid sick. 'Pon my sacred Sam, +though, it's enough to drive a man to drink, havin' an animal like +Hoof for house-master." + +"If we attended the matches an' yelled, 'Well hit, sir,' an' stood on +one leg an' grinned every time Heffy said, 'So ho, my sons. Is it +thus?' an' said, 'Yes, sir,' an' 'No, sir,' an' 'O, sir,' an' +'Please, sir,' like a lot o' filthy fa-ags, Heffy 'ud think no end of +us," said McTurk with a sneer. + +"Too late to begin that." + +"It's all right. The Hefflelinga means well. _But_ he is an ass. _And_ +we show him that we think he's an ass. An' _so_ Heffy don't love us. +'Told me last night after prayers that he was _in_loco_parentis_," +Beetle grunted. + +"The deuce he did!" cried Stalky. "That means he's maturin' something +unusual dam' mean. Last time he told me that he gave me three hundred +lines for dancin' the cachuca in Number Ten dormitory. +_Loco_parentis_, by gum! But what's the odds as long as you're 'appy? +_We're_ all right." + +They were, and their very rightness puzzled Prout, King, and the +Sergeant. Boys with bad consciences show it. They slink out past the +Fives Court in haste, and smile nervously when questioned. They +return, disordered, in bare time to save a call-over. They nod and +wink and giggle one to the other, scattering at the approach of a +master. But Stalky and his allies had long out-lived these +manifestations of youth. They strolled forth unconcernedly, and +returned in excellent shape after a light refreshment of strawberries +and cream at the Lodge. + +The Lodge-keeper had been promoted to keeper, _vice_ the murderous +fisherman, and his wife made much of the boys. The man, too, gave +them a squirrel, which they presented to the Natural History Society; +thereby checkmating little Hartopp, who wished to know what they were +doing for Science. Foxy faithfully worked some deep Devon lanes +behind a lonely cross-roads inn; and it was curious that Prout and +King, members of Common-room seldom friendly, walked together in the +same direction--that is to say, northeast. + +Now, the Pleasant Isle of Aves lay due southwest. "They're +deep--day-vilish deep," said Stalky. "Why are they drawin' those +covers?" + +"Me," said Beetle sweetly. "I asked Foxy if he had ever tasted the +beer there. That was enough for Foxy, and it cheered him up a little. +He and Heffy were sniffin' round our old hut so long I thought they'd +like a change." + +"Well, it can't last forever," said Stalky. "Heffy's bankin' up like +a thunder-cloud, an' King goes rubbin' his beastly hands, an' +grinnin' like a hyena. It's shockin' demoralizin' for King. He'll +burst some day." + +That day came a little sooner than they expected--came when the +Sergeant, whose duty it was to collect defaulters, did not attend an +afternoon call-over. + +"Tired of pubs, eh? He's gone up to the top of the bill with his +binoculars to spot us," said Stalky. "Wonder he didn't think of that +before. Did you see old Heffy cock his eye at us when we answered our +names? Heffy's in it, too. _Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me! Come +on!" + +"Aves?" said Beetle. + +"Of course, but I'm not smokin' _aujourd'hui_. _Parceque_je_ jolly +well _pense_ that we'll be _suivi_. We'll go along the cliffs, slow, +an' give Foxy lots of time to parallel us up above." + +They strolled towards the swimming-baths, and presently overtook King. +"Oh, don't let _me_ interrupt you," he said. "Engaged in scientific +pursuits, of course? I trust you will enjoy yourselves, my young +friends." + +"You see!" said Stalky, when they were out of earshot. "He _can't_ +keep a secret. He's followin' to cut off our line of retreat. He'll +wait at the baths till Heffy comes along. They've tried every blessed +place except along the cliffs, and now they think they've bottled us. +No need to hurry." + +They walked leisurely over the combes till they reached the line of +notice-boards. + +"Listen a shake. Foxy's up wind comin' down hill like beans. When you +hear him move in the bushes, go straight across to Aves. They want to +catch us _flagrante_delicto_." + +They dived into the gorse at right angles to the tunnel, openly +crossing the grass, and lay still in Aves. + +"What did I tell you?" Stalky carefully put away the pipes and +tobacco. The Sergeant, out of breath, was leaning against the fence, +raking the furze with his binoculars, but he might as well have tried +to see through a sand-bag. Anon, Prout and King appeared behind him. +They conferred. + +"Aha! Foxy don't like the notice-boards, and he don't like the +prickles either. Now we'll cut up the tunnel and go to the Lodge. +Hullo! They've sent Foxy into cover." + +The Sergeant was waist-deep in crackling, swaying furze, his ears +filled with the noise of his own progress. The boys reached the +shelter of the wood and looked down through a belt of hollies. + +"Hellish noise!" said Stalky, critically. "'Don't think Colonel Dabney +will like it. I move we go into the Lodge and get something to eat. +We might as well see the fun out." + +Suddenly the keeper passed them at a trot. "Who'm they to combe-bottom +for Lard's sake? Master'll be crazy," he said. + +"Poachers simly," Stalky replied in the broad Devon that was the +boy's _langue_de_guerre_. + +"I'll poach 'em to raights!" He dropped into the funnel-like combe, +which presently began to fill with noises, notably King's voice +crying: "Go on, Sergeant! Leave him alone, you, sir. He is executing +my orders." + +"Who'm yeou to give arders here, gingy whiskers? Yeou come up to the +master. Come out o' that wuzzy! [This is to the Sergeant.] Yiss, I +reckon us knows the boys yeou'm after. They've tu long ears an' vuzzy +bellies, an' you nippies they in yeour pockets when they'm dead. Come +on up to master! He'll boy yeou all you're a mind to. Yeou other +folk bide your side fence." + +"Explain to the proprietor. You can explain, Sergeant," shouted King. +Evidently the Sergeant had surrendered to the major force. + +Beetle lay at full length on the turf behind the Lodge, literally +biting the earth in spasms of joy. Stalky kicked him upright. There +was nothing of levity about Stalky or McTurk save a stray muscle +twitching on the cheek. + +They tapped at the Lodge door, where they were always welcome. "Come +yeou right in an' set down, my little dearrs," said the woman. +"They'll niver touch my man. He'll poach 'em to rights. Iss fai! +Fresh berries an' cream. Us Dartymoor folk niver forgit their +friends. But them Bidevor poachers, they've no hem to their garments. +Sugar? My man he've digged a badger for yeou, my dearrs. 'Tis in the +linhay in a box." + +"Us'll take un with us when we're finished here. I reckon yeou'm busy. +We'll bide here an'--'tis washin' day with yeou, simly," said Stalky. +"We'm no company to make all vitty for. Never yeou mind us. Yiss. +There's plenty cream." + +The woman withdrew, wiping her pink hands on her apron, and left them +in the parlor. There was a scuffle of feet on the gravel outside the +heavily-leaded diamond panes, and then the voice of Colonel Dabney, +something clearer than a bugle. + +"Ye can read? You've eyes in your head? Don't attempt to deny it. Ye +have!" + +Beetle snatched a crochet-work antimacassar from the shiny horsehair +sofa, stuffed it into his mouth, and rolled out of sight. + +"You saw my notice-boards. Your duty? Curse your impudence, sir. Your +duty was to keep off my grounds. Talk of duty to _me_! Why--why--why, +ye misbegotten poacher, ye'll be teaching me my A B C next! Roarin' +like a bull in the bushes down there! Boys? Boys? Boys? Keep your +boys at home, then! I'm not responsible for your boys! But I don't +believe it--I don't believe a word of it. Ye've a furtive look in +your eye--a furtive, sneakin', poachin' look in your eye, that 'ud +ruin the reputation of an archangel! Don't attempt to deny it! Ye +have! A sergeant? More shame to you, then, an' the worst bargain Her +Majesty ever made! A sergeant, to run about the country poachin'--on +your pension! Damnable! Oh, damnable! But I'll be considerate. I'll +be merciful. By gad, I'll be the very essence o' humanity! Did ye, or +did ye not, see my notice-boards? Don't attempt to deny it! Ye did. +Silence, Sergeant!" + +Twenty-one years in the army had left their mark on Foxy. He obeyed. + +"Now. March!" The high Lodge gate shut with a clang. "My duty! A +sergeant to tell me my duty!" puffed Colonel Dabney. "Good Lard! more +sergeants!" + +"It's King! It's King!" gulped Stalky, his head on the horsehair +pillow. McTurk was eating the rag-carpet before the speckless hearth, +and the sofa heaved to the emotions of Beetle. Through the thick +glass the figures without showed blue, distorted, and menacing. + +"I--I protest against this outrage." King had evidently been running +up hill. "The man was entirely within his duty. Let--let me give you +my card." + +"He's in flannels!" Stalky buried his head again. + +"Unfortunately--most unfortunately--I have not one with me, but my +name is King, sir, a house-master of the College, and you will find +me prepared--fully prepared--to answer for this man's action. We've +seen three--" + +"Did ye see my notice-boards?" + +"I admit we did; but under the circumstances--" + +"I stand _in_loco_parentis_." Prout's deep voice was added to the +discussion. They could hear him pant. + +"F'what?" Colonel Dabney was growing more and more Irish. + +"I'm responsible for the boys under my charge." + +"Ye are, are ye? Then all I can say is that ye set them a very bad +example--a dam' bad example, if I may say so. I do not own your boys. +I've not seen your boys, an' I tell you that if there was a boy +grinnin' in every bush on the place, _still_ ye've no shadow of a +right here, comin' up from the combe that way, an' frightenin' +everything in it. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye did. Ye should have +come to the Lodge an' seen me like Christians, instead of chasin' +your dam' boys through the length and breadth of my covers. +_In_loco_parentis_ ye are? Well, I've not forgotten my Latin either, +an' I'll say to you: '_Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes_.' If the +masters trespass, how can we blame the boys?" + +"But if I could speak to you privately," said Prout. + +"I'll have nothing private with you! Ye can be as private as ye please +on the other side o' that gate an'--I wish ye a very good afternoon." + +A second time the gate clanged. They waited till Colonel Dabney had +returned to the house, and fell into one another's arms, crowing for +breath. + +"Oh, my Soul! Oh, my King! Oh, my Heffy! Oh, my Foxy! Zeal, all zeal, +Mr. Simple." Stalky wiped his eyes. "Oh! Oh I Oh!--'I _did_ boil the +exciseman!' We must get out of this or we'll be late for tea." + +"Ge--Ge--get the badger and make little Hartopp happy. Ma--ma--make +'em all happy," sobbed McTurk, groping for the door and kicking the +prostrate Beetle before him. + +They found the beast in an evil-smelling box, left two half-crowns for +payment, and staggered home. Only the badger grunted most marvelous +like Colonel Dabney, and they dropped him twice or thrice with +shrieks of helpless laughter. They were but imperfectly recovered +when Foxy met them by the Fives Court with word that they were to go +up to their dormitory and wait till sent for. + +"Well, take this box to Mr. Hartopp's rooms, then. We've done +something for the Natural History Society, at any rate," said Beetle. + +"'Fraid that won't save you, young gen'elmen," Foxy answered, in an +awful voice. He was sorely ruffled in his mind. + +"All sereno, Foxibus." Stalky had reached the extreme stage of +hiccups. "We--we'll never desert you, Foxy. Hounds choppin' foxes in +cover is more a proof of vice, ain't it?... No, you're right. +I'm--I'm not quite well." + +"They've gone a bit too far this time," Foxy thought to himself. "Very +far gone, _I'd_ say, excep' there was no smell of liquor. An' yet it +isn't like 'em--somehow. King and Prout they 'ad their dressin'-down +same as me. That's one comfort." + +"Now, we must pull up," said Stalky, rising from the bed on which he +had thrown himself. "We're injured innocence--as usual. We don't know +what we've been sent up here for, do we?" + +"No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public disgrace before the house," +said McTurk, whose eyes were running over. "It's dam' serious." + +"Well, hold on, till King loses his temper," said Beetle. "He's a +libelous old rip, an' he'll be in a ravin' paddy-wack. Prout's too +beastly cautious. Keep your eye on King, and, if he gives us a +chance, appeal to the Head. That always makes 'em sick." + +They were summoned to their house-master's study, King and Foxy +supporting Prout, and Foxy had three canes under his arm. King leered +triumphantly, for there were tears, undried tears of mirth, on the +boys' cheeks. Then the examination began. + +Yes, they had walked along the cliffs. Yes, they had entered Colonel +Dabney's grounds. Yes, they had seen the notice-boards (at this point +Beetle sputtered hysterically). For what purpose had they entered +Colonel Dabney's grounds? "Well, sir, there was a badger." + +Here King, who loathed the Natural History Society because he did not +like Hartopp, could no longer be restrained. He begged them not to +add mendacity to open insolence. But the badger was in Mr. Hartopp's +rooms, sir. The Sergeant had kindly taken it up for them. That +disposed of the badger, and the temporary check brought King's temper +to boiling-point. They could hear his foot on the floor while Prout +prepared his lumbering inquiries. They had settled into their stride +now. Their eyes ceased to sparkle; their faces were blank; their +hands hung beside them without a twitch. They were learning, at the +expense of a fellow-countryman, the lesson of their race, which is to +put away all emotion and entrap the alien at the proper time. + +So far good. King was importing himself more freely into the trial, +being vengeful where Prout was grieved. They knew the penalties of +trespassing? With a fine show of irresolution, Stalky admitted that +he had gathered some information vaguely bearing on this head, but he +thought--The sentence was dragged out to the uttermost: Stalky did +not wish to play his trump with such an opponent. Mr. King desired no +buts, nor was he interested in Stalky's evasions. They, on the other +hand, might be interested in his poor views. Boys who crept--who +sneaked--who lurked--out of bounds, even the generous bounds of the +Natural History Society, which they had falsely joined as a cloak for +their misdeeds--their vices--their villainies--their immoralities-- + +"He'll break cover in a minute," said Stalky to himself. "Then we'll +run into him before he gets away." + +Such boys, scabrous boys, moral lepers--the current of his words was +carrying King off his feet--evil-speakers, liars, slow-bellies--yea, +incipient drunkards... + +He was merely working up to a peroration, and the boys knew it; but +McTurk cut through the frothing sentence, the others echoing: + +"I appeal to the Head, sir." + +"I appeal to the head, sir." + +"I appeal to the Head, sir." + +It was their unquestioned right. Drunkenness meant expulsion after a +public flogging. They had been accused of it. The case was the +Head's, and the Head's alone. + +"Thou hast appealed unto Caesar: unto Caesar shalt thou go." They had +heard that sentence once or twice before in their careers. "None the +less," said King, uneasily, "you would be better advised to abide by +our decision, my young friends." + +"Are we allowed to associate with the rest of the school till we see +the Head, sir?" said McTurk to his house-master, disregarding King. +This at once lifted the situation to its loftiest plane. Moreover, it +meant no work, for moral leprosy was strictly quarantined, and the +Head never executed judgment till twenty-four cold hours later. + +"Well--er--if you persist in your defiant attitude," said King, with a +loving look at the canes under Foxy's arm. "There is no alternative." + +Ten minutes later the news was over the whole school. Stalky and Co. +had fallen at last--fallen by drink. They had been drinking. They had +returned blind-drunk from a hut. They were even now lying hopelessly +intoxicated on the dormitory floor. A few bold spirits crept up to +look, and received boots about the head from the criminals. + +"We've got him--got him on the Caudine Toasting-fork!" said Stalky, +after those hints were taken. "King'll have to prove his charges up +to the giddy hilt." + +"Too much ticklee, him bust," Beetle quoted from a book of his +reading. "Didn't I say he'd go pop if we lat un bide?" + +"No prep., either, O ye incipient drunkards," said McTurk, "and it's +trig night, too. Hullo! Here's our dear friend Foxy. More tortures, +Foxibus?" + +"I've brought you something to eat, young gentlemen," said the +Sergeant from behind a crowded tray. Their wars had ever been waged +without malice, and a suspicion floated in Foxy's mind that boys who +allowed themselves to be tracked so easily might, perhaps, hold +something in reserve. Foxy had served through the Mutiny, when early +and accurate information was worth much. + +"I--I noticed you 'adn't 'ad anything to eat, an' I spoke to Gumbly, +an' he said you wasn't exactly cut off from supplies. So I brought up +this. It's your potted 'am tin, ain't it, Mr. Corkran?" + +"Why, Foxibus, you're a brick," said Stalky. "I didn't think you had +this much--what's the word, Beetle?" + +"Bowels," Beetle replied, promptly. "Thank you, Sergeant. That's young +Carter's potted ham, though." + +"There was a C on it. I thought it was Mr. Corkran's. This is a very +serious business, young gentlemen. That's what it is. I didn't know, +perhaps, but there might be something on your side which you hadn't +said to Mr. King or Mr. Prout, maybe." + +"There is. Heaps, Foxibus." This from Stalky through a full mouth. + +"Then you see, if that was the case, it seemed to me I might represent +it, quiet so to say, to the 'Ead when he asks me about it. I've got +to take 'im the charges to-night, an'--it looks bad on the face of +it." + +"'Trocious bad, Foxy. Twenty-seven cuts in the Gym before all the +school, and public expulsion. 'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is +ragin','" quoth Beetle. + +"It's nothin' to make fun of, young gentlemen. I 'ave to go to the +'Ead with the charges. An'--an' you mayn't be aware, per'aps, that I +was followin' you this afternoon; havin' my suspicions." + +"Did ye see the notice-boards?" croaked McTurk, in the very brogue of +Colonel Dabney. + +"Ye've eyes in your head. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye did!" said +Beetle. + +"A sergeant! To run about poachin' on your pension! Damnable, O +damnable!" said Stalky, without pity. + +"Good Lord!" said the Sergeant, sitting heavily upon a bed. +"Where--where the devil _was_ you? I might ha' known it was a +do--somewhere." + +"Oh, you clever maniac!" Stalky resumed. "We mayn't be aware you were +followin' us this afternoon, mayn't we? 'Thought you were stalkin' +us, eh? Why, we led you bung into it, of course. Colonel +Dabney--don't you think he's a nice man, Foxy?--Colonel Dabney's our +pet particular friend. We've been goin' there for weeks and weeks, he +invited us. You and your duty! Curse your duty, sir! Your duty was to +keep off his covers." + +"You'll never be able to hold up your head again, Foxy. The fags 'll +hoot at you," said Beetle. + +"Think of your giddy prestige!" The Sergeant was thinking--hard. + +"Look 'ere, young gentlemen," he said, earnestly. "You aren't surely +ever goin' to tell, are you? Wasn't Mr. Prout and Mr. King in--in it +too?" + +"Foxibusculus, they _was_. They was--singular horrid. Caught it worse +than you. We heard every word of it. You got off easy, considerin'. +If I'd been Dabney I swear I'd ha' quodded you. I think I'll suggest +it to him to-morrow." + +"An' it's all goin' up to the 'Ead. Oh, Good Lord!" + +"Every giddy word of it, my Chingangook," said Beetle, dancing. "Why +shouldn't it? _We've_ done nothing wrong. _We_ ain't poachers. _We_ +didn't cut about blastin' the characters of poor, innocent +boys--saying they were drunk." + +"That I didn't," said Foxy. "I--I only said that you be'aved uncommon +odd when you come back with that badger. Mr. King may have taken the +wrong hint from that." + +"'Course he did; an' he'll jolly well shove all the blame on you when +he finds out he's wrong. We know King, if you don't. I'm ashamed of +you. You ain't fit to be a sergeant," said McTurk. + +"Not with three thorough-goin' young devils like you, I ain't. I've +been had. I've been ambuscaded. Horse, foot, an' guns, I've been had, +an'--an' there'll be no holdin' the junior forms after this. M'rover, +the 'Ead will send me with a note to Colonel Dabney to ask if what +you say about bein' invited was true." + +"Then you'd better go in by the Lodge-gates this time, instead of +chasin' your dam' boys--oh, that was the Epistle to King--so it was. +We-el, Foxy?" Stalky put his chin on his hands and regarded the +victim with deep delight. + +"_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!" said McTurk. "Foxy brought us +tea when we were moral lepers. Foxy has a heart. Foxy has been in the +Army, too." + +"I wish I'd ha' had you in my company, young gentlemen," said the +Sergeant from the depths of his heart; "I'd ha' given you something." + +"Silence at drum-head court-martial," McTurk went on. "I'm advocate +for the prisoner; and, besides, this is much too good to tell all the +other brutes in the Coll. They'd _never_ understand. They play +cricket, and say: 'Yes sir,' and 'O, sir,' and 'No, sir.'" + +"Never mind that. Go ahead," said Stalky. + +"Well, Foxy's a good little chap when he does not esteem himself so as +to be clever." + +"'Take not out your 'ounds on a werry windy day,'" Stalky struck in. +"_I_ don't care if you let him off." + +"Nor me," said Beetle. "Heffy is my only joy--Heffy and King." + +"I 'ad to do it," said the Sergeant, plaintively. + +"Right, O! Led away by bad companions in the execution of his duty +or--or words to that effect. You're dismissed with a reprimand, Foxy. +_We_ won't tell about _you_. I swear we won't," McTurk concluded. +"Bad for the discipline of the school. Horrid bad." + +"Well," said the Sergeant, gathering up the tea-things, "knowin' what +I know o' the young dev--gentlemen of the College, I'm very glad to +'ear it. But what am I to tell the 'Ead?" + +"Anything you jolly well please, Foxy. We aren't the criminals." + +To say that the Head was annoyed when the Sergeant appeared after +dinner with the day's crime-sheet would be putting it mildly. + +"Corkran, McTurk, and Co., I see. Bounds as usual. Hullo! What the +deuce is this? Suspicion of drinking. Whose charge??" + +"Mr. King's, sir. I caught 'em out of bounds, sir: at least that was +'ow it looked. But there's a lot be'ind, sir." The Sergeant was +evidently troubled. + +"Go on," said the Head. "Let us have your version." He and the Sergeant +had dealt with one another for some seven years; and the Head knew +that Mr. King's statements depended very largely on Mr. King's +temper. + +"I thought they were out of bounds along the cliffs. But it come out +they wasn't, sir. I saw them go into Colonel Dabney's woods, and--Mr. +King and Mr. Prout come along--and the fact was, sir, we was mistook +for poachers by Colonel Dabney's people--Mr. King and Mr. Prout and +me. There were some words, sir, on both sides. The young gentlemen +slipped 'ome somehow, and they seemed 'ighly humorous, sir. Mr. King +was mistook by Colonel Dabney himself--Colonel Dabney bein' strict. +Then they preferred to come straight to you, sir, on account of +what--what Mr. King may 'ave said about their 'abits afterwards in +Mr. Prout's study. I only said they was 'ighly humorous, laughin' an' +gigglin', an' a bit above 'emselves. They've since told me, sir, in a +humorous way, that they was invited by Colonel Dabney to go into 'is +woods." + +"I see. They didn't tell their house-master that, of course?" + +"They took up Mr. King on appeal just as soon as he spoke about +their--'abits. Put in the appeal at once, sir, an' asked to be sent +to the dormitory waitin' for you. I've since gathered, sir, in their +humorous way, sir, that some'ow or other they've 'eard about every +word Colonel Dabney said to Mr. King and Mr. Prout when he mistook +'em for poachers. I--I might ha' known when they led me on so that +they 'eld the inner line of communications. It's--it's a plain do, +sir, if you ask me; an' they're gloatin' over it in the dormitory." + +The Head saw--saw even to the uttermost farthing--and his mouth +twitched a little under his mustache. + +"Send them to me at once, Sergeant. This case needn't wait over." + +"Good evening," said he when the three appeared under escort. "I want +your undivided attention for a few minutes. You've known me for five +years, and I've known you for--twenty-five. I think we understand one +another perfectly. I am now going to pay you a tremendous compliment +(the brown one, please, Sergeant. Thanks. You needn't wait). I'm +going to execute you without rhyme, Beetle, or reason. I know you went +to Colonel Dabney's covers because you were invited. I'm not even +going to send the Sergeant with a note to ask if your statement is +true; because I am convinced that on this occasion you have adhered +strictly to the truth. I know, too, that you were not drinking. (You +can take off that virtuous expression, McTurk, or I shall begin to +fear you don't understand me.) There is not a flaw in any of your +characters. And that is why I am going to perpetrate a howling +injustice. Your reputations have been injured, haven't they? You have +been disgraced before the house, haven't you? You have a peculiarly +keen regard for the honor of your house, haven't you? Well, now I am +going to lick you." + +Six apiece was their portion upon that word. + +"And this I think"--the Head replaced the cane, and flung the written +charge into the waste-paper basket--"covers the situation. When you +find a variation from the normal--this will be useful to you in later +life--always meet him in an abnormal way. And that reminds me. There +are a pile of paper-backs on that shelf. You can borrow them if you +put them back. I don't think they'll take any harm from being read in +the open. They smell of tobacco rather. You will go to prep. this +evening as usual. Good-night," said that amazing man. + +"Good-night, and thank you, sir." + +"I swear I'll pray for the Head to-night," said Beetle. "Those last +two cuts were just flicks on my collar. There's a 'Monte Cristo' in +that lower shelf. I saw it. Bags I, next time we go to Aves!" + +"Dearr man!" said McTurk. "No gating. No impots. No beastly questions. +All settled. Hullo! what's King goin' in to him for--King and +Prout?" + +Whatever the nature of that interview, it did not improve either +King's or Prout's ruffled plumes, for, when they came out of the +Head's house, eyes noted that the one was red and blue with emotion +as to his nose, and that the other was sweating profusely. That sight +compensated them amply for the Imperial Jaw with which they were +favored by the two. It seems--and who so astonished as they?--that +they had held back material facts; were guilty both of +_suppressio_veri_ and _suggestio_falsi_ (well-known gods against whom +they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their +dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and +revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of +wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and +lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful. + +They were careful, as only boys can be when there is a hurt to be +inflicted. They waited through one suffocating week till Prout and +King were their royal selves again; waited till there was a +house-match--their own house, too--in which Prout was taking part; +waited, further, till he had his pads in the pavilion and stood ready +to go forth. King was scoring at the window, and the three sat on a +bench without. + +Said Stalky to Beetle: "I say, Beetle,_quis_custodet_ipsos_custodes_?" + +"Don't ask me," said Beetle. "I'll have nothin' private with you. Ye +can be as private as ye please the other end of the bench; and I wish +ye a very good afternoon." + +McTurk yawned. + +"Well, ye should ha' come up to the lodge like Christians instead o' +chasin' your--a-hem--boys through the length an' breadth of my +covers. _I_ think these house-matches are all rot. Let's go over to +Colonel Dabney's an' see if he's collared any more poachers." + +That afternoon there was joy in Aves. + + + + +SLAVES OF THE LAMP + + +The music-room on the top floor of Number Five was filled with the +"Aladdin" company at rehearsal. Dickson Quartus, commonly known as +Dick Four, was Aladdin, stage-manager, ballet-master, half the +orchestra, and largely librettist, for the "book" had been rewritten +and filled with local allusions. The pantomime was to be given next +week, in the down-stairs study occupied by Aladdin, Abanazar, and the +Emperor of China. The Slave of the Lamp, with the Princess +Badroulbadour and the Widow Twankay, owned Number Five study across +the same landing, so that the company could be easily assembled. The +floor shook to the stamp-and-go of the ballet, while Aladdin, in pink +cotton tights, a blue and tinsel jacket, and a plumed hat, banged +alternately on the piano and his banjo. He was the moving spirit of +the game, as befitted a senior who had passed his Army Preliminary +and hoped to enter Sandhurst next spring. + +Aladdin came to his own at last, Abanazar lay poisoned on the floor, +the Widow Twankay danced her dance, and the company decided it would +"come all right on the night." + +"What about the last song, though?" said the Emperor, a tallish, +fair-headed boy with a ghost of a mustache, at which he pulled +manfully. "We need a rousing old tune." + +"'John Peel'? 'Drink, Puppy, Drink'?" suggested Abanazar, smoothing +his baggy lilac pajamas. "Pussy" Abanazar never looked more than +one-half awake, but he owned a soft, slow smile which well suited the +part of the Wicked Uncle. + +"Stale," said Aladdin. "Might as well have 'Grandfather's Clock.' +What's that thing you were humming at prep. last night, Stalky?" + +Stalky, The Slave of the Lamp, in black tights and doublet, a black +silk half-mask on his forehead, whistled lazily where he lay on the +top of the piano. It was a catchy music-hall tune. + +Dick Four cocked his head critically, and squinted down a large red +nose. + +"Once more, and I can pick it up," he said, strumming. "Sing the +words." + +"Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child! Wrap him +in an overcoat, he's surely going wild! Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! +just you mind the child awhile! He'll kick and bite and cry all +night! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child!" + +"Rippin'! Oh, rippin'!" said Dick Four. "Only we shan't have any piano +on the night. We must work it with the banjoes--play an' dance at +the same time. You try, Tertius." + +The Emperor pushed aside his pea-green sleeves of state, and followed +Dick Four on a heavy nickel plated banjo. + +"Yes, but I'm dead all this time. Bung in the middle of the stage, +too," said Abanazar. + +"Oh, that's Beetle's biznai," said Dick Four. "Vamp it up, Beetle. +Don't keep us waiting all night. You've got to get Pussy out of the +light somehow, and bring us all in dancin' at the end." + +"All right. You two play it again," said Beetle, who, in a gray skirt +and a wig of chestnut sausage-curls, set slantwise above a pair of +spectacles mended with an old boot-lace, represented the Widow +Twankay. He waved one leg in time to the hammered refrain, and the +banjoes grew louder. + +"Um! Ah! Er--'Aladdin now has won his wife,'" he sang, and Dick Four +repeated it. + +"'Your Emperor is appeased.'" Tertius flung out his chest as he +delivered his line. + +"Now jump up, Pussy! Say, 'I think I'd better come to life! Then we +all take hands and come forward: 'We hope you've all been pleased.' +_Twiggez-vous_?" + +"_Nous_twiggons_. Good enough. What's the chorus for the final ballet? +It's four kicks and a turn," said Dick Four. + +"Oh! Er! + + John Short will ring the curtain down. + And ring the prompter's bell; + We hope you know before you go + That we all wish you well." + +"Rippin'! Rippin'! Now for the Widow's scene with the Princess. Hurry +up, Turkey." + +McTurk, in a violet silk skirt and a coquettish blue turban, slouched +forward as one thoroughly ashamed of himself. The Slave of the Lamp +climbed down from the piano, and dispassionately kicked him. "Play +up, Turkey," he said; "this is serious." But there fell on the door +the knock of authority. It happened to be King, in gown and +mortar-board, enjoying a Saturday evening prowl before dinner. + +"Locked doors! Locked doors!" he snapped with a scowl. "What's the +meaning of this; and what, may I ask, is the intention of this--this +epicene attire?" + +"Pantomime, sir. The Head gave us leave," said Abanazar, as the only +member of the Sixth concerned. Dick Four stood firm in the confidence +born of well-fitting tights, but Beetle strove to efface himself +behind the piano. A gray princess-skirt borrowed from a day-boy's +mother and a spotted cotton bodice unsystematically padded with +imposition-paper make one ridiculous. And in other regards Beetle had +a bad conscience. + +"As usual!" sneered King. "Futile foolery just when your careers, such +as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see! The old +gang of criminals--allied forces of disorder--Corkran"--the Slave of +the Lamp smiled politely--"McTurk"--the Irishman scowled--"and, of +course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs." Abanazar, the +Emperor, and Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed +them over. "Come forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument +of music! You supply, I presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. +Esteem yourself to be, as it were, a poet?" + +"He's found one of 'em," thought Beetle, noting the flush on King's +cheek-bone. + +"I have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my +address, I believe--an effusion intended to rhyme. So--so you despise +me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite aware--you need not explain +--that it was ostensibly not intended for my edification. I read it +with laughter--yes, with laughter. These paper pellets of inky boys +--still a boy we are, Master Gigadibs--do not disturb my equanimity." + +"Wonder which it was," thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons +on an appreciative public ever since he discovered that it was +possible to convey reproof in rhyme. + +In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he +called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his +mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he +held him up to the derision of his associates--with the usual result. +His wild flowers of speech--King had an unpleasant tongue---restored +him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle's +latter end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a +few compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he +must come up for judgment when called upon, went to Common-room, +where he triumphed anew over his victims. + +"And the worst of it," he explained in a loud voice over his soup, "is +that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. It's miles +above them, I'm certain." + +"We-ell," said the school chaplain slowly, "I don't know what +Corkran's appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads +Ruskin for his amusement." + +"Nonsense! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt." + +"He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, +unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers +of 'Fors Clavigera.'" + +"I don't know anything about their private lives," said a mathematical +master hotly, "but I've learned by bitter experience that Number Five +study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils." + +He blushed as the others laughed. + +But in the music-room there were wrath and bad language. Only Stalky, +Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano unmoved. + +"That little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. He's +always suckin' up to King. Go and kill him," he drawled. "Which one +was it, Beetle?" + +"Dunno," said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. "There was one +about his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other +one was one about him in hell, tellin' the Devil he was a Balliol +man. I swear both of 'em rhymed all right. By gum! P'raps Manders +minor showed him both! _I'll_ correct his caesuras for him." + +He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and +white boy in a form-room next door to King's study, which, again, was +immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a +form-room sacred to the revels of the Lower Third. Thence he came +back, greatly disordered, to find McTurk, Stalky, and the others of +the company, in his study enjoying an unlimited "brew"--coffee, +cocoa, buns, new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, +ham-and-tongue paste, pilchards, three jams, and at least as many +pounds of Devonshire cream. + +"My hat!" said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. "Who stumped up +for this, Stalky?" It was within a month of term end, and blank +starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks. + +"You," said Stalky, serenely. + +"Confound you! You haven't been popping my Sunday bags, then?" + +"Keep your hair on. It's only your watch." + +"Watch! I lost it--weeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to +shoot the old ram--the day our pistol burst." + +"It dropped out of your pocket (you're so beastly careless, Beetle), +and McTurk and I kept it for you. I've been wearing it for a week, +and you never noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. Got +thirteen and sevenpence. Here's the ticket." + +"Well, that's pretty average cool," said Abanazar behind a slab of +cream and jam, as Beetle, reassured upon the safety of his Sunday +trousers, showed not even surprise, much less resentment. Indeed, it +was McTurk who grew angry, saying: + +"You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated +beast! Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! 'Never got a sniff +of any ticket." + +"Ah, that was because you locked your trunk, and we wasted half the +afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if you'd behaved +like a Christian, Turkey." + +"My Aunt!" said Abanazar, "you chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to +Beetle, though." + +"That's beastly unfair," said Stalky, "when I took all the trouble to +pawn it. Beetle never knew he had a watch. Oh, I say, Rabbits-Eggs +gave me a lift into Bideford this afternoon." + +Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrier--an outcrop of the early Devonian +formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. "He was +pretty average drunk, or he wouldn't have done it. Rabbits-Eggs is a +little shy of me, somehow. But I swore it was _pax_ between us, and +gave him a bob. He stopped at two pubs on the way in, so he'll be +howling drunk to-night. Oh, don't begin reading, Beetle; there's a +council of war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?" + +"'Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third box-room. 'Had all his +beastly little friends on top of me," said Beetle from behind a jar +of pilchards and a book. + +"You ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to," +said McTurk. + +"I didn't think," said Beetle, meekly, scooping out pilchards with a +spoon. + +"Course you didn't. You never do." McTurk adjusted Beetle's collar +with a savage tug. "Don't drop oil all over my 'Fors' or I'll scrag +you!" + +"Shut up, you--you Irish Biddy! 'Tisn't your beastly 'Fors.' It's one +of mine." + +The book was a fat, brown-backed volume of the later Sixties, which +King had once thrown at Beetle's head that Beetle might see whence +the name Gigadibs came. Beetle had quietly annexed the book, and had +seen--several things. The quarter-comprehended verses lived and ate +with him, as the bedropped pages showed. He removed himself from all +that world, drifting at large with wondrous Men and Women, till +McTurk hammered the pilchard spoon on his head and he snarled. + +"Beetle! You're oppressed and insulted and bullied by King. Don't you +feel it?" + +"Let me alone! I can write some more poetry about him if I am, I +suppose." + +"Mad! Quite mad!" said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting +strange beasts. "Beetle reads an ass called Brownin', and McTurk +reads an ass called Ruskin; and--" + +"Ruskin isn't an ass," said McTurk. "He's almost as good as the Opium +Eater. He says 'we're children of noble races trained by surrounding +art.' That means _me_, and the way I decorated the study when you two +badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a +noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading, or I'll shove a +pilchard down your neck!" + +"It's two to one," said Stalky, warningly, and Beetle closed the book, +in obedience to the law under which he and his companions had lived +for six checkered years. + +The visitors looked on delighted. Number Five study had a reputation +for more variegated insanity than the rest of the school put +together; and so far as its code allowed friendship with outsiders it +was polite and open-hearted to its neighbors on the same landing. + +"What rot do you want now?" said Beetle. + +"King! War!" said McTurk, jerking his head toward the wall, where hung +a small wooden West-African war-drum, a gift to McTurk from a naval +uncle. + +"Then we shall be turned out of the study again," said Beetle, who +loved his flesh-pots. "Mason turned us out for--just warbling on it." +Mason was the mathematical master who had testified in Common-room. + +"Warbling?--O Lord!" said Abanazar. "We couldn't hear ourselves speak +in our study when you played the infernal thing. What's the good of +getting turned out of your study, anyhow?" + +"We lived in the form-rooms for a week, too," said Beetle, tragically. +"And it was beastly cold." + +"Ye-es, but Mason's rooms were filled with rats every day we were out. +It took him a week to draw the inference," said McTurk. "He loathes +rats. 'Minute he let us go back the rats stopped. Mason's a little +shy of us now, but there was no evidence." + +"Jolly well there wasn't," said Stalky, "when I got out on the roof +and dropped the beastly things down his chimney. But, look +here--question is, are our characters good enough just now to stand a +study row?" + +"Never mind mine," said Beetle. "King swears I haven't any." + +"I'm not thinking of you," Stalky returned scornfully. "You aren't +going up for the Army, you old bat. I don't want to be expelled--and +the Head's getting rather shy of us, too." + +"Rot!" said McTurk. "The Head never expels except for beastliness or +stealing. But I forgot; you and Stalky _are_ thieves--regular +burglars." + +The visitors gasped, but Stalky interpreted the parable with large +grins. + +"Well, you know, that little beast Manders minor saw Beetle and me +hammerin' McTurk's trunk open in the dormitory when we took his watch +last month. Of course Manders sneaked to Mason, and Mason solemnly +took it up as a case of theft, to get even with us about the rats." + +"That just put Mason into our giddy hands," said McTurk, blandly. "We +were nice to him, because he was a new master and wanted to win the +confidence of the boys. 'Pity he draws inferences, though. Stalky +went to his study and pretended to blub, and told Mason he'd lead a +new life if Mason would let him off this time, but Mason wouldn't. +'Said it was his duty to report him to the Head." + +"Vindictive swine!" said Beetle. "It was all those rats! Then _I_ +blubbed, too, and Stalky confessed that he'd been a thief in regular +practice for six years, ever since he came to the school; and that +I'd taught him--_a_la_ Fagin. Mason turned white with joy. He thought +he had us on toast." + +"Gorgeous! Gorgeous!" said Dick Four. "We never heard of this." + +"'Course not. Mason kept it jolly quiet. He wrote down all our +statements on impot-paper. There wasn't anything he wouldn't +believe," said Stalky. + +"And handed it all up to the Head, _with_ an extempore prayer. It took +about forty pages," said Beetle. "I helped him a lot." + +"And then, you crazy idiots?" said Abanazar. + +"Oh, we were sent for; and Stalky asked to have the 'depositions' read +out, and the Head knocked him spinning into a waste-paper basket. +Then he gave us eight cuts apiece--welters--for--for--takin' +unheard-of liberties with a new master. I saw his shoulders shaking +when we went out. Do you know," said Beetle, pensively, "that Mason +can't look at us now in second lesson without blushing? We three stare +at him sometimes till he regularly trickles. He's an awfully +sensitive beast." + +"He read 'Eric, or Little by Little,'" said McTurk; "so we gave him +'St. Winifred's, or the World of School.' They spent all their spare +time stealing at St. Winifred's, when they weren't praying or getting +drunk at pubs. Well, that was only a week ago, and the Head's a +little bit shy of us. He called it constructive deviltry. Stalky +invented it all." + +"Not the least good having a row with a master unless you can make an +ass of him," said Stalky, extended at ease on the hearth-rug. "If +Mason didn't know Number Five--well, he's learnt, that's all. Now, my +dearly beloved 'earers"--Stalky curled his legs under him and +addressed the company--"we've got that strong', perseverin' man King +on our hands. He went miles out of his way to provoke a conflict." +(Here Stalky snapped down the black silk domino and assumed the air of +a judge.) "He has oppressed Beetle, McTurk, and me, +_privatim_et_seriatim_, one by one, as he could catch us. But now, he +has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of +these--these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like +hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry 'Capivi!'" + +Stalky's reading did not include Browning or Ruskin. + +"And, besides," said McTurk, "he's a Philistine, a basket-hanger. He +wears a tartan tie. Ruskin says that any man who wears a tartan tie +will, without doubt, be damned everlastingly." + +"Bravo, McTurk," said Tertius; "I thought he was only a beast." + +"He's that, too, of course, but he's worse. He has a china basket with +blue ribbons and a pink kitten on it, hung up in his window to grow +musk in. You know when I got all that old oak carvin' out of Bideford +Church, when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who'll +restore a church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with +glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know whether we'd done it with +a fret-saw! Yah! He is the King of basket-hangers!" + +Down went McTurk's inky thumb over an imaginary arena full of bleeding +Kings. "_Placete_, child of a generous race!" he cried to Beetle. + +"Well," began Beetle, doubtfully, "he comes from Balliol, but I'm +going to give the beast a chance. You see I can always make him hop +with some more poetry. He can't report me to the Head, because it +makes him ridiculous. (Stalky's quite right.) But he shall have his +chance." + +Beetle opened the book on the table, ran his finger down a page, and +began at random: + + "Or who in Moscow toward the Czar + With the demurest of footfalls, + Over the Kremlin's pavement white + With serpentine and syenite, + Steps with five other generals--" + +"That's no good. Try another," said Stalky. + +"Hold on a shake; I know what's coming." McTurk was reading over +Beetle's shoulder. + + "That simultaneously take snuff, + For each to have pretext enough + And kerchiefwise unfold his sash, + Which--softness' self--is yet the stuff + +(Gummy! What a sentence!) + + To hold fast where a steel chain snaps + And leave the grand white neck no gash. + +(Full stop.)" + +"'Don't understand a word of it," said Stalky. + +"More fool you! Construe," said McTurk. "Those six bargees scragged +the Czar, and left no evidence. _Actum_est_ with King." + +"He gave me that book, too," said Beetle, licking his lips: + + "There's a great text in Galatians, + Once you trip on it entails + Twenty-nine distinct damnations, + One sure if another fails." + +Then irrelevantly: + + "Setebos! Setebos! and Setebos! + Thinketh he liveth in the cold of the moon." + +"He's just come in from dinner," said Dick Four, looking through the +window. "Manders minor is with him." + +"'Safest place for Manders minor just now," said Beetle. + +"Then you chaps had better clear out," said Stalky politely to the +visitors. "'Tisn't fair to mix you up in a study row. Besides, we +can't afford to have evidence." + +"Are you going to begin at once?' said Aladdin. + +"Immediately, if not sooner," said Stalky, and turned out the gas. +"Strong, perseverin' man--King. Make him cry 'Capivi.' G'way, +Binjimin." + +The company retreated to their own neat and spacious study with +expectant souls. + +"When Stalky blows out his nostrils like a horse," said Aladdin to the +Emperor of China, "he's on the war-path. 'Wonder what King will get." + +"Beans," said the Emperor. "Number Five generally pays in full." + +"Wonder if I ought to take any notice of it officially," said +Abanazar, who had just remembered he was a prefect. + +"It's none of your business, Pussy. Besides, if you did, we'd have +them hostile to us; and we shouldn't be able to do any work," said +Aladdin. "They've begun already." + +Now that West-African war-drum had been made to signal across +estuaries and deltas. Number Five was forbidden to wake the engine +within earshot of the school. But a deep, devastating drone filled +the passages as McTurk and Beetle scientifically rubbed its top. Anon +it changed to the blare of trumpets--of savage pursuing trumpets. +Then, as McTurk slapped one side, smooth with the blood of ancient +sacrifice, the roar broke into short coughing howls such as the +wounded gorilla throws in his native forest. These were followed by +the wrath of King--three steps at a time, up the staircase, with a +dry whir of the gown. Aladdin and company, listening, squeaked with +excitement as the door crashed open. King stumbled into the darkness, +and cursed those performers by the gods of Balliol and quiet repose. + +"Turned out for a week," said Aladdin, holding the study door on the +crack. "Key to be brought down to his study in five minutes. 'Brutes! +Barbarians! Savages! Children!' He's rather agitated. 'Arrah, Patsy, +mind the baby,'" he sang in a whisper as he clung to the door-knob, +dancing a noiseless war-dance. + +King went down-stairs again, and Beetle and McTurk lit the gas to +confer with Stalky. But Stalky had vanished. + +"Looks like no end of a mess," said Beetle, collecting his books and +mathematical instrument case. "A week in the form-rooms isn't any +advantage to us." + +"Yes, but don't you see that Stalky isn't here, you owl!" said McTurk. +"Take down the key, and look sorrowful. King'll only jaw you for half +an hour. I'm going to read in the lower form-room." + +"But it's always me," mourned Beetle. + +"Wait till we see," said McTurk, hopefully. "I don't know any more +than you do what Stalky means, but it's something. Go down and draw +King's fire. You're used to it." + +No sooner had the key turned in the door than the lid of the coal-box, +which was also the window-seat, lifted cautiously. It had been a +tight fit, even for the lithe Stalky, his head between his knees, and +his stomach under his right ear. From a drawer in the table he took a +well-worn catapult, a handful of buckshot, and a duplicate key of the +study; noiselessly he raised the window and kneeled by it, his face +turned to the road, the wind-sloped trees, the dark levels of the +Burrows, and the white line of breakers falling nine-deep along the +Pebbleridge. Far down the steep-banked Devonshire lane he heard the +husky hoot of the carrier's horn. There was a ghost of melody in it, +as it might have been the wind in a gin-bottle essaying to sing, +"It's a way we have in the Army." + +Stalky smiled a tight-lipped smile, and at extreme range opened fire: +the old horse half wheeled in the shafts. + +"Where he gwaine tu?" hiccoughed Rabbits-Eggs. Another buckshot tore +through the rotten canvas tilt with a vicious zipp. + +"_Habet_!" murmured Stalky, as Rabbits-Eggs swore into the patient +night, protesting that he saw the "dommed colleger" who was +assaulting him. + +"And so," King was saying in a high head voice to Beetle, whom he had +kept to play with before Manders minor, well knowing that it hurts a +Fifth-form boy to be held up to a fag's derision, "and so, Master +Beetle, in spite of all our verses, which we are so proud of, when we +presume to come into direct conflict with even so humble a +representative of authority as myself, for instance, we are turned out +of our studies, are we not?" + +"Yes, sir," said Beetle, with a sheepish grin on his lips and murder +in his heart. Hope had nearly left him, but he clung to a +well-established faith that never was Stalky so dangerous as when he +was invisible. + +"You are _not_ required to criticise, thank you. Turned out of our +studies, we are, just as if we were no better than little Manders +minor. Only inky schoolboys we are, and must be treated as such." + +Beetle pricked up his ears, for Rabbits-Eggs was swearing savagely on +the road, and some of the language entered at the upper sash. King +believed in ventilation. He strode to the window gowned and majestic, +very visible in the gaslight. + +"I zee 'un! I zee 'un!" roared Rabbits-Eggs, now that he had found a +visible foe--another shot from the darkness above. "Yiss, yeou, yeou +long-nosed, fower-eyed, gingy-whiskered beggar! Yeu'm tu old for such +goin's on. Aie! Poultice yeour nose, I tall 'ee! Poultice yeour long +nose!" + +Beetle's heart leaped up within him. Somewhere, somehow, he knew, +Stalky moved behind these manifestations. There were hope and the +prospect of revenge. He would embody the suggestion about the nose in +deathless verse. King threw up the window, and sternly rebuked +Rabbits-Eggs. But the carrier was beyond fear or fawning. He had +descended from the cart, and was stooping by the roadside. + +It all fell swiftly as a dream. Manders minor raised his hand to his +head with a cry, as a jagged flint cannoned on to some rich tree-calf +bindings in the book-shelf. Another quoited along the writing-table. +Beetle made zealous feint to stop it, and in that endeavor overturned +a student's lamp, which dripped, _via_ King's papers and some choice +books, greasily on to a Persian rug. There was much broken glass on +the window-seat; the china basket--McTurk's aversion--cracked to +flinders, had dropped her musk plant and its earth over the red rep +cushions; Manders minor was bleeding profusely from a cut on the +cheek-bone; and King, using strange words, every one of which Beetle +treasured, ran forth to find the school-sergeant, that Rabbits-Eggs +might be instantly cast into jail. + +"Poor chap!" said Beetle, with a false, feigned sympathy. "Let it +bleed a little. That'll prevent apoplexy," and he held the blind +head skilfully over the table, and the papers on the table, as he +guided the howling Manders to the door. + +Then did Beetle, alone with the wreckage, return good for evil. How, +in that office, a complete set of "Gibbon" was scarred all along the +back as by a flint; how so much black and copying ink came to be +mingled with Manders's gore on the table-cloth; why the big +gum-bottle, unstoppered, had rolled semicircularly across the floor; +and in what manner the white china door-knob grew to be painted with +yet more of Manders's young blood, were matters which Beetle did not +explain when the rabid King returned to find him standing politely +over the reeking hearth-rug. + +"You never told me to go, sir," he said, with the air of Casabianca, +and King consigned him to the outer darkness. + +But it was to a boot-cupboard under the staircase on the ground floor +that he hastened, to loose the mirth that was destroying him. He had +not drawn breath for a first whoop of triumph when two hands choked +him dumb. + +"Go to the dormitory and get me my things. Bring 'em to Number Five +lavatory. I'm still in tights," hissed Stalky, sitting on his head. +"Don't run. Walk." + +But Beetle staggered into the form-room next door, and delegated his +duty to the yet unenlightened McTurk, with an hysterical precis of +the campaign thus far. So it was McTurk, of the wooden visage, who +brought the clothes from the dormitory while Beetle panted on a form. +Then the three buried themselves in Number Five lavatory, turned on +all the taps, filled the place with steam, and dropped weeping into +the baths, where they pieced out the war. + +"_Moi_! _Je_! _Ich_! _Ego_!" gasped Stalky. "I waited till I couldn't +hear myself think, while you played the drum! Hid in the +coal-locker--and tweaked Rabbits-Eggs--and Rabbits-Eggs rocked King. +Wasn't it beautiful? Did you hear the glass?" + +"Why, he--he--he," shrieked McTurk, one trembling finger pointed at +Beetle. + +"Why, I--I--I was through it all," Beetle howled; "in his study, being +jawed." + +"Oh, my soul!" said Stalky with a yell, disappearing under water. + +"The--the glass was nothing. Manders minor's head's cut open. +La--la--lamp upset all over the rug. Blood on the books and papers. +The gum! The gum! The gum! The ink! The ink! The ink! Oh, Lord!" + +Then Stalky leaped out, all pink as he was, and shook Beetle into some +sort of coherence; but his tale prostrated them afresh. + +"I bunked for the boot-cupboard the second I heard King go +down-stairs. Beetle tumbled in on top of me. The spare key's hid +behind the loose board. There isn't a shadow of evidence," said +Stalky. They were all chanting together. + +"And he turned us out himself--himself--himself!" This from McTurk. +"He can't begin to suspect us. Oh, Stalky, it's the loveliest thing +we've ever done." + +"Gum! Gum! Dollops of gum!" shouted Beetle, his spectacles gleaming +through a sea of lather. "Ink and blood all mixed. I held the little +beast's head all over the Latin proses for Monday. Golly, how the oil +stunk! And Rabbits-Eggs told King to poultice his nose! Did you hit +Rabbits-Eggs, Stalky?" + +"Did I jolly well not? Tweaked him all over. Did you hear him curse? +Oh, I shall be sick in a minute if I don't stop." + +But dressing was a slow process, because McTurk was obliged to dance +when he heard that the musk basket was broken, and, moreover, Beetle +retailed all King's language with emendations and purple insets. + +"Shockin'!" said Stalky, collapsing in a helpless welter of +half-hitched trousers. "So dam' bad, too, for innocent boys like us! +Wonder what they'd say at 'St. Winifred's, or the World of +School.'--By gum! That reminds me we owe the Lower Third one for +assaultin' Beetle when he chivied Manders minor. Come on! It's an +alibi, Samivel; and, besides, if we let 'em off they'll be worse next +time." + +The Lower Third had set a guard upon their form-room for the space of +a full hour, which to a boy is a lifetime. Now they were busy with +their Saturday evening businesses--cooking sparrows over the gas with +rusty nibs; brewing unholy drinks in gallipots; skinning moles with +pocket-knives; attending to paper trays full of silkworms, or +discussing the iniquities of their elders with a freedom, fluency, +and point that would have amazed their parents. The blow fell without +warning. Stalky upset a form crowded with small boys among their own +cooking utensils, McTurk raided the untidy lockers as a terrier digs +at a rabbit-hole, while Beetle poured ink upon such heads as he could +not appeal to with a Smith's Classical Dictionary. Three brisk +minutes accounted for many silkworms, pet larvae, French exercises, +school caps, half-prepared bones and skulls, and a dozen pots of +home-made sloe jam. It was a great wreckage, and the form-room looked +as though three conflicting tempests had smitten it. + +"Phew!" said Stalky, drawing breath outside the door (amid groans of +"Oh, you beastly ca-ads! You think yourselves awful funny," and so +forth). "_That's_ all right. Never let the sun go down upon your +wrath. Rummy little devils, fags. Got no notion o' combinin'." + +"Six of 'em sat on my head when I went in after Manders minor," said +Beetle. "I warned 'em what they'd get, though." + +"Everybody paid in full--beautiful feelin'," said McTurk absently, as +they strolled along the corridor. "Don't think we'd better say much +about King, though, do you, Stalky?" + +"Not _much_. Our line is injured innocence, of course--same as when +the Sergeant reported us on suspicion of smoking in the bunkers. If I +hadn't thought of buyin' the pepper and spillin' it all over our +clothes, he'd have smelt us. King was gha-astly facetious about that. +'Called us bird-stuffers in form for a week." + +"Ah, King hates the Natural History Society because little Hartopp is +president. Mustn't do anything in the Coll. without glorifyin' +King," said McTurk. "But he must be a putrid ass, know, to suppose at +our time o' life we'd go and stuff birds like fags." + +"Poor old King!" said Beetle. "He's unpopular in Common-room, and +they'll chaff his head off about Rabbits-Eggs. Golly! How lovely! How +beautiful! How holy! But you should have seen his face when the first +rock came in! _And_ the earth from the basket!" + +So they were all stricken helpless for five minutes. + +They repaired at last to Abanazar's study, and were received +reverently. + +"What's the matter?" said Stalky, quick to realize new atmospheres. + +"You know jolly well," said Abanazar. "You'll be expelled if you get +caught. King is a gibbering maniac." + +"Who? Which? What? Expelled for how? We only played the war-drum. +We've got turned out for that already." + +"Do you chaps mean to say you didn't make Rabbits-Eggs drunk and bribe +him to rock King's rooms?" + +"Bribe him? No, that I'll swear we didn't," said Stalky, with a +relieved heart, for he loved not to tell lies. "What a low mind +you've got, Pussy! We've been down having a bath. Did Rabbits-Eggs +rock King? Strong, perseverin' man King? Shockin'!" + +"Awf'ly. King's frothing at the mouth. There's bell for prayers. Come +on." + +"Wait a sec," said Stalky, continuing the conversation in a loud and +cheerful voice, as they descended the stairs. "What did Rabbits-Eggs +rock King for?" + +"I know," said Beetle, as they passed King's open door. "I was in his +study." + +"Hush, you ass!" hissed the Emperor of China. "Oh, he's gone down to +prayers," said Beetle, watching the shadow of the house-master on the +wall. "Rabbits-Eggs was only a bit drunk, swearin' at his horse, and +King jawed him through the window, and then, of course, he rocked +King." + +"Do you mean to say," said Stalky, "that King began it?" + +King was behind them, and every well-weighed word went up the +staircase like an arrow. "I can only swear," said Beetle, "that King +cursed like a bargee. Simply disgustin'. I'm goin' to write to my +father about it." + +"Better report it to Mason," suggested Stalky. "He knows our tender +consciences. Hold on a shake. I've got to tie my boot-lace." + +The other study hurried forward. They did not wish to be dragged into +stage asides of this nature. So it was left to McTurk to sum up the +situation beneath the guns of the enemy. + +"You see," said the Irishman, hanging on the banister, "he begins by +bullying little chaps; then he bullies the big chaps; then he bullies +some one who isn't connected with the College, and then catches it. +Serves him jolly well right... I beg your pardon, sir. I didn't see +you were coming down the staircase." + +The black gown tore past like a thunder-storm, and in its wake, three +abreast, arms linked, the Aladdin company rolled up the big corridor +to prayers, singing with most innocent intention: + + "Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child! + Wrap him up in an overcoat, he's surely goin' wild! + Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby; just ye mind the child awhile! + He'll kick an' bite an' cry all night! Arrah, Patsy, mind + the child!" + + + + +AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE. + + +It was a maiden aunt of Stalky who sent him both books, with the +inscription, "To dearest Artie, on his sixteenth birthday;" it was +McTurk who ordered their hypothecation; and it was Beetle, returned +from Bideford, who flung them on the window-sill of Number Five study +with news that Bastable would advance but ninepence on the two; +"Eric; or, Little by Little," being almost as great a drug as "St. +Winifred's." "An' I don't think much of your aunt. We're nearly out of +cartridges, too--Artie, dear." + +Whereupon Stalky rose up to grapple with him, but McTurk sat on +Stalky's head, calling him a "pure-minded boy" till peace was +declared. As they were grievously in arrears with a Latin prose, as +it was a blazing July afternoon, and as they ought to have been at a +house cricket-match, they began to renew their acquaintance, intimate +and unholy, with the volumes. + +"Here we are!" said McTurk. "'Corporal punishment produced on Eric the +worst effects. He burned _not_ with remorse or regret'--make a note +o' that, Beetle--' but with shame and violent indignation. He +glared'--oh, naughty Eric! Let's get to where he goes in for drink." + +"Hold on half a shake. Here's another sample. 'The Sixth,' he says,'is +the palladium of all public schools.' But this lot--" Stalky rapped +the gilded book--"can't prevent fellows drinkin' and stealin', an' +lettin' fags out of window at night, an'--an' doin' what they please. +Golly, what we've missed--not goin' to St. Winifred's!..." + +"I'm sorry to see any boys of my house taking so little interest in +their matches." + +Mr. Prout could move very silently if he pleased, though that is no +merit in a boy's eyes. He had flung open the study-door without +knocking--another sin--and looked at them suspiciously. "Very sorry, +indeed, I am to see you frowsting in your studies." + +"We've been out ever since dinner, sir," said. McTurk wearily. One +house-match is just like another, and their "ploy" of that week +happened to be rabbit-shooting with saloon-pistols. + +"I can't see a ball when it's coming, sir," said Beetle. "I've had my +gig-lamps smashed at the Nets till I got excused. I wasn't any good +even as a fag, then, sir." + +"Tuck is probably your form. Tuck and brewing. Why can't you three +take any interest in the honor of your house?" + +They had heard that phrase till they were wearied. The "honor of the +house" was Prout's weak point, and they knew well how to flick him on +the raw. + +"If you order us to go down, sir, of course we'll go," said Stalky, +with maddening politeness. But Prout knew better than that. He had +tried the experiment once at a big match, when the three, +self-isolated, stood to attention for half an hour in full view of +all the visitors, to whom fags, subsidized for that end, pointed them +out as victims of Prout's tyranny. And Prout was a sensitive man. + +In the infinitely petty confederacies of the Common-room, King and +Macrea, fellow house-masters, had borne it in upon him that by games, +and games alone, was salvation wrought. Boys neglected were boys +lost. They must be disciplined. Left to himself, Prout would have +made a sympathetic house-master; but he was never so left, and with +the devilish insight of youth, the boys knew to whom they were +indebted for his zeal. + +"Must we go down, sir?' said McTurk. + +"I don't want to order you to do what a right-thinking boy should do +gladly. I'm sorry." And he lurched out with some hazy impression that +he had sown good seed on poor ground. + +"Now what does he suppose is the use of that?" said Beetle. + +"Oh, he's cracked. King jaws him in Common-room about not keepin' us +up to the mark, an' Macrea burbles about 'dithcipline,' an' old Heffy +sits between 'em sweatin' big drops. I heard Oke (the Common-room +butler) talking to Richards (Prout's house-servant) about it down in +the basement the other day when I went down to bag some bread," said +Stalky. + +"What did Oke say?" demanded McTurk, throwing "Eric" into a corner. + +"Oh, he said, 'They make more nise nor a nest full o' jackdaws, an' +half of it like we'd no ears to our heads that waited on 'em. They +talks over old Prout--what he've done an' left undone about his boys. +An' how their boys be fine boys, an' his'n be dom bad.' Well, Oke +talked like that, you know, and Richards got awf'ly wrathy. He has a +down on King for something or other. Wonder why?" + +"Why, King talks about Prout in form-room--makes allusions, an' all +that--only half the chaps are such asses they can't see what he's +drivin' at. And d'you remember what he said about the 'Casual House' +last Tuesday? He meant us. They say he says perfectly beastly things +to his own house, making fun of Prout's," said Beetle. + +"Well, we didn't come here to mix up in their rows," McTurk said +wrathfully. "Who'll bathe after call-over? King's takin' it in the +cricket-field. Come on." Turkey seized his straw and led the way. + +They reached the sun-blistered pavilion over against the gray +Pebbleridge just before roll-call, and, asking no questions, gathered +from King's voice and manner that his house was on the road to +victory. + +"Ah, ha!" said he, turning to show the light of his countenance. "Here +we have the ornaments of the Casual House at last. You consider +cricket beneath you, I believe "--the crowd, flannelled, sniggered +"and from what I have seen this afternoon, I fancy many others of +your house hold the same view. And may I ask what you purpose to do +with your noble selves till tea-time?" + +"Going down to bathe, sir," said Stalky. + +"And whence this sudden zeal for cleanliness? There is nothing about +you that particularly suggests it. Indeed, so far as I remember--I +may be at fault--but a short time ago--" + +"Five years, sir," said Beetle hotly. + +King scowled. "_One_ of you was that thing called a water-funk. Yes, a +water-funk. So now you wish to wash? It is well. Cleanliness never +injured a boy or--a house. We will proceed to business," and he +addressed himself to the call-over board. + +"What the deuce did you say anything to him for, Beetle?" said McTurk +angrily, as they strolled towards the big, open sea-baths. + +"'Twasn't fair--remindin' one of bein' a water-funk. My first term, +too. Heaps of chaps are--when they can't swim." + +"Yes, you ass; but he saw he'd fetched you. You ought never to answer +King." + +"But it wasn't fair, Stalky." + +"My Hat! You've been here six years, and you expect fairness. Well, +you are a dithering idiot." + +A knot of King's boys, also bound for the baths, hailed them, +beseeching them to wash--for the honor of their house. + +"That's what comes of King's jawin' and messin'. Those young animals +wouldn't have thought of it unless he'd put it into their heads. Now +they'll be funny about it for weeks," said Stalky. "Don't take any +notice." + +The boys came nearer, shouting an opprobrious word. At last they moved +to windward, ostentatiously holding their noses. + +"That's pretty," said Beetle. "They'll be sayin' our house stinks +next." + +When they returned from the baths, damp-headed, languid, at peace with +the world, Beetle's forecast came only too true. They were met in the +corridor by a fag--a common, Lower-Second fag--who at arm's length +handed them a carefully wrapped piece of soap "with the compliments +of King's House." + +"Hold on," said Stalky, checking immediate attack. "Who put you up to +this, Nixon? Rattray and White? (Those were two leaders in King's +house.) Thank you. There's no answer." + +"Oh, it's too sickening to have this kind o' rot shoved on to a chap. +What's the sense of it? What's the fun of it?" said McTurk. + +"It will go on to the end of the term, though," Beetle wagged his head +sorrowfully. He had worn many jests threadbare on his own account. + +In a few days it became an established legend of the school that +Prout's house did not wash and were therefore noisome. Mr. King was +pleased to smile succulently in form when one of his boys drew aside +from Beetle with certain gestures. + +"There seems to be some disability attaching to you, my Beetle, or +else why should Burton major withdraw, so to speak, the hem of his +garments? I confess I am still in the dark. Will some one be good +enough to enlighten me?" + +Naturally, he was enlightened by half the form. + +"Extraordinary! Most extraordinary! However, each house has its +traditions, with which I would not for the world interfere. _We_ have +a prejudice in favor of washing. Go on, Beetle--from +'_jugurtha_tamen_'--and, if you can, avoid the more flagrant forms of +guessing." + +Prout's house was furious because Macrea's and Hartopp's houses joined +King's to insult them. They called a house-meeting after dinner--an +excited and angry meeting of all save the prefects, whose dignity, +though they sympathized, did not allow them to attend. They read +ungrammatical resolutions, and made speeches beginning, "Gentlemen, +we have met on this occasion," and ending with, "It's a beastly +shame," precisely as houses have done since time and schools began. + +Number Five study attended, with its usual air of bland patronage. At +last McTurk, of the lanthorn jaws, delivered himself: + +"You jabber and jaw and burble, and that's about all you can do. +What's the good of it? King's house'll only gloat because they've +drawn you, and King will gloat, too. Besides, that resolution of +Orrin's is chock-full of bad grammar, and King'll gloat over that." + +"I thought you an' Beetle would put it right, an'--an' we'd post it in +the corridor," said the composer meekly. + +"_Par_si_je_le_connai_. I'm not goin' to meddle with the biznai," said +Beetle. "It's a gloat for King's house. Turkey's quite right." + +"Well, won't Stalky, then?" + +But Stalky puffed out his cheeks and squinted down his nose in the +style of Panurge, and all he said was, "Oh, you abject burblers!" + +"You're three beastly scabs!" was the instant retort of the democracy, +and they went out amid execrations. + +"This is piffling," said McTurk. "Let's get our sallies, and go and +shoot bunnies." + +Three saloon-pistols, with a supply of bulleted breech-caps, were +stored in Stalky's trunk, and this trunk was in their dormitory, and +their dormitory was a three-bed attic one, opening out of a ten-bed +establishment, which, in turn, communicated with the great range of +dormitories that ran practically from one end of the College to the +other. Macrea's house lay next to Prout's, King's next to Macrea's, +and Hartopp's beyond that again. Carefully locked doors divided house +from house, but each house, in its internal arrangements--the College +had originally been a terrace of twelve large houses--was a replica +of the next; one straight roof covering all. + +They found Stalky's bed drawn out from the wall to the left of the +dormer window, and the latter end of Richards protruding from a +two-foot-square cupboard in the wall. + +"What's all this? I've never noticed it before. What are you tryin' to +do, Fatty?" + +"Fillin' basins, Muster Corkran." Richards's voice was hollow and +muffled. "They've been savin' me trouble. Yiss." + +"'Looks like it," said McTurk. "Hi! You'll stick if you don't take +care." + +Richards backed puffing. + +"I can't rache un. Yiss, 'tess a turncock, Muster McTurk. They've took +an' runned all the watter-pipes a storey higher in the houses--runned +'em all along under the 'ang of the heaves, like. Runned 'em in last +holidays. _I_ can't rache the turncock." + +"Let me try," said Stalky, diving into the aperture. + +"Slip 'ee to the left, then, Muster Corkran. Slip 'ee to the left, an' +feel in the dark." + +To the left Stalky wriggled, and saw a long line of lead pipe +disappearing up a triangular tunnel, whose roof was the rafters and +boarding of the college roof, whose floor was sharp-edged joists, and +whose side was the rough studding of the lath and plaster wall under +the dormer. + +"Rummy show. How far does it go?" + +"Right along, Muster Corkran--right along from end to end. Her runs +under the 'ang of the heaves. Have 'ee rached the stopcock yet? Mr. +King got un put in to save us carryin' watter from down-stairs to +fill the basins. No place for a lusty man like old Richards. I'm tu +thickabout to go ferritin'. Thank 'ee, Muster Corkran." + +The water squirted through the tap just inside the cupboard, and, +having filled the basins, the grateful Richards waddled away. + +The boys sat round-eyed on their beds considering the possibilities of +this trove. Two floors below them they could hear the hum of the +angry house; for nothing is so still as a dormitory in mid-afternoon +of a midsummer term. + +"It has been papered over till now." McTurk examined the little door. +"If we'd only known before!" + +"I vote we go down and explore. No one will come up this time o' day. +We needn't keep _cave'_." + +They crawled in, Stalky leading, drew the door behind them, and on all +fours embarked on a dark and dirty road full of plaster, odd +shavings, and all the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of +a house. The passage was perhaps three feet wide, and, except for the +struggling light round the edges of the cupboards (there was one to +each dormer), almost pitchy dark. + +"Here's Macrea's house," said Stalky, his eye at the crack of the +third cupboard. "I can see Barnes's name on his trunk. Don't make +such a row, Beetle! We can get right to the end of the Coll. Come +on!... We're in King's house now--I can see a bit of Rattray's trunk. +How these beastly boards hurt one's knees!" They heard his nails +scraping, on plaster. + +"That's the ceiling below. Look out! If we smashed that the plaster +'ud fall down in the lower dormitory," said Beetle. + +"Let's," whispered McTurk. + +"An' be collared first thing? Not much. Why, I can shove my hand ever +so far up between these boards." + +Stalky thrust an arm to the elbow between the joists. + +"No good stayin' here. I vote we go back and talk it over. It's a +crummy place. 'Must say I'm grateful to King for his water-works." + +They crawled out, brushed one another clean, slid the saloon-pistols +down a trouser-leg, and hurried forth to a deep and solitary +Devonshire lane in whose flanks a boy might sometimes slay a young +rabbit. They threw themselves down under the rank elder bushes, and +began to think aloud. + +"You know," said Stalky at last, sighting at a distant sparrow, "we +could hide our sallies in there like anything." + +"Huh!" Beetle snorted, choked, and gurgled. He had been silent since +they left the dormitory. "Did you ever read a book called 'The +History of a House' or something? I got it out of the library the +other day. A French woman wrote it--Violet somebody. But it's +translated, you know; and it's very interestin'. Tells you how a house +is built." + +"Well, if you're in a sweat to find out that, you can go down to the +new cottages they're building for the coastguard." + +"My Hat! I will." He felt in his pockets. "Give me tuppence, some +one." + +"Rot! Stay here, and don't mess about in the sun." + +"Gi' me tuppence." + +"I say, Beetle, you aren't stuffy about anything, are you?" said +McTurk, handing over the coppers. His tone was serious, for though +Stalky often, and McTurk occasionally, manoeuvred on his own account, +Beetle had never been known to do so in all the history of the +confederacy. + +"No, I'm not. I'm thinking." + +"Well, we'll come, too," said Stalky, with a general's suspicion of +his aides. + +"Don't want you." + +"Oh, leave him alone. He's been taken worse with a poem," said McTurk. +"He'll go burbling down to the Pebbleridge and spit it all up in the +study when he comes back." + +"Then why did he want the tuppence, Turkey? He's gettin' too beastly +independent. Hi! There's a bunny. No, it ain't. It's a cat, by Jove! +You plug first." + +Twenty minutes later a boy with a straw hat at the back of his head, +and his hands in his pockets, was staring at workmen as they moved +about a half-finished cottage. He produced some ferocious tobacco, +and was passed from the forecourt into the interior, where he asked +many questions. + +"Well, let's have your beastly epic," said Turkey, as they burst into +the study, to find Beetle deep in Viollet-le-Duc and some drawings. +"We've had no end of a lark." + +"Epic? What epic? I've been down to the coastguard." + +"No epic? Then we will slay you, O Beetle," said Stalky, moving to the +attack. "You've got something up your sleeve. _I_ know, when you +talk in that tone!" + +"Your Uncle Beetle"--with an attempt to imitate Stalky's +war-voice--"is a great man." + +"Oh, no; he jolly well isn't anything of the kind. You deceive +yourself, Beetle. Scrag him, Turkey!" + +"A great man," Beetle gurgled from the floor. "_You_ are futile--look +out for my tie!--futile burblers. I am the Great Man. I gloat. Ouch! +Hear me!" + +"Beetle, de-ah"--Stalky dropped unreservedly on Beetle's chest--"we +love you, an' you're a poet. If I ever said you were a doggaroo, I +apologize; but you know as well as we do that you can't do anything +by yourself without mucking it." + +"I've got a notion." + +"And you'll spoil the whole show if you don't tell your Uncle Stalky. +Cough it up, ducky, and we'll see what we can do. Notion, you fat +impostor--I knew you had a notion when you went away! Turkey said it +was a poem." + +"I've found out how houses are built. Le' me get up. The floor-joists +of one room are the ceiling-joists of the room below." + +"Don't be so filthy technical." + +"Well, the man told me. The floor is laid on top of those +joists--those boards on edge that we crawled over--but the floor +stops at a partition. Well, if you get behind a partition, same as +you did in the attic, don't you see that you can shove anything you +please under the floor between the floor-boards and the lath and +plaster of the ceiling below? Look here. I've drawn it." + +He produced a rude sketch, sufficient to enlighten the allies. There +is no part of the modern school curriculum that deals with +architecture, and none of them had yet reflected whether floors and +ceilings were hollow or solid. Outside his own immediate interests +the boy is as ignorant as the savage he so admires; but he has also +the savage's resource. + +"I see," said Stalky. "I shoved my hand there. An' then?" + +"An' then They've been calling us stinkers, you know. We might shove +somethin' under--sulphur, or something that stunk pretty bad--an' +stink 'em out. I know it can be done somehow." Beetle's eyes turned +to Stalky handling the diagrams. + +"Stinks?" said Stalky interrogatively. Then his face grew luminous +with delight. "By gum! I've got it. Horrid stinks! Turkey!" He leaped +at the Irishman. "This afternoon--just after Beetle went away! +_She's_ the very thing!" + +"Come to my arms, my beamish boy," caroled McTurk, and they fell into +each other's arms dancing. "Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay! She +will! She will!" + +"Hold on," said Beetle. "I don't understand." + +"Dearr man! It shall, though. Oh, Artie, my pure-souled youth, let us +tell our darling Reggie about Pestiferous Stinkadores." + +"Not until after call-over. Come on!" + +"I say," said Orrin, stiffly, as they fell into their places along the +walls of the gymnasium. "The house are goin' to hold another +meeting." + +"Hold away, then." Stalky's mind was elsewhere. + +"It's about you three this time." + +"All right, give 'em my love... _Here,_sir_," and he tore down the +corridor. + +Gamboling like kids at play, with bounds and sidestarts, with +caperings and curvetings, they led the almost bursting Beetle to the +rabbit-lane, and from under a pile of stones drew forth the new-slain +corpse of a cat. Then did Beetle see the inner meaning of what had +gone before, and lifted up his voice in thanksgiving for that the +world held warriors so wise as Stalky and McTurk. + +"Well-nourished old lady, ain't she?" said Stalky. "How long d'you +suppose it'll take her to get a bit whiff in a confined space?" + +"Bit whiff! What a coarse brute you are!" said McTurk. "Can't a poor +pussy-cat get under King's dormitory floor to die without your +pursuin' her with your foul innuendoes?" + +"What did she die under the floor for?' said Beetle, looking to the +future. + +"Oh, they won't worry about that when they find her," said Stalky. + +"A cat may look at a king." McTurk rolled down the bank at his own +jest. "Pussy, you don't know how useful you're goin' to be to three +pure-souled, high-minded boys." + +"They'll have to take up the floor for her, same as they did in Number +Nine when the rat croaked. Big medicine--heap big medicine! Phew! Oh, +Lord, I wish I could stop laughin'," said Beetle. + +"Stinks! Hi, stinks! Clammy ones!" McTurk gasped as he regained his +place. "And"--the exquisite humor of it brought them sliding down +together in a tangle--"it's all for the honor of the house, too!" + +"An' they're holdin' another meeting--on us," Stalky panted, his knees +in the ditch and his face in the long grass. "Well, let's get the +bullet out of her and hurry up. The sooner she's bedded out the +better." + +Between them they did some grisly work with a penknife; between them +(ask not who buttoned her to his bosom) they took up the corpse and +hastened back, Stalky arranging their plan of action at the full +trot. + +The afternoon sun, lying in broad patches on the bed-rugs, saw three +boys and an umbrella disappear into a dormitory wall. In five minutes +they emerged, brushed themselves all over, washed their hands, combed +their hair, and descended. + +"Are you sure you shoved her far enough under?" said McTurk suddenly. + +"Hang it, man, I shoved her the full length of my arm and Beetle's +brolly. That must be about six feet. She's bung in the middle of +King's big upper ten-bedder. Eligible central situation, _I_ call it. +She'll stink out his chaps, and Hartopp's and Macrea's, when she +really begins to fume. I swear your Uncle Stalky is a great man. Do +you realize what a great man he is, Beetle?" + +"Well, I had the notion first, hadn't I--? only--" + +"You couldn't do it without your Uncle Stalky, could you?" + +"They've been calling us stinkers for a week now," said McTurk. "Oh, +_won't_ they catch it!" + +"Stinker! Yah! Stink-ah!" rang down the corridor. + +"And she's there," said Stalky, a hand on either boy's shoulder. +"She--is--there, gettin' ready to surprise 'em. Presently she'll +begin to whisper to 'em in their dreams. Then she'll whiff. Golly, +how she'll whiff! Oblige me by thinkin' of it for two minutes." + +They went to their study in more or less of silence. There they began +to laugh--laugh as only boys can. They laughed with their foreheads +on the tables, or on the floor; laughed at length, curled over the +backs of chairs or clinging to a book-shelf; laughed themselves limp. + +And in the middle of it Orrin entered on behalf of the house. "Don't +mind us, Orrin; sit down. You don't know how we respect and admire +you. There's something about your pure, high young forehead, full of +the dreams of innocent boyhood, that's no end fetchin'. It is, +indeed." + +"The house sent me to give you this." He laid a folded sheet of paper +on the table and retired with an awful front. + +"It's the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. I'm too silly-sick with +laughin' to see," said Beetle. Stalky jerked it open with a +precautionary sniff. "Phew! Phew! Listen. +'_The_house_notices_with_pain_and_contempt_the_attitude_of_indiference_' +--how many f's in indifference, Beetle?" + +"Two for choice." + +"Only one here--'_adopted_by_the_occupants_of_Number_Five_study_in_ +relation_to_the_insults_offered_to_Mr._Prout's_house_at_the_recent_ +meeting_in_Number_Twelve_form-room,_and_the_House_hereby_pass_a_ +vote_of_censure_on_the_said_study._ That's all." + +"And she bled all down my shirt, too!" said Beetle. + +"An' I'm catty all over," said McTurk, "though I washed twice." + +"An' I nearly broke Beetle's brolly plantin' her where she would blossom!" + +The situation was beyond speech, but not laughter. There was some +attempt that night to demonstrate against the three in their +dormitory; so they came forth. + +"You see," Beetle began suavely as he loosened his braces, "the +trouble with you is that you're a set of unthinkin' asses. You've no +more brains than spidgers. We've told you that heaps of times, +haven't we?" + +"We'll give the three of you a dormitory lickin'. You always jaw at us +as if you were prefects," cried one. + +"Oh, no, you won't," said Stalky, "because you know that if you did +you'd get the worst of it sooner or later. _We_ aren't in any hurry. +We can afford to wait for our little revenges. You've made howlin' +asses of yourselves, and just as soon as King gets hold of your +precious resolutions to-morrow you'll find that out. If you aren't +sick an' sorry by to-morrow night, I'll--I'll eat my hat." + +But or ever the dinner-bell rang the next day Prout's were sadly aware +of their error. King received stray members of that house with an +exaggerated attitude of fear. Did they purpose to cause him to be +dismissed from the College by unanimous resolution? What were their +views concerning the government of the school, that he might hasten +to give effect to them? he would not offend them for worlds; but he +feared--he sadly feared--that his own house, who did not pass +resolutions (but washed), might somewhat deride. + +King was a happy man, and his house, basking in the favor of his +smile, made that afternoon a long penance to the misled Prouts. And +Prout himself, with a dull and lowering visage, tried to think out +the rights and wrongs of it all, only plunging deeper into +bewilderment. Why should his house be called "Stinkers"? Truly, it was +a small thing, but he had been trained to believe that straws show +which way the wind blows, and that there is no smoke without fire. He +approached King in Common-room with a sense of injustice, but King +was pleased to be full of airy persiflage that tide, and brilliantly +danced dialectical rings round Prout. + +"Now," said Stalky at bedtime, making pilgrimage through the +dormitories before the prefects came by, "_now_ what have you got to +say for yourselves? Foster, Carton, Finch, Longbridge, Marlin, Brett! +I heard you chaps catchin' it from King--he made hay of you--an' all +you could do was to wriggle an' grin an' say, 'Yes, sir,' an' 'No, +sir,'' an' 'O, sir,' an' 'Please, sir'! You an' your resolution! +Urh!" + +"Oh, shut up, Stalky." + +"Not a bit of it. You're a gaudy lot of resolutionists, you are! +You've made a sweet mess of it. Perhaps you'll have the decency to +leave us alone next time." + +Here the house grew angry, and in many voices pointed out how this +blunder would never have come to pass if Number Five study had helped +them from the first. + +"But you chaps are so beastly conceited, an'--an' you swaggered into +the meetin' as if we were a lot of idiots," growled Orrin of the +resolution. + +"That's precisely what you are! That's what we've been tryin' to +hammer into your thick heads all this time," said Stalky. "Never +mind, we'll forgive you. Cheer up. You can't help bein' asses, you +know," and, the enemy's flank deftly turned, Stalky hopped into bed. + +That night was the first of sorrow among the jubilant King's. By some +accident of under-floor drafts the cat did not vex the dormitory +beneath which she lay, but the next one to the right; stealing on the +air rather as a pale-blue sensation than as any poignant offense. But +the mere adumbration of an odor is enough for the sensitive nose and +clean tongue of youth. Decency demands that we draw several +carbolized sheets over what the dormitory said to Mr. King and what +Mr. King replied. He was genuinely proud of his house and fastidious +in all that concerned their well-being. He came; he sniffed; he said +things. Next morning a boy in that dormitory confided to his bosom +friend, a fag of Macrea's, that there was trouble in their midst +which King would fain keep secret. + +But Macrea's boy had also a bosom friend in Prout's, a shock-headed +fag of malignant disposition, who, when he had wormed out the secret, +told--told it in a high-pitched treble that rang along the corridor +like a bat's squeak. + +"An'--an' they've been calling us 'stinkers' all this week. Why, +Harland minor says they simply can't sleep in his dormitory for the +stink. Come on!" + +"With one shout and with one cry" Prout's juniors hurled themselves +into the war, and through the interval between first and second +lesson some fifty twelve-year-olds were embroiled on the gravel +outside King's windows to a tune whose _leit-motif_ was the word +"stinker." + +"Hark to the minute-gun at sea!" said Stalky. They were in their study +collecting books for second lesson--Latin, with King. "I thought his +azure brow was a bit cloudy at prayers. 'She is comin', sister Mary. +She is--'" + +"If they make such a row now, what will they do when she really begins +to look up an' take notice?" + +"Well, no vulgar repartee, Beetle. All we want is to keep out of this +row like gentlemen." + +"'Tis but a little faded flower.' Where's my Horace? Look here, I +don't understand what she means by stinkin' out Rattray's dormitory +first. We holed in under White's, didn't we?" asked McTurk, with a +wrinkled brow. + +"Skittish little thing. She's rompin' about all over the place, I +suppose." + +"My Aunt! King'll be a cheerful customer at second lesson. I haven't +prepared my Horace one little bit, either," said Beetle. "Come on!" + +They were outside the form-room door now. It was within five minutes +of the bell, and King might arrive at any moment. + +Turkey elbowed into a cohort of scuffling fags, cut out Thornton +tertius (he that had been Harland's bosom friend), and bade him tell +his tale. + +It was a simple one, interrupted by tears. Many of King's house trod +already battered him for libel. + +"Oh, it's nothing," McTurk cried. "He says that King's house stinks. +That's all." + +"Stale!" Stalky shouted. "We knew that years ago, only we didn't +choose to run about shoutin' 'stinker.' We've got some manners, ir +they haven't. Catch a fag, Turkey, and make sure of it." + +Turkey's long arm closed on a hurried and anxious ornament of the +Lower Second. + +"Oh, McTurk, please let me go. I don't stink--I swear I don't!" + +"Guilty conscience!" cried Beetle. "Who said you did?" + +"What d'you make of it?" Stalky punted the small boy into Beetle's +arms. + +"Snf! Snf! He does, though. I think it's leprosy--or thrush. P'raps +it's both. Take it away." + +"Indeed, Master Beetle"--King generally came to the house-door for a +minute or two as the bell rang--"we are vastly indebted to you for +your diagnosis, which seems to reflect almost as much credit on the +natural unwholesomeness of your mind as it does upon your pitiful +ignorance of the diseases of which you discourse so glibly. We will, +however, test your knowledge in other directions." + +That was a merry lesson, but, in his haste to scarify Beetle, King +clean neglected to give him an imposition, and since at the same time +he supplied him with many priceless adjectives for later use, Beetle +was well content, and applied himself most seriously throughout third +lesson (algebra with little Hartopp) to composing a poem entitled +"The Lazar-house." + +After dinner King took his house to bathe in the sea off the +Pebbleridge. It was an old promise; but he wished he could have +evaded it, for all Prout's lined up by the Fives Court and cheered +with intention. In his absence not less than half the school invaded +the infected dormitory to draw their own conclusions. The cat had +gained in the last twelve hours, but a battlefield of the fifth day +could not have been so flamboyant as the spies reported. + +"My word, she _is_ doin' herself proud," said Stalky. "Did you ever +smell anything like it? Ah, an' she isn't under White's dormitory at +all yet." + +"But she will be. Give her time," said Beetle. "She'll twine like a +giddy honeysuckle. What howlin' Lazarites they are! No house is +justified in makin' itself a stench in the nostrils of decent--" + +"High-minded, pure-souled boys. Do you burn with remorse and regret?" +said McTurk, as they hastened to meet the house coming up from the +sea. King had deserted it, so speech was unfettered. Round its front +played a crowd of skirmishers--all houses mixed--flying, reforming, +shrieking insults. On its tortured flanks marched the Hoplites, +seniors hurling jests one after another--simple and primitive jests of +the Stone Age. To these the three added themselves, dispassionately, +with an air of aloofness, almost sadly. + +"And they look all right, too," said Stalky. "It can't be Rattray, can +it? Rattray?" + +No answer. + +"Rattray, dear? He seems stuffy about something or other. Look here, +old man, we don't bear any malice about your sending that soap to us +last week, do we? Be cheerful, Rat. You can live this down all right. +I dare say it's only a few fags. Your house is so beastly slack, +though." + +"You aren't going back to the house, are you?" said McTurk. The +victims desired nothing better. "You've simply no conception of the +reek up there. Of course, frowzin' as you do, you wouldn't notice it; +but, after this nice wash and the clean, fresh air, even you'd be +upset. 'Much better camp on the Burrows. We'll get you some straw. +Shall we'?" The house hurried in to the tune of "John Brown's body," +sung by loving schoolmates, and barricaded themselves in their +form-room. Straightway Stalky chalked a large cross, with "Lord, have +mercy upon us," on the door, and left King to find it. + +The wind shifted that night and wafted a carrion-reek into Macrea's +dormitories; so that boys in nightgowns pounded on the locked door +between the houses, entreating King's to wash. Number Five study went +to second lesson with not more than half a pound of camphor apiece in +their clothing; and King, too wary to ask for explanations, gibbered +a while and hurled them forth. So Beetle finished yet another poem at +peace in the study. + +"They're usin' carbolic now. Malpas told me," said Stalky. "King +thinks it's the drains." + +"She'll need a lot o' carbolic," said McTurk. "No harm tryin', I +suppose. It keeps King out of mischief." + +"I swear I thought he was goin' to kill me when I sniffed just now. He +didn't mind Burton major sniffin' at me the other day, though. He +never stopped Alexander howlin' 'Stinker!' into our form-room +before--before we doctored 'em. He just grinned," said Stalky. "What +was he frothing over you for, Beetle?" + +"Aha! That, was my subtle jape. I had him on toast. You know he always +jaws about the learned Lipsius." + +"'Who at the age of four'--that chap?" said McTurk. + +"Yes. Whenever he hears I've written a poem. Well, just as I was +sittin' down, I whispered, 'How is our learned Lepsius?' to Burton +major. Old Butt grinned like an owl. _He_ didn't know what I was +drivin' at; but King jolly well did. That was really why he hove us +out. Ain't you grateful? Now shut up. I'm goin' to write the 'Ballad +of the Learned Lipsius.'" + +"Keep clear of anything coarse, then," said Stalky. "I shouldn't like +to be coarse on this happy occasion." + +"Not for wo-orlds. What rhymes to 'stenches,' someone?" + +In Common-room at lunch King discoursed acridly to Prout of boys with +prurient minds, who perverted their few and baleful talents to sap +discipline and corrupt their equals, to deal in foul imagery and +destroy reverence. + +"But you didn't seem to consider this when your house called +us--ah--stinkers. If you hadn't assured me that you never interfere +with another man's house, I should almost believe that it was a few +casual remarks of yours that started all this nonsense." + +Prout had endured much, for King always took his temper to meals. + +"You spoke to Beetle yourself, didn't you? Something about not +bathing, and being a water-funk?" the school chaplain put in. "I was +scoring in the pavilion that day." + +"I may have--jestingly. I really don't pretend to remember every +remark I let fall among small boys; and full well I know the Beetle +has no feelings to be hurt." + +"May be; but he, or they--it comes to to same thing--have the fiend's +own knack of discovering a man's weak place. I confess I rather go +out of my way to conciliate Number Five study. It may be soft, but so +far, I believe, I am the only man here whom they haven't maddened by +their--well--attentions." + +"That is all beside the point. I flatter myself I can deal with them +alone as occasion arises. But if they feel themselves morally +supported by those who should wield an absolute and open-handed +justice, then I say that my lot is indeed a hard one. Of all things I +detest, I admit that anything verging on disloyalty among ourselves +is the first." + +The Common-room looked at one another out of the corners of their +eyes, and Prout blushed. + +"I deny it absolutely," he said. "Er--in fact, I own that I personally +object to all three of them. It is not fair, therefore, to--" + +"How long do you propose to allow it?" said King. + +"But surely," said Macrea, deserting his usual ally, "the blame, if +there be any, rests with you, King. You can't hold them responsible +for the--you prefer the good old Anglo-Saxon, I believe--stink in +your house. My boys are complaining of it now." + +"What can you expect? You know what boys are. Naturally they take +advantage of what to them is a heaven-sent opportunity," said little +Hartopp. "What _is_ the trouble in your dormitories, King?" + +Mr. King explained that as he had made it the one rule of his life +never to interfere with another man's house, so he expected not to be +too patently interfered with. They might be interested to learn +--here the chaplain heaved a weary sigh--that he had taken all steps +that, in his poor judgment, would meet the needs of the case. Nay, +further, he had himself expended, with no thought of reimbursement, +sums, the amount of which he would not specify, on disinfectants. +This he had done because he knew by bitter--by most bitter--experience +that the management of the college was slack, dilatory, and +inefficient. He might even add, almost as slack as the administration +of certain houses which now thought fit to sit in judgment on his +actions. With a short summary of his scholastic career, and a precis +of his qualifications, including his degrees, he withdrew, slamming +the door. + +"Heigho!" said the chaplain. "Ours is a dwarfing life--a belittling +life, my brethren. God help all schoolmasters! They need it." + +"I don't like the boys, I own"--Prout dug viciously with his fork into +the table-cloth--"and I don't pretend to be a strong man, as you +know. But I confess I can't see any reason why I should take steps +against Stalky and the others because King happens to be annoyed +by--by--" + +"Falling into the pit he has digged," said little Hartopp. "Certainly +not, Prout. No one accuses you of setting one house against another +through sheer idleness." + +"A belittling life--a belittling life." The chaplain rose. "I go to +correct French exercises. By dinner King will have scored off some +unlucky child of thirteen; he will repeat to us every word of his +brilliant repartees, and all will be well." + +"But about those three. Are they so prurient-minded?" + +"Nonsense," said little Hartopp. "If you thought for a minute, Prout, +you would see that the 'precocious flow of fetid imagery,' that King +complains of, is borrowed wholesale from King. He 'nursed the pinion +that impelled the steel.' Naturally he does not approve. Come into +the smoking-room for a minute. It isn't fair to listen to boys; but +they should be now rubbing it into King's house outside. Little +things please little minds." + +The dingy den off the Common-room was never used for anything except +gowns. Its windows were ground glass; one could not see out of it, +but one could hear almost every word on the gravel outside. A light +and wary footstep came up from Number Five. + +"Rattray!" in a subdued voice--Rattray's study fronted that way. +"D'you know if Mr. King's anywhere about? I've got a--" McTurk +discreetly left the end of the sentence open. + +"No, he's gone out," said Rattray unguardedly. + +"Ah! The learned Lipsius is airing himself, is he? His Royal Highness +has gone to fumigate." McTurk climbed on the railings, where he held +forth like the never-wearied rook. + +"Now in all the Coll. there was no stink like the stink of King's +house, for it stank vehemently and none knew what to make of it. Save +King. And he washed the fags _privatim_et_seriatim_. In the fishpools +of Hesbon washed he them, with an apron about his loins." + +"Shut up, you mad Irishman!" There was the sound of a golf-ball +spurting up gravel. + +"It's no good getting wrathy, Rattray. We've come to jape with you. +Come on, Beetle. They're all at home. You can wind 'em." + +"Where's the Pomposo Stinkadore? 'Tisn't safe for a pure-souled, +high-minded boy to be seen round his house these days. Gone out, has +he? Never mind. I'll do the best I can, Rattray. I'm +_in_loco_parentis_ just now." + +("One for you, Prout," whispered Macrea, for this was Mr. Prout's pet +phrase.) + +"I have a few words to impart to you, my young friend. We will +discourse together a while." + +Here the listening Prout sputtered: Beetle, in a strained voice, had +chosen a favorite gambit of King's. + +"I repeat, Master Rattray, we will confer, and the matter of our +discourse shall not be stinks, for that is a loathsome and obscene +word. We will, with your good leave--granted, I trust, Master +Rattray, granted, I trust--study this--this scabrous upheaval of +latent demoralization. What impresses me most is not so much the +blatant indecency with which you swagger abroad under your load of +putrescence" (you must imagine this discourse punctuated with +golf-balls, but old Rattray was ever a bad shot) "as the cynical +immorality with which you revel in your abhorrent aromas. Far be it +from me to interfere with another's house--" + +("Good Lord!" said Prout, "but this is King." + +"Line for line, letter for letter; listen;" said little Hartopp.) + +"But to say that you stink, as certain lewd fellows of the baser sort +aver, is to say nothing--less than nothing. In the absence of your +beloved house-master, for whom no one has a higher regard than +myself, I will, if you will allow me, explain the grossness--the +unparalleled enormity--the appalling fetor of the stenches (I believe +in the good old Anglo-Saxon word), stenches, sir, with which you have +seen fit to infect your house... Oh, bother! I've forgotten the rest, +but it was very beautiful. Aren't you grateful to us for laborin' +with you this way, Rattray? Lots of chaps 'ud never have taken the +trouble, but we're grateful, Rattray." + +"Yes, we're horrid grateful," grunted McTurk. "We don't forget that +soap. We're polite. Why ain't you polite, Rat?" + +"Hallo!" Stalky cantered up, his cap over one eye. "Exhortin' the +Whiffers, eh? I'm afraid they're too far gone to repent. Rattray! +White! Perowne! Malpas! No answer. This is distressin'. This is +truly distressin'. Bring out your dead, you glandered lepers!" + +"You think yourself funny, don't you?" said Rattray, stung from his +dignity by this last. "It's only a rat or something under the floor. +We're going to have it up to-morrow." + +"Don't try to shuffle it off on a poor dumb animal, and dead, too. I +loathe prevarication. 'Pon my soul, Rattray--" + +"Hold on. The Hartoffles never said 'Pon my soul' in all his little +life," said Beetle critically. + +("Ah!" said Prout to little Hartopp.) + +"Upon my word, sir, upon my word, sir, I expected better things of +you, Rattray. Why can you not own up to your misdeeds like a man? +Have _I_ ever shown any lack of confidence in _you_?" + +("It's not brutality," murmured little Hartopp, as though answering a +question no one had asked. "It's boy; only boy.") + +"And this was the house," Stalky changed from a pecking, fluttering +voice to tragic earnestness. "This was the--the--open cesspit that +dared to call us 'stinkers.' And now--and now, it tries to shelter +itself behind a dead rat. You annoy me, Rattray. You disgust me! You +irritate me unspeakably! Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable +temper--" + +("This is to your address, Macrea," said Prout. + +"I fear so, I fear so.") + +"Or I should scarcely be able to contain myself before your mocking +visage." + +"_Cave_!" in an undertone. Beetle had spied King sailing down the +corridor. + +"And what may you be doing here, my little friends?" the house-master +began. "I had a fleeting notion--correct me if I am wrong" (the +listeners with one accord choked)--"that if I found you outside my +house I should visit you with dire pains and penalties." + +"We were just goin' for a walk, sir," said Beetle. + +"And you stopped to speak to Rattray _en_route_?" + +"Yes, sir. We've been throwing golf-balls," said Rattray, coming out +of the study. + +("Old Rat is more of a diplomat than I thought. So far he is strictly +within the truth," said little Hartopp. "Observe the ethics of it, +Prout.") + +"Oh, you were sporting with them, were you? I must say I do not envy +you your choice of associates. I fancied they might have been engaged +in some of the prurient discourse with which they have been so +disgustingly free of late. I should strongly advise you to direct +your steps most carefully in the future. Pick up those golf-balls." +He passed on. + + +Next day Richards, who had been a carpenter in the Navy, and to whom +odd jobs were confided, was ordered to take up a dormitory floor; for +Mr. King held that something must have died there. + +"We need not neglect all our work for a trumpery incident of this +nature; though I am quite aware that little things please little +minds. Yes, I have decreed the boards to be taken up after lunch +under Richards's auspices. I have no doubt it will be vastly +interesting to a certain type of so-called intellect; but any boy of +my house or another's found on the dormitory stairs will _ipso_facto_ +render himself liable to three hundred lines." + +The boys did not collect on the stairs, but most of them waited +outside King's. Richards had been bound to cry the news from the +attic window, and, if possible, to exhibit the corpse. + +"'Tis a cat, a dead cat!" Richards's face showed purple at the window. +He had been in the chamber of death and on his knees for some time. + +"Cat be blowed!" cried McTurk. "It's a dead fag left over from last +term. Three cheers for King's dead fag!" + +They cheered lustily. + +"Show it, show it! Let's have a squint at it!" yelled the juniors. +"Give her to the Bug-hunters." (This was the Natural History +Society). "The cat looked at the King--and died of it! Hoosh! Yai! +Yaow! Maiow! Ftzz!" were some of the cries that followed. + +Again Richards appeared. + +"She've been"--he checked himself suddenly--"dead a long taime." + +The school roared. + +"Well, come on out for a walk," said Stalky in a well-chosen pause. +"It's all very disgustin', and I do hope the Lazar-house won't do it +again." + +"Do what?" a King's boy cried furiously. + +"Kill a poor innocent cat every time you want to get off washing. It's +awfully hard to distinguish between you as it is. I prefer the cat, I +must say. She isn't quite so whiff. What are you goin' to do, +Beetle?" + +"_Je_vais_gloater_. _Je_vais_gloater_tout_le_ blessed afternoon. +_Jamais_j'ai_ _gloate'_comme_je_gloaterai_aujourd'hui_. +_Nous_bunkerons_aux_ bunkers." + +And it seemed good to them so to do. + + +Down in the basement, where the gas flickers and the boots stand in +racks, Richards, amid his blacking-brushes, held forth to Oke of the +Common-room, Gumbly of the dining-halls, and fair Lena of the +laundry. + +"Yiss. Her were in a shockin' staate an' condition. Her nigh made me +sick, I tal 'ee. But I rowted un out, and I rowted un out, an' I made +all shipshape, though her smelt like to bilges." + +"Her died mousin', I reckon, poor thing," said Lena. + +"Then her moused different to any made cat o' God's world, Lena. I up +with the top-board, an' she were lying on her back, an' I turned un +ovver with the brume-handle, an' 'twas her back was all covered with +the plaster from 'twixt the lathin'. Yiss, I tal 'ee. An' under her +head there lay, like, so's to say, a little pillow o' plaster druv up +in front of her by raison of her slidin' along on her back. No cat +niver went mousin' on her back, Lena. Some one had shoved her along +right underneath, so far as they could shove un. Cats don't make +theyselves pillows for to die on. Shoved along, she were, when she +was settin' for to be cold, laike." + +"Oh, yeou'm too clever to live, Fatty. Yeou go get wed an' taught some +sense," said Lena, the affianced of Gumbly. + +"Larned a little 'fore iver some maidens was born. Sarved in the +Queen's Navy, I have, where yeou'm taught to use your eyes. Yeou go +'tend your own business, Lena." + +"Do 'ee mean what you'm been tellin' us?" said Oke. + +"Ask me no questions, I'll give 'ee no lies. Bullet-hole clane thru +from side to side, an' tu heart-ribs broke like withies. I seed un +when I turned un ovver. They're clever, oh, they'm clever, but +they'm not too clever for old Richards! 'Twas on the born tip o' my +tongue to tell, tu, but ... he said us niver washed, he did. Let his +dom boys call us 'stinkers,' he did. Sarve un dom well raight, I +say!" + +Richards spat on a fresh boot and fell to his work, chuckling. + + + + +THE IMPRESSIONISTS. + + +They had dropped into the chaplain's study for a Saturday night +smoke---all four house-masters--and the three briars and the one +cigar reeking in amity proved the Rev. John Gillett's good +generalship. Since the discovery of the cat, King had been too ready +to see affront where none was meant, and the Reverend John, +buffer-state and general confidant, had worked for a week to bring +about a good understanding. He was fat, clean-shaven, except for a +big mustache, of an imperturbable good temper, and, those who loved +him least said, a guileful Jesuit. He smiled benignantly upon his +handiwork--four sorely tried men talking without very much malice. + +"Now remember," he said, when the conversation turned that way, "I +impute nothing. But every time that any one has taken direct steps +against Number Five study, the issue has been more or less +humiliating to the taker." + +"I can't admit that. I pulverize the egregious Beetle daily for his +soul's good; and the others with him," said King. + +"Well, take your own case, King, and go back a couple of years. Do you +remember when Prout and you were on their track for hutting and +trespass, wasn't it? Have you forgotten Colonel Dabney?" + +The others laughed. King did not care to be reminded of his career as +a poacher. + +"That was one instance. Again, when you had rooms below them--I always +said that that was entering the lion's den--you turned them out." + +"For making disgusting noises. Surely, Gillett, you don't excuse--" + +"All I say is that you turned them out. That same evening your study +was wrecked." + +"By Rabbits-Eggs--most beastly drunk--from the road," said King. "What +has that?" + +The Reverend John went on. + +"Lastly, they conceive that aspersions are cast upon their personal +cleanliness--a most delicate matter with all boys. Ve-ry good. +Observe how, in each case, the punishment fits the crime. A week +after your house calls them 'stinkers,' King, your house is, not to +put too fine a point on it, stunk out by a dead cat who chooses to +die in the one spot where she can annoy you most. Again the long arm +of coincidence! _Summa_. You accuse them of trespass. Through some +absurd chain of circumstances--they may or may not be at the other +end of it--you and Prout are made to appear as trespassers. You evict +them. For a time your study is made untenable. I have drawn the +parallel in the last case. Well?" + +"She was under the centre of White's dormitory," said King. "There are +double floor-boards there to deaden noise. No boy, even in my own +house, could possibly have pried up the boards without leaving some +trace--and Rabbits-Eggs was phenomenally drunk that other night." + +"They are singularly favored by fortune. That is all I ever said. +Personally, I like them immensely, and I believe I have a little of +their confidence. I confess I like being called 'Padre.' They are at +peace with me; consequently I am not treated to bogus confessions of +theft." + +"You mean Mason's case?" said Prout heavily. "That always struck me as +peculiarly scandalous. I thought the Head should have taken up the +matter more thoroughly. Mason may be misguided, but at least he is +thoroughly sincere and means well." + +"I confess I cannot agree with you, Prout," said the Reverend John. +"He jumped at some silly tale of theft on their part; accepted +another boy's evidence without, so far as I can see, any inquiry; +and--frankly, I think he deserved all he got." + +"They deliberately outraged Mason's best feelings," said Prout. "A +word to me on their part would have saved the whole thing. But they +preferred to lure him on; to play on his ignorance of their +characters--" + +"That may be," said King, "but I don't like Mason. I dislike him for +the very reason that Prout advances to his credit. He means well." + +"Our criminal tradition is not theft--among ourselves, at least," said +little Hartopp. + +"For the head of a house that raided seven head of cattle from the +innocent pot-wallopers of Northam, isn't that rather a sweeping +statement?" said Macrae. + +"Precisely so," said Hartopp, unabashed. "That, with gate-lifting, and +a little poaching and hawk-hunting on the cliffs, is our salvation." + +"It does us far more harm as a school--" Prout began. + +"Than any hushed-up scandal could? Quite so. Our reputation among the +farmers is most unsavory. But I would much sooner deal with any +amount of ingenious crime of that nature than--some other offenses." + +"They may be all right, but they are unboylike, abnormal, and, in my +opinion, unsound," Prout insisted. "The moral effect of their +performances must pave the way for greater harm. It makes me doubtful +how to deal with them. I might separate them." + +"You might, of course; but they have gone up the school together for +six years. _I_ shouldn't care to do it," said Macrae. + +"They use the editorial 'we,'" said King, irrelevantly. "It annoys me. +'Where's your prose, Corkran?' 'Well, sir, we haven't quite done it +yet.' 'We'll bring it in a minute,' and so on. And the same with the +others." + +"There's great virtue in that 'we,'" said little Hartopp. "You know I +take them for trig. McTurk may have some conception of the meaning of +it; but Beetle is as the brutes that perish about sines and cosines. +He copies serenely from Stalky, who positively rejoices in +mathematics." + +"Why don't you stop it?" said Prout. + +"It rights itself at the exams. Then Beetle shows up blank sheets, and +trusts to his 'English' to save him from a fall. I fancy he spends +most of his time with me in writing verse." + +"I wish to Heaven he would transfer a little of his energy in that +direction to Elegiaes." King jerked himself upright. "He is, with the +single exception of Stalky, the very vilest manufacturer of +'barbarous hexameters' that I have ever dealt with." + +"The work is combined in that study," said the chaplain. "Stalky does +the mathematics, McTurk the Latin, and Beetle attends to their +English and French. At least, when he was in the sick-house last +month--" + +"Malingering," Prout interjected. + +"Quite possibly. I found a very distinct falling off in their 'Roman +d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre' translations." + +"I think it is profoundly immoral," said Prout. "I've always been +opposed to the study system." + +"It would be hard to find any study where the boys don't help each +other; but in Number Five the thing has probably been reduced to a +system," said little Hartopp. "They have a system in most things." + +"They confess as much," said the Reverend John. "I've seen McTurk +being hounded up the stairs to elegise the 'Elegy in a Churchyard,' +while Beetle and Stalky went to punt-about." + +"It amounts to systematic cribbing," said Prout, his voice growing +deeper and deeper. + +"No such thing," little Hartopp returned. "You can't teach a cow the +violin." + +"In intention it is cribbing." + +"But we spoke under the seal of the confessional, didn't we?" said the +Reverend John. + +"You say you've heard them arranging their work in this way, Gillett," +Prout persisted. + +"Good Heavens! Don't make me Queen's evidence, my dear fellow. Hartopp +is equally incriminated. If they ever found out that I had sneaked, +our relations would suffer--and I value them." + +"I think your attitude in this matter is weak," said Prout, looking +round for support. "It would be really better to break up the +study--for a while--wouldn't it?" + +"Oh, break it up by all means," said Macrae. "We shall see then if +Gillett's theory holds water." + +"Be wise, Prout. Leave them alone, or calamity will overtake you; and +what is much more important, they will be annoyed with me. I am too +fat, alas! to be worried by bad boys. Where are you going?" + +"Nonsense! They would not dare---but I am going to think this out," +said Prout. "It needs thought. In intention they cribbed, and I must +think out my duty." + +"He's perfectly capable of putting the boys on their honor. It's _I_ +that am a fool." The Reverend John looked round remorsefully. "Never +again will I forget that a master is not a man. Mark my words," said +the Reverend John. "There will be trouble." + + + But by the yellow Tiber + Was tumult and affright. + +Out of the blue sky (they were still rejoicing over the cat war) Mr. +Prout had dropped into Number Five, read them a lecture on the +enormity of cribbing, and bidden them return to the form-rooms on +Monday. They had raged, solo and chorus, all through the peaceful +Sabbath, for their sin was more or less the daily practice of all the +studies. + +"What's the good of cursing?" said Stalky at last. "We're all in the +same boat. We've got to go back and consort with the house. A locker +in the form-room, and a seat at prep. in Number Twelve." (He looked +regretfully round the cozy study which McTurk, their leader in +matters of Art, had decorated with a dado, a stencil, and cretonne +hangings.) + +"Yes! Heffy lurchin' into the form-rooms like a frowzy old retriever, +to see if we aren't up to something. You know he never leaves his +house alone, these days," said McTurk. "Oh, it will be giddy!" + +"Why aren't you down watchin' cricket? I like a robust, healthy boy. +You mustn't frowst in a form-room. Why don't you take an interest in +your house? Yah!" quoted Beetle. + +"Yes, why don't we? Let's! We'll take an interest in the house. We'll +take no end of interest in the house! He hasn't had us in the +form-rooms for a year. We've learned a lot since then. Oh, we'll make +it a be-autiful house before we've done! 'Member that chap in 'Eric' +or 'St. Winifred's'--Belial somebody? I'm goin' to be Belial," said +Stalky, with an ensnaring grin. + +"Right O," said Beetle, "and I'll be Mammon. I'll lend money at +usury--that's what they do at all schools accordin' to the B.O.P. +Penny a week on a shillin'. That'll startle Heffy's weak intellect. +You can be Lucifer, Turkey." + +"What have I got to do?" McTurk also smiled. + +"Head conspiracies--and cabals--and boycotts. Go in for that 'stealthy +intrigue' that Heffy is always talkin' about. Come on!" + +The house received them on their fall with the mixture of jest and +sympathy always extended to boys turned out of their study. The known +aloofness of the three made them more interesting. + +"Quite like old times, ain't it?" Stalky selected a locker and flung +in his books. "We've come to sport with you, my young friends, for a +while, because our beloved house-master has hove us out of our +diggin's." + +"'Serve you jolly well right," said Orrin, "you cribbers!" + +"This will never do," said Stalky. "We can't maintain our giddy +prestige, Orrin, de-ah, if you make these remarks." + +They wrapped themselves lovingly about the boy, thrust him to the +opened window, and drew down the sash to the nape of his neck. With +an equal swiftness they tied his thumbs together behind his back with +a piece of twine, and then, because he kicked furiously, removed his +shoes. There Mr. Prout happened to find him a few minutes later, +guillotined and helpless, surrounded by a convulsed crowd who would +not assist. + +Stalky, in an upper form-room, had gathered himself allies against +vengeance. Orrin presently tore up at the head of a boarding party, +and the form-room grew one fog of dust through which boys wrestled, +stamped, shouted, and yelled. A desk was carried away in the tumult, +a knot of warriors reeled into and split a door-panel, a window was +broken, and a gas-jet fell. Under cover of the confusion the three +escaped to the corridor, whence they called in and sent up passers-by +to the fray. + +"Rescue, Kings! Kings! Kings! Number Twelve form-room! Rescue, +Prouts--Prouts! Rescue, Macraes! Rescue, Hartopps!" + +The juniors hurried out like bees aswarm, asking no questions, +clattered up the staircase, and added themselves to the embroilment. + +"Not bad for the first evening's work," said Stalky, rearranging his +collar. "I fancy Prout'll be somewhat annoyed. We'd better establish +an alibi." So they sat on Mr. King's railings till prep. + +"You see," quoth Stalky, as they strolled up to prep. with the ignoble +herd, "if you get the houses well mixed up an' scufflin', it's even +bettin' that some ass will start a real row. Hullo, Orrin, you look +rather metagrobolized." + +"It was all your fault, you beast! You started it. We've got two +hundred lines apiece, and Heffy's lookin' for you. Just see what that +swine Malpas did to my eye!" + +"I like your saying we started it. Who called us cribbers? Can't your +infant mind connect cause and effect yet? Some day you'll find out +that it don't pay to jest with Number Five." + +"Where's that shillin' you owe me?" said Beetle suddenly. + +Stalky could not see Prout behind him, but returned the lead without a +quaver. "I only owed you ninepence, you old usurer." + +"You've forgotten the interest," said McTurk. "A halfpenny a week per +bob is Beetle's charge. You must be beastly rich, Beetle." + +"Well, Beetle lent me sixpence." Stalky came to a full stop and made +as to work it out on his fingers. "Sixpence on the nineteenth, didn't +he?" + +"Yes; but you've forgotten you paid no interest on the other bob--the +one I lent you before." + +"But you took my watch as security." The game was developing itself +almost automatically. + +"Never mind. Pay me my interest, or I'll charge you interest on +interest. Remember, I've got your note-of-hand!" shouted Beetle. + +"You are a cold-blooded Jew," Stalky groaned. + +"Hush!" said McTurk very loudly indeed, and started as Prout came upon +them. + +"I didn't see you in that disgraceful affair in the form-room just +now," said he. + +"What, sir? We're just come up from Mr. King's," said Stalky. "Please, +sir, what am I to do about prep.? They've broken the desk you told me +to sit at, and the form's just swimming with ink." + +"Find another seat--find another seat. D'you expect me to dry-nurse +you? I wish to know whether you are in the habit of advancing money +to your associates, Beetle?" + +"No, sir; not as a general rule, sir." + +"It is a most reprehensible habit. I thought that my house, at least, +would be free from it. Even with my opinion of you, I hardly thought +it was one of your vices." + +"There's no harm in lending money, sir, is there?" + +"I am not going to bandy words with you on your notions of morality. +How much have you lent Corkran?" + +"I--I don't quite know," said Beetle. It is difficult to improvise a +going concern on the spur of the minute. + +"You seemed certain enough just now." + +"I think it's two and fourpence," said McTurk, with a glance of cold +scorn at Beetle. In the hopelessly involved finances of the study +there was just that sum to which both McTurk and Beetle laid claim, +as their share in the pledging of Stalky's second-best Sunday +trousers. But Stalky had maintained for two terms that the money was +his "commission" for effecting the pawn; and had, of course, spent it +on a study "brew." + +"Understand this, then. You are not to continue your operations as a +money-lender. Two and fourpence, you said, Corkran?" + +Stalky had said nothing, and continued so to do. + +"Your influence for evil is quite strong enough without buying a hold +over your companions." He felt in his pockets, and (oh joy!) produced +a florin and fourpence. "Bring me what you call Corkran's +note-of-hand, and be thankful that I do not carry the matter any +further. The money is stopped from your pocket-money, Corkran. The +receipt to my study, at once!" + +Little they cared! Two and fourpence in a lump is worth six weekly +sixpences any hungry day of the week. + +"But what the dooce is a note-of-hand?" said Beetle. "I only read +about it in a book." + +"Now you've jolly well got to make one," said Stalky. + +"Yes--but our ink don't turn black till next day. S'pose he'll spot +that?" + +"Not him. He's too worried," said McTurk. "Sign your name on a bit of +impot-paper, Stalky, and write, 'I O U two and fourpence.' Aren't you +grateful to me for getting that out of Prout? Stalky'd never have +paid... Why, you ass!" + +Mechanically Beetle had handed over the money to Stalky as treasurer +of the study. The custom of years is not lightly broken. In return +for the document, Prout expounded to Beetle the enormity of +money-lending, which, like everything except compulsory cricket, +corrupted houses and destroyed good feeling among boys, made youth +cold and calculating, and opened the door to all evil. Finally, did +Beetle know of any other cases? If so, it was his duty as proof of +repentance to let his house-master know. No names need be mentioned. + +Beetle did not know--at least, he was not quite sure, sir. How could +he give evidence against his friends? The house might, of +course--here he feigned an anguished delicacy--be full of it. He was +not in a position to say. He had not met with any open competition in +his trade; but if Mr. Prout considered it was a matter that affected +the honor of the house (Mr. Prout did consider it precisely that), +perhaps the house-prefects would be better... + +He spun it out till half-way through prep. + +"And," said the amateur Shylock, returning to the form-room and +dropping at Stalky's side, "if he don't think the house is putrid +with it, I'm several Dutch-men--that's all... I've been to Mr. +Prout's study, sir." This to the prep.-master. "He said I could sit +where I liked, sir... Oh, he is just tricklin' with emotion... Yes, +sir, I'm only askin' Corkran to let me have a dip in his ink." + +After prayers, on the road to the dormitories, Harrison and Craye, +senior house-prefects, zealous in their office, waylaid them with +great anger. "What have you been doing to Heffy this time, Beetle? +He's been jawing us all the evening." + +"What has His Serene Transparency been vexin' you for?" said McTurk. + +"About Beetle lendin' money to Stalky," began Harrison; "and then +Beetle went and told him that there was any amount of money-lendin' +in the house." + +"No, you don't," said Beetle, sitting on a boot-basket. "That's just +what I didn't tell him. I spoke the giddy truth. He asked me if there +was much of it in the house; and I said I didn't know." + +"He thinks you're a set of filthy Shylocks," said McTurk. "It's just +as well for you he don't think you're burglars. You know he never +gets a notion out of his conscientious old head." + +"Well-meanin' man. Did it all for the best." Stalky curled gracefully +round the stair-rail. "Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the +left boot. Bad for the honor of the house--very." + +"Shut up," said Harrison. "You chaps always behave as if you were +jawin' us when we come to jaw you." + +"You're a lot too cheeky," said Craye. + +"I don't quite see where the cheek comes in, except on your part, in +interferin' with a private matter between me an' Beetle after it has +been settled by Prout." Stalky winked cheerfully at the others. + +"That's the worst of clever little swots," said McTurk, addressing the +gas. "They get made prefects before they have any tact, and then they +annoy chaps who could really help 'em to look after the honor of the +house." + +"We won't trouble you to do that!" said Craye hotly. + +"Then what are you badgerin' us for?" said Beetle. "On your own +showing, you've been so beastly slack, looking after the house, that +Prout believes it's a nest of money-lenders. I've told him that I've +lent money to Stalky, and no one else. I don't know whether he +believes me, but that finishes my case. The rest is your business." + +"Now we find out," Stalky's voice rose, "that there is apparently an +organized conspiracy throughout the house. For aught we know, the +fags may be lendin' and borrowin' far beyond their means. We aren't +responsible for it. We're only the rank and file." + +"Are you surprised we don't wish to associate with the house?" said +McTurk, with dignity. "We've kept ourselves to ourselves in our study +till we were turned out, and now we find ourselves let in for for +this sort of thing. It's simply disgraceful." + +"Then you hector and bullyrag us on the stairs," said Stalky, "about +matters that are your business entirely. You know we aren't +prefects." + +"You threatened us with a prefect's lickin' just now," said Beetle, +boldly inventing as he saw the bewilderment in the faces of the +enemy. "And if you expect you'll gain anything from us by your way of +approachin' us, you're jolly well mistaken. That's all. Good-night." + +They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs. + +"But--but what the dickens have we done?" said Harrison, amazedly, to +Craye. + +"I don't know. Only--it always happens that way when one has anything +to do with them. They're so beastly plausible." + +And Mr. Prout called the good boys into his study anew, and succeeded +in sinking both his and their innocent minds ten fathoms deeper in +blindfolded bedazement. He spoke of steps and measures, of tone and +loyalty in the house and to the house, and urged them to take up the +matter tactfully. + +So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any connection with any +other establishment. Beetle promptly went to his house-master, and +wished to know by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a matter +already settled between him and his house-master. In injured +innocence no boy excelled Beetle. + +Then it occurred to Prout that he might have been unfair to the +culprit, who had not striven to deny or palliate his offense. He sent +for Harrison and Craye, reprehending them very gently for the tone +they had adopted to a repentant sinner, and when they returned to +their study, they used the language of despair. They then made +headlong inquisition through the house, driving the fags to the edge +of hysterics, and unearthing, with tremendous pomp and parade, the +natural and inevitable system of small loans that prevails among +small boys. + +"You see, Harrison, Thornton minor lent me a penny last Saturday, +because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at +Keyte's. I didn't know there was any harm in it. And Wray major +borrowed twopence from me when my uncle sent me a post-office +order--I cashed it at Keyte's--for five bob; but he'll pay me back +before the holidays. We didn't know there was anything wrong in it." + +They waded through hours of this kind of thing, but found no usury, or +anything approaching to Beetle's gorgeous scale of interest. The +seniors--for the school had no tradition of deference to prefects +outside compulsory games--told them succinctly to go about their +business. They would not give evidence on any terms. Harrison was one +idiot, and Craye was another; but the greatest of all, they said, was +their house-master. + +When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its conscience, it +breaks into knots and coteries--small gatherings in the twilight, +box-room committees, and groups in the corridor. And when from group +to group, with an immense affectation of secrecy, three wicked boys +steal, crying "_Cave'_" when there is no need of caution, and +whispering "Don't tell!" on the heels of trumpery confidences that +instant invented, a very fine air of plot and intrigue can be woven +round such a house. + +At the end of a few days, it dawned on Prout that he moved in an +atmosphere of perpetual ambush. Mysteries hedged him on all sides, +warnings ran before his heavy feet, and countersigns were muttered +behind his attentive back. McTurk and Stalky invented many absurd and +idle phrases--catch-words that swept through the house as fire +through stubble. It was a rare jest, and the only practical outcome of +the Usury Commission, that one boy should say to a friend, with awful +gravity, "Do you think there's much of it going on in the house?" The +other would reply, "Well, one can't be too careful, you know." The +effect on a house-master of humane conscience and good intent may be +imagined. Again, a man who has sincerely devoted himself to gaining +the esteem of his charges does not like to hear himself described, +even at a distance, as "Popularity Prout" by a dark and scowling Celt +with a fluent tongue. A rumor that stories--unusual stories--are told +in the form-rooms, between the lights, by a boy who does not command +his confidence, agitates such a man; and even elaborate and tender +politeness--for the courtesy wise-grown men offer to a bewildered +child was the courtesy that Stalky wrapped round Prout--restores not +his peace of mind. + +"The tone of the house seems changed--changed for the worse," said +Prout to Harrison and Craye. "Have you noticed it? I don't for an +instant impute--" + +He never imputed anything; but, on the other hand, he never did +anything else, and, with the best intentions in the world, he had +reduced the house-prefects to a state as nearly bordering on nervous +irritation as healthy boys can know. Worst of all, they began at +times to wonder whether Stalky & Co. had not some truth in their +often-repeated assertions that Prout was a gloomy ass. + +"As you know, I am not the kind of man who puts himself out for every +little thing he hears. I believe in letting the house work out their +own salvation--with a light guiding hand on the reins, of course. But +there is a perceptible lack of reverence---a lower tone in matters +that touch the honor of the house, a sort of hardness." + + Oh, Prout he is a nobleman, a nobleman, a nobleman! + Our Heffy is a nobleman-- + He does an awful lot, + Because his popularity + Oh, pop-u-pop-u-larity-- + His giddy popularity + Would suffer did he not! + +The study door stood ajar; and the song, borne by twenty clear voices, +came faint from a form-room. The fags rather liked the tune; the +words were Beetle's. + +"That's a thing no sensible man objects to," said Prout with a +lop-sided smile; "but you know straws show which way the wind blows. +Can you trace it to any direct influence? I am speaking to you now as +heads of the house." + +"There isn't the least doubt of it," said Harrison angrily. "I know +what you mean, sir. It all began when Number Five study came to the +form-rooms. There's no use blinkin' it, Craye. You know that, too." + +"They make things rather difficult for us, sometimes," said Craye. +"It's more their manner than anything else, that Harrison means." + +"Do they hamper you in the discharge of your duties, then?" + +"Well, no, sir. They only look on and grin--and turn up their noses +generally." + +"Ah," said Prout sympathetically. + +"I think, sir," said Craye, plunging into the business boldly, "it +would be a great deal better if they wore sent back to their +study--better for the house. They are rather old to be knocking about +the form-rooms." + +"They are younger than Orrin, or Flint, and a dozen others that I can +think of." + +"Yes, sir; but that's different, somehow. They're rather influential. +They have a knack of upsettin' things in a quiet way that one can't +take hold of. At least, if one does--" + +"And you think they would be better in their own study again?" + +Emphatically Harrison and Craye were of that opinion. As Harrison said +to Craye, afterwards, "They've weakened our authority. They're too +big to lick; they've made an exhibition of us over this usury +business, and we're a laughing-stock to the rest of the school. I'm +going up (for Sandhurst, understood) next term. They've managed to +knock me out of half my work already with their--their lunacy. If they +go back to their study we may have a little peace." + +"Hullo, Harrison." McTurk ambled round the corner, with a roving eye +on all possible horizons. "Bearin' up, old man? That's right. Live it +down! Live it down!" + +"What d'you mean?" + +"You look a little pensive," said McTurk. "Exhaustin' job +superintendin' the honor of the house, ain't it? By the way, how are +you off for mares'-nests?" + +"Look here," said Harrison, hoping for instant reward. "We've +recommended Prout to let you go back to your study." + +"The dooce you have! And who under the sun are _you_ to interfere +between us and our house-master? Upon my Sam, you two try us very +hard--you do, indeed. Of course we don't know how far you abuse your +position to prejudice us with Mr. Prout; but when you deliberately +stop me to tell me you've been makin' arrangements behind our +back--in secret--with Prout--I--I don't know really what we ought to +do." + +"That's beastly unfair!" cried Craye. + + "It is." McTurk had adopted a ghastly solemnity that sat well on his +long, lean face. "Hang it all! A prefect's one thing and an usher's +another; but you seem to combine 'em. You recommend this--you +recommend that! _You_ say how and when we go back to our study!" + +"But--but--we thought you'd like it, Turkey. We did, indeed. You know +you'll be ever so much more comfortable there." Harrison's voice was +almost tearful. + +McTurk turned away as though to hide his emotions. + +"They're broke!" He hunted up Stalky and Beetle in a box-room. +"They're sick! They've been beggin' Heffy to let us go back to +Number Five. Poor devils! Poor little devils!" + +"It's the olive branch," was Stalky's comment. "It's the giddy white +flag, by gum! Come to think of it, we _have_ metagrobolized 'em." + +Just after tea that day, Mr. Prout sent for them to say that if they +chose to ruin their future by neglecting their work, it was entirely +their own affair. He wished them, however, to understand that their +presence in the form-rooms could not be tolerated one hour longer. He +personally did not care to think of the time he must spend in +eliminating the traces of their evil influences. How far Beetle had +pandered to the baser side of youthful imagination he would ascertain +later; and Beetle might be sure that if Mr. Prout came across any +soul-corrupting consequences-- + +"Consequences of what, sir?" said Beetle, genuinely bewildered this +time; and McTurk quietly kicked him on the ankle for being "fetched" +by Prout. Beetle, the house-master continued, knew very well what was +intended. Evil and brief had been their careers under his eye; and +as one standing _in_loco_parentis_ to their yet uncontaminated +associates, he was bound to take his precautions. The return of the +study key closed the sermon. + +"But what was the baser-side-of-imagination business?" said Beetle on +the stairs. + +"I never knew such an ass as you are for justifyin' yourself," said +McTurk. "I hope I jolly well skinned your ankle. Why do you let +yourself be drawn by everybody?" + +"Draws be blowed! I must have tickled him up in some way I didn't know +about. If I'd had a notion of that before, of course I could have +rubbed it in better. It's too late now. What a pity! 'Baser side.' +What _was_ he drivin' at?" + +"Never mind," said Stalky. "I knew we could make it a happy little +house. I said so, remember--but I swear I didn't think we'd do it so +soon." + + +"No," said Prout most firmly in Common-room. "I maintain that Gillett +is wrong. True, I let them return to their study." + +"With your known views on cribbing, too?" purred little Hartopp. "What +an immoral compromise!" + +"One moment," said the Reverend John. "I--we--all of us have exercised +an absolutely heart-breaking discretion for the last ten days. Now we +want to know. Confess--have you known a happy minute since--" + +"As regards my house, I have not," said Prout. "But you are entirely +wrong in your estimate of those boys. In justice to the others--in +self-defence--" + +"Ha! I said it would come to that," murmured the Reverend John. + +"--I was forced to send them back. Their moral influence was +unspeakable--simply unspeakable." + +And bit by bit he told his tale, beginning with Beetle's usury, and +ending with the house-prefects' appeal. + + "Beetle in the _ro'le_ of Shylock is new to me," said King, with +twitching lips. "I heard rumors of it--" + +"Before?" said Prout. + +"No, after you had dealt with them; but I was careful not to inquire. +I never interfere with--" + +"I myself," said Hartopp, "would cheerfully give him five shillings if +he could work out one simple sum in compound interest without three +gross errors." + +"Why--why--why!" Mason, the mathematical master, stuttered, a fierce +joy on his face, "you've been had--precisely the same as me!" + +"And so you held an inquiry?" Little Hartopp's voice drowned Mason's +ere Prout caught the import of the sentence. + +"The boy himself hinted at the existence of a deal of it in the +house," said Prout. + +"He is past master in that line," said the chaplain. "But, as regards +the honor of the house--" + +"They lowered it in a week. I have striven to build it up for years. +My own house-prefects--and boys do not willingly complain of each +other--besought me to get rid of them. You say you have their +confidence, Gillett: they may tell you another tale. As far as I am +concerned, they may go to the devil in their own way. I'm sick and +tired of them," said Prout bitterly. + +But it was the Reverend John, with a smiling countenance, who went to +the devil just after Number Five had cleared away a very pleasant +little brew (it cost them two and fourpence) and was settling down to +prep. + +"Come in, Padre, come in," said Stalky, thrusting forward the best +chair. "We've only met you official-like these last ten days." + +"You were under sentence," said the Reverend John. "I do not consort +with malefactors." + +"Ah, but we're restored again," said McTurk. "Mr. Prout has +relented." + +"Without a stain on our characters," said Beetle. "It was a painful +episode, Padre, most painful." + + "Now, consider for a while, and perpend, _mes_enfants_. It is about +your characters that I've called to-night. In the language of the +schools, what the dooce _have_ you been up to in Mr. Prout's house? +It isn't anything to laugh over. He says that you so lowered the tone +of the house he had to pack you back to your studies. Is that true?" + +"Every word of it, Padre." + +"Don't be flippant, Turkey. Listen to me. I've told you very often +that no boys in the school have a greater influence for good or evil +than you have. You know I don't talk about ethics and moral codes, +because I don't believe that the young of the human animal realizes +what they mean for some years to come. All the same, I don't want to +think you've been perverting the juniors. Don't interrupt, Beetle. +Listen to me. Mr. Prout has a notion that you have been corrupting +your associates somehow or other." + +"Mr. Prout has so many notions, Padre," said Beetle wearily. "Which +one is this?" + +"Well, he tells me that he heard you telling a story in the twilight +in the form-room, in a whisper. And Orrin said, just as he opened the +door, 'Shut up, Beetle; it's too beastly.' Now then?" + +"You remember Mrs. Oliphant's 'Beleaguered City' that you lent me +last term?" said. Beetle. + +The Padre nodded. + +"I got the notion out of that. Only, instead of a city, I made it the +Coll. in a fog--besieged by ghosts of dead boys, who hauled chaps out +of their beds in the dormitory. All the names are quite real. You +tell it in a whisper, you know with the names. Orrin didn't like it +one little bit. None of 'em have ever let me finish it. It gets just +awful at the end part." + +"But why in the world didn't you explain to Mr. Prout, instead of +leaving him under the impression--?" + +"Padre Sahib," said McTurk, "it isn't the least good explainin' to Mr. +Prout. If he hasn't one impression, he's bound to have another." + +"He'd do it with the best o' motives. He's _in_loco_parentis_," purred +Stalky. + +"You young demons!" the Reverend John replied. "And am I to understand +that the---the usury business was another of your house-master's +impressions?" + +"Well--we helped a little in that," said Stalky. "I did owe Beetle two +and fourpence at least, Beetle says I did, but I never intended to +pay him. Then we started a bit of an argument on the stairs, and--and +Mr. Prout dropped into it accidental. That was how it was, Padre. He +paid me cash down like a giddy Dook (stopped it out of my +pocket-money just the same), and Beetle gave him my note-of-hand all +correct. I don't know what happened after that." + +"I was too truthful," said Beetle. "I always am. You see, he was under +an impression, Padre, and I suppose I ought to have corrected that +impression; but of course I couldn't be _quite_ certain that his +house wasn't given over to money-lendin', could I? I thought the +house-prefects might know more about it than I did. They ought to. +They're giddy palladiums of public schools." + +"They did, too--by the time they'd finished," said McTurk. "As nice a +pair of conscientious, well-meanin', upright, pure-souled boys as +you'd ever want to meet, Padre. They turned the house upside down +--Harrison and Craye---with the best motives in the world." + +"They said so. 'They said it very loud and clear. They went and +shouted in our ear,'" said Stalky. + +"My own private impression is that all three of you will infallibly be +hanged," said the Reverend John. + +"Why, we didn't do anything," McTurk replied. "It was all Mr. Prout. +Did you ever read a book about Japanese wrestlers? My uncle---he's in +the Navy--gave me a beauty once." + +"Don't try to change the subject, Turkey." + +"I'm not, sir. I'm givin' an illustration--same as a sermon. These +wrestler-chaps have got sort sort of trick that lets the other chap +do all the work. Than they give a little wriggle, and he upsets +himself. It's called _shibbuwichee_ or _tokonoma_, or somethin'. Mr. +Prout's a _shibbuwicher_. It isn't our fault." + +"Did you suppose we went round corruptin' the minds of the fags?" said +Beetle. "They haven't any, to begin with; and if they had, they're +corrupted long ago. I've been a fag, Padre." + +"Well, I fancied I knew the normal range of your iniquities; but if +you take so much trouble to pile up circumstantial evidence against +yourselves, you can't blame any one if--" + +"We don't blame any one, Padre. We haven't said a word against Mr. +Prout, have we?" Stalky looked at the others. "We love him. He hasn't +a notion how we love him." + +"H'm! You dissemble your love very well. Have you ever thought who got +you turned out of your study in the first place?" + +"It was Mr. Prout turned us out," said Stalky, with significance. + +"Well, I was that man. I didn't mean it; but some words of mine, I'm +afraid, gave Mr. Prout the impression--" + +Number Five laughed aloud. + +"You see it's just the same thing with you, Padre," said McTurk. "He +is quick to get an impression, ain't he? But you mustn't think we +don't love him, 'cause we do. There isn't an ounce of vice about +him." + +A double knock fell on the door. + +"The Head to see Number Five study in his study at once," said the +voice of Foxy, the school sergeant. + +"Whew!" said the Reverend John. "It seems to me that there is a great +deal of trouble coming for some people." + +"My word! Mr. Prout's gone and told the Head," said Stalky. "He's a +moral double-ender. Not fair, luggin' the Head into a house-row." + +"I should recommend a copy-book on a--h'm--safe and certain part," +said the Reverend John disinterestedly. + +"Huh! He licks across the shoulders, an' it would slam like a beastly +barn-door," said Beetle. "Good-night, Padre. We're in for it." + +Once more they stood in the presence of the Head--Belial, Mammon, and +Lucifer. But they had to deal with a man more subtle than them all. +Mr. Prout had talked to him, heavily and sadly, for half an hour; and +the Head had seen all that was hidden from the house-master. + +"You've been bothering Mr. Prout," he said pensively. "House-masters +aren't here to be bothered by boys more than is necessary. I don't +like being bothered by these things. You are bothering _me_. That is +a very serious offense. You see it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, now, I purpose to bother you, on personal and private grounds, +because you have broken into my time. You are much too big to lick, +so I suppose I shall have to mark my displeasure in some other way. +Say, a thousand lines apiece, a week's gating, and a few things of +that kind. Much too big to lick, aren't you?" + +"Oh, no, sir," said Stalky cheerfully; for a week's gating in the +summer term is serious. + +"Ve-ry good. Then we will do what we can. I wish you wouldn't bother +me." + +It was a fair, sustained, equable stroke, with a little draw to it, +but what they felt most was his unfairness in stopping to talk +between executions. Thus: "Among the--lower classes this would lay me +open to a charge of--assault. You should be more grateful for +your--privileges than you are. There is a limit--one finds it by +experience, Beetle--beyond which it is never safe to pursue private +vendettas, because--don't move--sooner or later one comes--into +collision with the--higher authority, who has studied the animal. +_Et_ego_--McTurk, please--_in_Arcadia_vixi_. There's a certain +flagrant injustice about this that ought to appeal to--your +temperament. And that's all! You will tell your house-master that you +have been formally caned by me." + +"My word!" said McTurk, wriggling his shoulder-blades all down the +corridor. "That was business! The Prooshan Bates has an infernal +straight eye." + +"Wasn't it wily of me to ask for the lickin'," said Stalky, "instead +of those impots?" + +"Rot! We were in for it from the first. I knew the look of his old +eye," said Beetle. "I was within an inch of blubbing." + +"Well, I didn't exactly smile," Stalky confessed. + +"Let's go down to the lavatory and have a look at the damage. One of +us can hold the glass and t'others can squint." + +They proceeded on these lines for some ten minutes. The wales were +very red and very level. There was not a penny to choose between any +of them for thoroughness, efficiency, and a certain clarity of +outline that stamps the work of the artist. + +"What are you doing down there?" Mr. Prout was at the head of the +lavatory stairs, attracted by the noise of splashing. + +"We've only been caned by the Head, sir, and we're washing off the +blood. The Head said we were to tell you. We were coming to report +ourselves in a minute, sir. (_Sotto_voce_.) That's a score for +Heffy!" + +"Well, he deserves to score something, poor devil," said McTurk, +putting on his shirt. "We've sweated a stone and a half off him since +we began." + +"But look here, why aren't we wrathy with the Head? He said it was a +flagrant injustice. So it is!" said Beetle. + +"Dear man," said McTurk, and vouchsafed no further answer. + +It was Stalky who laughed till he had to hold on by the edge of a +basin. + +"You _are_ a funny ass! What's that for?" said Beetle. + +"I'm--I'm thinking of the flagrant injustice of it!" + + + + +THE MORAL REFORMERS. + + +There was no disguising the defeat. The victory was to Prout, but they +grudged it not. If he had broken the rules of the game by calling in +the Head, they had had a good run for their money. + +The Reverend John sought the earliest opportunity of talking things +over. Members of a bachelor Common-room, of a school where masters' +studies are designedly dotted among studies and form-rooms, can, if +they choose, see a great deal of their charges. Number Five had spent +some cautious years in testing the Reverend John. He was emphatically +a gentleman. He knocked at a study door before entering; he comported +himself as a visitor and not a strayed lictor; he never prosed, and +he never carried over into official life the confidences of idle +hours. Prout was ever an unmitigated nuisance; King came solely as an +avenger of blood; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, +seldom forgot his office; but the Reverend John was a guest desired +and beloved by Number Five. + +Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent briar between his +teeth, chin down in three folds on his clerical collar, and blowing +like an amiable whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it +appeared to them, and specially of that last interview with the +Head--in the matter of usury. + +"One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good," he +said, twinkling and shaking all over; "and, as you say, you were +entirely in the right." + +"Ra-ather, Padre! We could have proved it if he'd let us talk," said +Stalky; "but he didn't. The Head's a downy bird." + +"He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! Well, you worked hard enough +for it." + +"But he's awfully fair. He doesn't lick a chap in the morning an' +preach at him in the afternoon," said Beetle. + +"He can't; he ain't in Orders, thank goodness," said McTurk. Number +Five held the very strongest views on clerical head-masters, and were +ever ready to meet their pastor in argument. + +"Almost all other schools have clerical Heads," said the Reverend John +gently. + +"It isn't fair on the chaps," Stalky replied. "Makes 'em sulky. Of +course it's different with you, sir. You belong to the school--same +as we do. I mean ordinary clergymen." + +"Well, I am a most ordinary clergyman; and Mr. Hartopp's in Orders, +too." + +"Ye--es, but he took 'em after he came to the Coll. We saw him go up +for his exam. That's all right," said Beetle. "But just think if the +Head went and got ordained!" + +"What would happen, Beetle?" + +"Oh, the Coll. 'ud go to pieces in a year, sir. There's no doubt o' +that." + +"How d'you know?" The Reverend John was smiling. + +"We've been here nearly six years now. There are precious few things +about the Coll. we don't know," Stalky replied. "Why, even you came +the term after I did, sir. I remember your asking our names in form +your first lesson. Mr. King, Mr. Prout, and the Head, of course, are +the only masters senior to us--in that way." + +"Yes, we've changed a good deal--in Common-room." + +"Huh!" said Beetle with a grunt. "They came here, an' they went away +to get married. Jolly good riddance, too!" + +"Doesn't our Beetle hold with matrimony?" + +"No, Padre; don't make fun of me. I've met chaps in the holidays +who've got married house-masters. It's perfectly awful! They have +babies and teething and measles and all that sort of thing right bung +_in_ the school; and the masters' wives give +tea-parties--tea-parties, Padre!--and ask the chaps to breakfast." + +"That don't matter so much," said Stalky. "But the house-masters let +their houses alone, and they leave everything to the prefects. Why, +in one school, a chap told me, there were big baize doors and a +passage about a mile long between the house and the master's house. +They could do just what they pleased." + +"Satan rebuking sin with a vengeance." + +"Oh, larks are right enough; but you know what we mean, Padre. After a +bit it gets worse an' worse. Then there's a big bust-up and a row +that gets into the papers, and a lot of chaps are expelled, you +know." + +"Always the wrong un's; don't forget that. Have a cup of cocoa, +Padre?" said McTurk with the kettle. + +"No, thanks; I'm smoking. Always the wrong 'uns? Pro-ceed, my +Stalky." + +"And then"--Stalky warmed to the work--"everybody says, 'Who'd ha' +thought it? Shockin' boys! Wicked little kids!' It all comes of +havin' married house-masters, _I_ think." + +"A Daniel come to judgment." + +"But it does," McTurk interrupted. "I've met chaps in the holidays, +an' they've told me the same thing. It looks awfully pretty for one's +people to see--a nice separate house with a nice lady in charge, an' +all that. But it isn't. It takes the house-masters off their work, +and it gives the prefects a heap too much power, an'--an'--it rots up +everything. You see, it isn't as if we were just an ordinary school. +We take crammers' rejections as well as good little boys like Stalky. +We've got to do that to make our name, of course, and we get 'em into +Sandhurst somehow or other, don't we?" + +"True, O Turk. Like a book thou talkest, Turkey." + +"And so we want rather different masters, don't you think so, to other +places? We aren't like the rest of the schools." + +"It leads to all sorts of bullyin', too, a chap told me," said +Beetle. + +"Well, you _do_ need most of a single man's time, I must say." The +Reverend John considered his hosts critically. "But do you never feel +that the world--the Common-room--is too much with you sometimes?" + +"Not exactly--in summer, anyhow." Stalky's eye roved contentedly to +the window. "Our bounds are pretty big, too, and they leave us to +ourselves a good deal." + +"For example, here am I sitting in your study, very much in your way, +eh?" + +"Indeed you aren't, Padre. Sit down. Don't go, sir. You know we're +glad whenever you come." + +There was no doubting the sincerity of the voices. The Reverend John +flushed a little with pleasure and refilled his briar. + +"And we generally know where the Common-room are," said Beetle +triumphantly. "Didn't you come through our lower dormitories last +night after ten, sir?" + +"I went to smoke a pipe with your house-master. No, I didn't give him +any impressions. I took a short cut through your dormitories." + +"I sniffed a whiff of 'baccy, this mornin'. Yours is stronger than Mr. +Prout's. _I_ knew," said Beetle, wagging his head. + +"Good heavens!" said the Reverend John absently. It was some years +before Beetle perceived that this was rather a tribute to innocence +than observation. The long, light, blindless dormitories, devoid of +inner doors, were crossed at all hours of the night by masters +visiting one another; for bachelors sit up later than married folk. +Beetle had never dreamed that there might be a purpose in this steady +policing. + +"Talking about bullying," the Reverend John resumed, "you all caught +it pretty hot when you were fags, didn't you?" + +"Well, we must have been rather awful little beasts," said Beetle, +looking serenely over the gulf between eleven and sixteen. "My Hat, +what bullies they were then--Fairburn, 'Gobby' Maunsell, and all +that gang!" + +"'Member when 'Gobby' called us the Three Blind Mice, and we had to +get up on the lockers and sing while he buzzed ink-pots at us?" said +Stalky. "They _were_ bullies if you like!" + +"But there isn't any of it now," said McTurk soothingly. + +"That's where you make a mistake. We're all inclined to say that +everything is all right as long we aren't ourselves hurt. I sometimes +wonder if it is extinct--bullying." + +"Fags bully each other horrid; but the upper forms are supposed to be +swottin' for exams. They've got something else to think about," said +Beetle. + +"Why? What do you think?" Stalky was watching the chaplain's face. + +"I have my doubts." Then, explosively, "On my word, for three +moderately intelligent boys you aren't very observant. I suppose you +were too busy making things warm for your house-master to see what +lay under your noses when you were in the form-rooms last week?" + +"What, sir? I--I swear we didn't see anything," said Beetle. + +"Then I'd advise you to look. When a little chap is whimpering in a +corner and wears his clothes like rags, and never does any work, and +is notoriously the dirtiest little 'corridor-caution' in the Coll., +something's wrong somewhere." + +"That's Clewer," said McTurk under his breath. + +"Yes, Clewer. He comes to me for his French. It's his first term, and +he's almost as complete a wreck as you were, Beetle. He's not +naturally clever, but he has been hammered till he's nearly an +idiot." + +"Oh, no. They sham silly to get off more tickings," said Beetle. "_I_ +know that." + +"I've never actually seen him knocked about," said the Reverend John. + +"The genuine article don't do that in public," said Beetle. "Fairburn +never touched me when any one was looking on." + +"You needn't swagger about it, Beetle," said McTurk. "We all caught it +in our time." + +"But I got it worse than any one," said Beetle. "If you want an +authority on bullyin', Padre, come to me. +Corkscrews--brush-drill--keys--head-knucklin'--arm-twistin'--rockin' +-Ag Ags--and all the rest of it." + +"Yes. I do want you as an authority, or rather I want your authority +to stop it--all of you." + +"What about Abana and Pharpar, Padre--Harrison and Craye? They are Mr. +Prout's pets," said McTurk a little bitterly. "We aren't even +sub-prefects." + +"I've considered that, but on the other hand, since most bullying is +mere thoughtlessness--" + +"Not one little bit of it, Padre," said McTurk. "Bullies like +bullyin'. They mean it. They think it up in lesson and practise it in +the quarters." + +"Never mind. If the thing goes up to the prefects it may make another +house-row. You've had one already. Don't laugh. Listen to me. I ask +you--my own Tenth Legion--to take the thing up quietly. I want little +Clewer made to look fairly clean and decent--" + +"Blowed if _I_ wash him!" whispered Stalky. + +"Decent and self-respecting. As for the other boy, whoever he is, you +can use your influence"--a purely secular light flickered in the +chaplain's eye--"in any way you please to--to dissuade him. That's +all. I'll leave it to you. Good-night, _mes_enfants_." + +"Well, what are we goin' to do?" Number Five stared at each other. + +"Young Clewer would give his eyes for a place to be quiet in. _I_ know +that," said Beetle. "If we made him a study-fag, eh?" + +"No!" said McTurk firmly. "He's a dirty little brute, and he'd mess up +everything. Besides, we ain't goin' to have any beastly Erickin'. +D'you want to walk about with your arm round his neck?" + +"He'd clean out the jam-pots, anyhow; an' the burnt-porridge +saucepan--it's filthy now." + +"Not good enough," said Stalky, bringing up both heels with a crash on +the table. "If we find the merry jester who's been bullyin' him an' +make him happy, that'll be all right. Why didn't we spot him when we +were in the form-rooms, though?" + +"Maybe a lot of fags have made a dead set at Clewer. They do that +sometimes." + +"Then we'll have to kick the whole of the lower school in our +house--on spec. Come on," said McTurk. + +"Keep your hair on! We mustn't make a fuss about the biznai. Whoever +it is he's kept quiet or we'd have seen him," said Stalky. "We'll +walk round and sniff about till we're sure." + +They drew the house form-rooms, accounting for every junior and senior +against whom they had suspicions; investigated, at Beetle's +suggestion, the lavatories and box-rooms, but without result. +Everybody seemed to be present save Clewer. + +"Rum!" said Stalky, pausing outside a study door. "Golly!" + +A thin piping mixed with tears came muffled through the panels. + + "'As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping--'" + +"Louder, you young devil, or I'll buzz a book at you!" + + "'With a pitcher of milk--' + Oh, Campbell, _please_ don't! + 'To the fair of--" + +A book crashed on something soft, and squeals arose. + +"Well, I never thought it was a study-chap, anyhow. That accounts for +our not spotting him," said Beetle. "Sefton and Campbell are rather +hefty chaps to tackle. Besides, one can't go into their study like a +form-room." + +"What swine!" McTurk listened. "Where's the fun of it? I suppose +Clewer's faggin' for them." + +"They aren't prefects. That's one good job," said Stalky, with his +war-grin. "Sefton and Campbell! Um! Campbell and Sefton! Ah! One of +'em's a crammer's pup." + +The two were precocious hairy youths between seventeen and eighteen, +sent to the school in despair by parents who hoped that six months' +steady cram might, perhaps, jockey them into Sandhurst. Nominally +they were in Mr. Prout's house; actually they were under the Head's +eye; and since he was very careful never to promote strange new boys +to prefectships, they considered they had a grievance against the +school. Sefton had spent three months with a London crammer, and the +tale of his adventures there lost nothing in the telling. Campbell, +who had a fine taste in clothes and a fluent vocabulary, followed his +lead in looking down loftily on the rest of the world. This was only +their second term, and the school, used to what it profanely called +"crammers' pups," had treated them with rather galling reserve. But +their whiskers--Sefton owned a real razor--and their mustaches were +beyond question impressive. + +"Shall we go in an' dissuade 'em?" McTurk asked. "I've never had much +to do with 'em, but I'll bet my hat Campbell's a funk." + +"No--o! That's _oratio_directa_," said Stalky, shaking his head. "I +like _oratio_obliqua_. 'Sides, where'd our moral influence be then? +Think o' that!" + +"Rot! What are you goin' to do?" Beetle turned into Lower Number Nine +form-room, next door to the study. + +"Me?" The lights of war flickered over Stalky's face. "Oh, I want to +jape with 'em. Shut up a bit!" + +He drove his hands into his pockets and stared out of window at the +sea, whistling between his teeth. Then a foot tapped the floor; one +shoulder lifted; he wheeled, and began the short quick +double-shuffle--the war-dance of Stalky in meditation. Thrice he +crossed the empty form-room, with compressed lips and expanded +nostrils, swaying to the quick-step. Then he halted before the dumb +Beetle and softly knuckled his bead, Beetle bowing to the strokes. +McTurk nursed one knee and rocked to and fro. They could hear Clewer +howling as though his heart would break. + +"Beetle is the sacrifice," Stalky said at last, "I'm sorry for you, +Beetle. 'Member Galton's 'Art of Travel' [one of the forms had been +studying that pleasant work] an' the kid whose bleatin' excited the +tiger?" + +"Oh, curse!" said Beetle uneasily. It was not his first season as a +sacrifice. "Can't you get on without me?" + +"'Fraid not, Beetle, dear. You've got to be bullied by Turkey an' me. +The more you howl, o' course, the better it'll be. Turkey, go an' +covet a stump and a box-rope from somewhere. We'll tie him up for a +kill--_a'_la_ Galton. 'Member when 'Molly' Fairburn made us +cock-fight with our shoes off, an' tied up our knees?" + +"But that hurt like sin." + +"Course it did. What a clever chap you are, Beetle! Turkey'll knock +you all over the place. 'Member we've had a big row all round, an' +I've trapped you into doin' this. Lend us your wipe." Beetle was +trussed for cock-fighting; but, in addition to the transverse stump +between elbow and knee, His knees were bound with a box-rope. In this +posture, at a push from Stalky he rolled over sideways, covering +himself with dust. + +"Ruffle his hair, Turkey. Now you get down, too. 'The bleatin' of the +kid excites the tiger.' You two are in such a sweatin' wax with me +that you only curse. 'Member that. I'll tickle you up with a stump. +You'll have to blub, Beetle." + +"Right O! I'll work up to it in half a shake," said Beetle. + +"Now begin--and remember the bleatin' o' the kid." + +"Shut up, you brutes! Let me up! You've nearly cut my knees off. Oh, +you _are_ beastly cads! _Do_ shut up. 'Tisn't a joke!" Beetle's +protest was, in tone, a work of art. + +"Give it to him, Turkey! Kick him! Roll him over! Kill him! Don't +funk, Beetle, you brute. Kick him again, Turkey." + +"He's not blubbin' really. Roll up, Beetle, or I'll kick you into the +fender," roared McTurk. They made a hideous noise among them, and the +bait allured their quarry. + +"Hullo! What's the giddy jest?" Sefton and Campbell entered to find +Beetle on his side, his head against the fender, weeping copiously, +while McTurk prodded him in the back with his toes. + +"It's only Beetle," Stalky explained. "He's shammin' hurt. I can't get +Turkey to go for him properly." Sefton promptly kicked both boys, and +his face lighted. "All right, I'll attend to 'em. Get up an' +cock-fight, you two. Give me the stump. I'll tickle 'em. Here's a +giddy jest! Come on, Campbell. Let's cook 'em." + +Then McTurk turned on Stalky and called him very evil names. + +"You said you were goin' to cock-fight too, Stalky. Come on!" + +"More ass you for believin' me, then!" shrieked Stalky. + +"Have you chaps had a row?" said Campbell. "Row?" said Stalky. "Huh! +I'm only educatin' them. D'you know anythin' about cock-fighting, +Seffy?" + +"Do I know? Why, at Maclagan's, where I was crammin' in town, we used +to cock-fight in his drawing-room, and little Maclagan daren't say +anything. But we were just the same as men there, of course. Do I +know? _I_'ll show you." + +"Can't I get up?" moaned Beetle, as Stalky sat on his shoulder. + +"Don't jaw, you fat piffler. You're going to fight Seffy." + +"He'll slay me!" + +"Oh, lug 'em into our study," said Campbell. "It's nice an' quiet in +there. I'll cock-fight Turkey. This is an improvement on young +Clewer." + +"Right O! I move it's shoes-off for them an' shoes-on for us," said +Sefton joyously, and the two were flung down on the study floor. +Stalky rolled them behind an arm-chair. "Now I'll tie you two up an' +direct the bull-fight. Golly, what wrists you have, Seffy. They're +too thick for a wipe; got a box-rope?" said he. + +"Lots in the corner," Sefton replied. "Hurry up! Stop blubbin', you +brute, Beetle. We're goin' to have a giddy campaign. Losers have to +sing for the winners--sing odes in honor of the conqueror. You call +yourself a beastly poet, don't you, Beetle? I'll poet you." + +He wriggled into position by Campbell's side. Swiftly and +scientifically the stumps were thrust through the natural crooks, and +the wrists tied with well-stretched box-ropes to an accompaniment of +insults from McTurk, bound, betrayed, and voluble behind the chair. +Stalky set away Campbell and Sefton, and strode over to his allies, +locking the door on the way. + +"And that's all right," said he in a changed voice. + +"What the devil--?" Sefton began. Beetle's false tears had ceased; +McTurk, smiling, was on his feet. Together they bound the knees and +ankles of the enemy even more straitly. + +Stalky took the arm-chair and contemplated the scene with his blandest +smile. A man trussed for cock-fighting is, perhaps, the most helpless +thing in the world. + +"'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' Oh, you frabjous asses!" +He lay back and laughed till he could no more. The victims took in +the situation but slowly. "We'll give you the finest lickin' you +ever had in your young lives when we get up!" thundered Sefton from +the floor. "You'll laugh the other side of your mouth before you've +done. What the deuce d'you mean by this?" + +"You'll see in two shakes," said McTurk. "Don't swear like that. What +we want to know is, why you two hulkin' swine have been bullyin' +Clewer?" + +"It's none of your business." + +"What did you bully Clewer for?" The question was repeated with +maddening iteration by each in turn. They knew their work. + +"Because we jolly well chose!" was the answer at last. "Let's get up." +Even then they could not realize the game. + +"Well, now we're goin' to bully you because we jolly well choose. +We're goin' to be just as fair to you as you were to Clewer. He +couldn't do anything against you. You can't do anything to us. Odd, +ain't it?" + +"Can't we? You wait an' see." + +"Ah," said Beetle reflectively, "that shows you've never been properly +jested with. A public lickin' ain't in it with a gentle jape. Bet a +bob you'll weep an' promise anything." + +"Look here, young Beetle, we'll half kill you when we get up. I'll +promise you that, at any rate." + +"You're going to be half killed first, though. Did you give Clewer +Head-knuckles?" + +"Did you give Clewer Head-knuckles?" McTurk echoed. At the twentieth +repetition--no boy can stand the torture of one unvarying query, +which is the essence of bullying--came confession. + +"We did, confound you!" + +"Then you'll be knuckled;" and knuckled they were, according to +ancient experience. Head-knuckling is no trifle; "Molly" Fairburn of +the old days could not have done better. + +"Did you give Clewer Brush-drill?" This time the question was answered +sooner, and Brush-drill was dealt out for the space of five minutes +by Stalky's watch. They could not even writhe in their bonds. No +brush is employed in Brush-drill. + +"Did you give Clewer the Key?" + +"No; we didn't. I swear we didn't!" from Campbell, rolling in agony. + +"Then we'll give it to you, so you can see what it would be like if +you had." + +The torture of the Key--which has no key at all--hurts excessively. +They endured several minutes of it, and their language necessitated +the gag. + +"Did you give Clewer Corkscrews?" + +"Yes. Oh, curse your silly souls! Let us alone, you cads." + +They were corkscrewed, and the torture of the Corkscrew--this has +nothing to do with corkscrews--is keener than the torture of the +Key. + +The method and silence of the attacks was breaking their nerves. +Between each new torture came the pitiless, dazing rain of questions, +and when they did not answer to the point, Isabella-colored +handkerchiefs were thrust into their mouths. + +"Now are those all the things you did to Clewer? Take out the gag, +Turkey, and let 'em answer." + +"Yes, I swear that was all. Oh, you're killing us, Stalky!" cried +Campbell. + +"Pre-cisely what Clewer said to you. I heard him. Now we're goin' to +show you what real bullyin' is. 'What I don't like about you, Sefton, +is, you come to the Coll. with your stick-up collars an' +patent-leather boots, an' you think you can teach us something about +bullying. Do you think you can teach us anything about bullying? +Take out the gag and let him answer." + +"No!"--ferociously. + +"He says no. Rock him to sleep. Campbell can watch." + +It needs three boys and two boxing-gloves to rock a boy to sleep. +Again the operation has nothing to do with its name. Sefton was +"rocked" till his eyes set in his head and he gasped and crowed for +breath, sick and dizzy. + +"My Aunt!" said Campbell, appalled, from his corner, and turned +white. + +"Put him away," said Stalky. "Bring on Campbell. Now this _is_ +bullyin'. Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, what did you bully Clewer +for? Take out his gag and let him answer." + +"I--I don't know. Oh, let me off! I swear I'll make it _pax_. Don't +'rock' me!" + +"'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' He says he don't know. +Set him up, Beetle. Give me the glove an' put in the gag." + +In silence Campbell was "rocked" sixty-four times. + +"I believe I'm goin' to die!" he gasped. "He says he is goin' to die. +Put him away. Now, Sefton! Oh, I forgot! Sefton, what did you bully +Clewer for?" + +The answer is unprintable; but it brought not the faintest flush to +Stalky's downy cheek. + +"Make him an Ag Ag, Turkey!" + +And an Ag Ag was he made, forthwith. The hard-bought experience of +nearly eighteen years was at his disposal, but he did not seem to +appreciate it. + +"He says we are sweeps. Put him away! Now, Campbell! Oh, I forgot! I +say, Campbell, what did you bully Clewer for?" + +Then came the tears--scalding tears; appeals for mercy and abject +promises of peace. Let them cease the tortures and Campbell would +never lift hand against them. The questions began again--to an +accompaniment of small persuasions. + +"You seem hurt, Campbell. Are you hurt?" + +"Yes. Awfully!" + +"He says he is hurt. Are you broke?" + +"Yes, yes! I swear I am. Oh, stop!" + +"He says he is broke. Are you humble?" + +"Yes!" + +"He says he is humble. Are you devilish humble?" + +"Yes!" + +"He says he is devilish humble. Will you bully Clewer any more?" + +"No. No--ooh!" + +"He says he won't bully Clewer. Or any one else?" + +"No. I swear I won't." + +"Or any one else. What about that lickin' you and Sefton were goin' to +give us?" + +"I won't! I won't! I swear I won't!" + +"He says he won't lick us. Do you esteem yourself to know anything +about bullyin'?" + +"No, I don't!" + +"He says he doesn't know anything about bullyin'. Haven't we taught +you a lot?" + +"Yes--yes!" + +"He says we've taught him a lot. Aren't you grateful?" + +"Yes!" + +"He says he is grateful. Put him away. Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, +what did you bully Clewer for?" + +He wept anew; his nerves being raw. "Because I was a bully. I suppose +that's what you want me to say?" + +"He says he is a bully. Right he is. Put him in the corner. No more +japes for Campbell. Now, Sefton!" + +"You devils! You young devils!" This and much more as Sefton was +punted across the carpet by skilful knees. + +"'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' We're goin' to make you +beautiful. Where does he keep his shaving things? [Campbell told.] +Beetle, get some water. Turkey, make the lather. We're goin' to +shave you, Seffy, so you'd better lie jolly still, or you'll get cut. +I've never shaved any one before." + +"Don't! Oh, don't! Please don't!" + +"Gettin' polite, eh? I'm only goin' to take off one ducky little +whisker--" + +"I'll--I'll make it _pax_, if you don't. I swear I'll let you off your +lickin' when I get up!" + +"_And_ half that mustache we're so proud of. He says he'll let us off +our lickin'. Isn't he kind?" + +McTurk laughed into the nickel-plated shaving-cup, and settled +Sefton's head between Stalky's vise-like knees. + +"Hold on a shake," said Beetle, "you can't shave long hairs. You've +got to cut all that mustache short first, an' then scrape him." + +"Well, I'm not goin' to hunt about for scissors. Won't a match do? +Chuck us the match-box. He _is_ a hog, you know; we might as well +singe him. Lie still!" He lit a vesta, but checked his hand. "I only +want to take off half, though." + +"That's all right." Beetle waved the brush. "I'll lather up to the +middle--see? and you can burn off the rest." + +The thin-haired first mustache of youth fluffed off in flame to the +lather-line in the centre of the lip, and Stalky rubbed away the +burnt stumpage with his thumb. It was not a very gentle shave, but it +abundantly accomplished its purpose. + +"Now the whisker on the other side. Turn him over!" Between match and +razor this, too, was removed. "Give him his shaving-glass. Take the +gag out. I want to hear what he'll say." + +But there were no words. Sefton gazed at the lop-sided wreck in horror +and despair. Two fat tears rolled down his cheek. + +"Oh, I forgot! I say, Sefton, what did you bully Clewer for?" + +"Leave me alone! Oh, you infernal bullies, leave me alone! Haven't I +had enough?" + +"He says we must leave him alone," said McTurk. + +"He says we are bullies, an' we haven't even begun yet," said Beetle. +"You're ungrateful, Seffy. Golly! You do look an atrocity and a +half!" + +"He says he has had enough," said Stalky. "He errs!" + +"Well, to work, to work!" chanted McTurk, waving a stump. "Come on, my +giddy Narcissus. Don't fall in love with your own reflection!" + +"Oh, let him off," said Campbell from his corner; "he's blubbing, +too." + +Sefton cried like a twelve-year-old with pain, shame, wounded vanity, +and utter helplessness. + +"You'll make it _pax_, Sefton, won't you? You can't stand up to those +young devils--" + +"Don't be rude, Campbell, de-ah," said McTurk, "or you'll catch it +again!" + +"You _are_ devils, you know," said Campbell. + +"What? for a little bullyin'--same as you've been givin' Clewer! How +long have you been jestin' with him?" said Stalky. "All this term?" + +"We didn't always knock him about, though!" + +"You did when you could catch him," said Beetle, cross-legged on the +floor, dropping a stump from time to time across Sefton's instep. +"Don't I know it!" + +"I--perhaps we did." + +"And you went out of your way to catch him? Don't I know it! Because +he was an awful little beast, eh? Don't I know it! Now, you see, +_you_'re awful beasts, and you're gettin' what he got--for bein' a +beast. Just because we choose." + +"We never really bullied him--like you've done us." + +"Yah!" said Beetle. "They never really bully--'Molly' Fairburn +didn't. Only knock 'em about a little bit. That's what they say. Only +kick their souls out of 'em, and they go and blub in the box-rooms. +Shove their heads into the ulsters an' blub. Write home three times +a day--yes, you brute, I've done that--askin' to be taken away. +You've never been bullied properly, Campbell I'm sorry you made +_pax_." + +"I'm not!" said Campbell, who was a humorist in a way. "Look out, +you're slaying Sefton!" + +In his excitement Beetle had used the stump unreflectingly, and Sefton +was now shouting for mercy. + +"An' you!" he cried, wheeling where he sat. "You've never been +bullied, either. Where were you before you came here?" + +"I--I had a tutor." + +"Yah! You would. You never blubbed in your life. But you're blubbin' +now, by gum. Aren't you blubbin'?" + +"Can't you see, you blind beast?" Sefton fell over sideways, +tear-tracks furrowing the dried lather. Crack came the cricket-stump +on the curved latter-end of him. + +"Blind, am I," said Beetle, "and a beast? Shut up, Stalky. I'm goin' +to jape a bit with our friend, _a'_la_ 'Molly' Fairburn. _I_ think I +can see. Can't I see, Sefton?" + +"The point is well taken," said McTurk, watching the strap at work. +"You'd better say that he sees, Seffy." + +"You do--you can! I swear you do!" yelled Sefton, for strong arguments +were coercing him. + +"Aren't my eyes lovely?" The stump rose and fell steadily throughout +this catechism. + +"Yes." + +"A gentle hazel, aren't they?" + +"Yes--oh, yes!" + +"What a liar you are! They're sky-blue. Ain't they sky-blue?" + +"Yes--oh, yes!" + +"You don't know your mind from one minute to another. You must +learn--you must learn." + +"What a bait you're in!" said Stalky. "Keep your hair on, Beetle." + +"I've had it done to me," said Beetle. "Now--about my being a beast." + +"_Pax_--oh, _pax_!" cried Sefton; "make it _pax_. I'll give up! Let me +off! I'm broke! I can't stand it!" + +"Ugh! Just when we were gettin' our hand in!" grunted McTurk. + +"They didn't let Clewer off, I'll swear." + +"Confess--apologize--quick!" said Stalky. + +From the floor Sefton made unconditional surrender, more abjectly even +than Campbell He would never touch any one again. He would go softly +all the days of his life. + +"We've got to take it, I suppose?" said Stalky. "All right, Sefton. +You're broke? Very good. Shut up, Beetle! But before we let you up, +you an' Campbell will kindly oblige us with 'Kitty of +Coleraine'--_a'_la_ Clewer." + +"That's not fair," said Campbell; "we've surrendered." + +"'Course you have. Now you're goin' to do what we tell you--same as +Clewer would. If you hadn't surrendered you'd ha' been really +bullied. Havin' surrendered--do you follow, Seffy?--you sing odes in +honor of the conquerors. Hurry up!" + +They dropped into chairs luxuriously. Campbell and Sefton looked at +each other, and, neither taking comfort from that view, struck up +"Kitty of Coleraine." + +"Vile bad," said Stalky, as the miserable wailing ended. "If you +hadn't surrendered it would have been our painful duty to buzz books +at you for singin' out o' tune. Now then." + +He freed them from their bonds, but for several minutes they could not +rise. Campbell was first on his feet, smiling uneasily. Sefton +staggered to the table, buried his head in his arms, and shook with +sobs. There was no shadow of fight in either--only amazement, +distress, and shame. + +"Ca--can't he shave clean before tea, please?" said Campbell. "It's +ten minutes to bell." + +Stalky shook his head. He meant to escort the half-shaved one to the +meal. + +McTurk yawned in his chair and Beetle mopped his face. They were all +dripping with excitement and exertion. + +"If I knew anything about it, I swear I'd give you a moral lecture," +said Stalky severely. + +"Don't jaw; they've surrendered," said McTurk. "This moral suasion +biznai takes it out of a chap." + +"Don't you see how gentle we've been? We might have called Clewer in +to look at you," said Stalky. "'The bleatin' of the tiger excites the +kid.' But we didn't. We've only got to tell a few chaps in Coll. +about this and you'd be hooted all over the shop. Your life wouldn't +be worth havin'. But we aren't goin' to do that, either. We're +strictly moral suasers, Campbell; so, unless you or Seffy split about +this, no one will." + +"I swear you're a brick," said Campbell. "I suppose I was rather a +brute to Clewer." + +"It looked like it," said Stalky. "But I don't think Seffy need come +into hall with cock-eye whiskers. Horrid bad for the fags if they saw +him. He can shave. Ain't you grateful, Sefton?" + +The head did not lift. Sefton was deeply asleep. + +"That's rummy," said McTurk, as a snore mixed with a sob. "'Cheek, _I_ +think; or else he's shammin'." + +"No, 'tisn't," said Beetle. "'When 'Molly' Fairburn had attended to me +for an hour or so I used to go bung off to sleep on a form sometimes. +Poor devil! But he called me a beastly poet, though." + +"Well, come on." Stalky lowered his voice. "Good-by, Campbell. +'Member, if you don't talk, nobody will." + +There should have been a war-dance, but that all three were so utterly +tired that they almost went to sleep above the tea-cups in their +study, and slept till prep. + + +"A most extraordinary letter. Are all parents incurably mad? What do +you make of it?" said the Head, handing a closely written eight pages +to the Reverend John. + +"'The only son of his mother, and she a widow.' That is the least +reasonable sort." The chaplain read with pursed lips. "If half those +charges are true he should be in the sick-house; whereas he is +disgustingly well. Certainly he has shaved. I noticed that." + +"Under compulsion, as his mother points out. How delicious! How +salutary!" + +"You haven't to answer her. It isn't often I don't know what has +happened in the school; but this is beyond me." + +"If you asked me I should say seek not to propitiate. When one is +forced to take crammers' pups--" + +"He was perfectly well at extra-tuition--with me--this morning," said +the Head, absently. "Unusually well behaved, too." + +"--they either educate the school, or the school, as in this case, +educates them. I prefer our own methods," the chaplain concluded. + +"You think it was that?" A lift of the Head's eye-brow. + +"I'm sure of it! And nothing excuses his trying to give the College a +bad name." + +"That's the line I mean to take with him," the Head answered. + +The Augurs winked. + + +A few days later the Reverend John called on Number Five. "Why haven't +we seen you before, Padre?" said they. + +"I've been watching times and seasons and events and men--and boys," +he replied. "I am pleased with my Tenth Legion. I make them my +compliments. Clewer was throwing ink-balls in form this morning, +instead of doing his work. He is now doing fifty lines +for--unheard-of audacity." + +"You can't blame us, sir," said Beetle. "You told us to remove +the--er--pressure. That's the worst of a fag." + +"I've known boys five years his senior throw ink-balls, Beetle. To +such an one have I given two hundred lines--not so long ago. And now +I come to think of it, were those lines ever shown up?" + +"Were they, Turkey?' said Beetle unblushingly. + +"Don't you think Clewer looks a little cleaner, Padre?" Stalky +interrupted. + +"We're no end of moral reformers," said McTurk. + +"It was all Stalky, but it was a lark," said Beetle. + +"I have noticed the moral reform in several quarters. Didn't I tell +you you had more influence than any boys in the Coll. if you cared to +use it?" + +"It's a trifle exhaustin' to use frequent--our kind of moral suasion. +Besides, you see, it only makes Clewer cheeky." + +"I wasn't thinking of Clewer; I was thinking of--the other people, +Stalky." + +"Oh, we didn't bother much about the other people," said McTurk. "Did +we?" + +"But _I_ did--from the beginning." + +"Then you knew, sir?" + +A downward puff of smoke. "Boys educate each other, they say, more +than we can or dare. If I had used one half of the moral suasion you +may or may not have employed--" + +"With the best motives in the world. Don't forget our pious motives, +Padre," said McTurk. + +"I suppose I should be now languishing in Bideford jail, shouldn't I? +Well, to quote the Head, in a little business which we have agreed to +forget, that strikes me as flagrant injustice ... What are you +laughing at, you young sinners? Isn't it true? I will not stay to be +shouted at. What I looked into this den of iniquity for was to find +out if any one cared to come down for a bathe off the Ridge. But I see +you won't." + +"Won't we, though! Half a shake, Padre Sahib, till we get our towels, +and _nous_sommes_avec_vous_!" + + + + +A LITTLE PREP. + + +Easter term was but a month old when Stettson major, a day-boy, +contracted diphtheria, and the Head was very angry. He decreed a new +and narrower set of bounds--the infection had been traced to an +out-lying farmhouse--urged the prefects severely to lick all +trespassers, and promised extra attentions from his own hand. There +were no words bad enough for Stettson major, quarantined at his +mother's house, who had lowered the school-average of health. This +he said in the gymnasium after prayers. Then he wrote some two +hundred letters to as many anxious parents and guardians, and bade +the school carry on. The trouble did not spread, but, one night, a +dog-cart drove to the Head's door, and in the morning the Head had +gone, leaving all things in charge of Mr. King, senior house-master. +The Head often ran up to town, where the school devoutly believed he +bribed officials for early proofs of the Army Examination papers; but +this absence was unusually prolonged. + +"Downy old bird!" said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in +the study. "He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under a +false name." + +"What for?" Beetle entered joyously into the libel. + +"Forty shillin's or a month for hackin' the chucker-out of the Pavvy +on the shins. Bates always has a spree when he goes to town. Wish he +was back, though. I'm about sick o' King's 'whips an' scorpions' an' +lectures on public-school spirit--yah!--and scholarship!" + +"'Crass an' materialized brutality of the middle-classes--readin' +solely for marks. Not a scholar in the whole school,'" McTurk +quoted, pensively boring holes in the mantel-piece with a hot poker. + +"That's rather a sickly way of spending an afternoon. Stinks too. +Let's come out an' smoke. Here's a treat." Stalky held up a long +Indian cheroot. "'Bagged it from my pater last holidays. I'm a bit +shy of it though; it's heftier than a pipe. We'll smoke it +palaver-fashion. Hand it round, eh? Let's lie up behind the old harrow +on the Monkey-farm Road." + +"Out of bounds. Bounds beastly strict these days, too. Besides, we +shall cat." Beetle sniffed the cheroot critically. "It's a regular +Pomposo Stinkadore." + +"You can; I shan't. What d'you say, Turkey?" + +"Oh, may's well, I s'pose." + +"Chuck on your cap, then. It's two to one. Beetle, out you come!" + +They saw a group of boys by the notice-board in the corridor; little +Foxy, the school sergeant, among them. + +"More bounds, I expect," said Stalky. "Hullo, Foxibus, who are you in +mournin' for?" There was a broad band of crape round Foxy's arm. + +"He was in my old regiment," said Foxy, jerking his head towards the +notices, where a newspaper cutting was thumb-tacked between call-over +lists. + +"By gum!" quoth Stalky, uncovering as he read. "It's old +Duncan--Fat-Sow Duncan--killed on duty at something or other Kotal. +'_Rallyin'_his_men_with_ _conspicuous_gallantry._' He would, of +course. '_The_body_was_recovered_.' That's all right. They cut 'em up +sometimes, don't they, Foxy?" + +"Horrid," said the sergeant briefly. + +"Poor old Fat-Sow! I was a fag when he left. How many does that make +to us, Foxy?" + +"Mr. Duncan, he is the ninth. He come here when he was no bigger than +little Grey tertius. My old regiment, too. Yiss, nine to us, Mr. +Corkran, up to date." + +The boys went out into the wet, walking swiftly. + +"Wonder how it feels--to be shot and all that," said Stalky, as they +splashed down a lane. "Where did it happen, Beetle?" + +"Oh, out in India somewhere. We're always rowin' there. But look here, +Stalky, what _is_ the good o' sittin' under a hedge an' cattin'? It's +be-eastly cold. It's be-eastly wet, and we'll be collared as sure as +a gun." + +"Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess +yet?" Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats. +They pushed through a dripping hedge, landed among water-logged clods, +and sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with +sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to +the other between dosed forefinger and thumb. + +"Good job we hadn't one apiece, ain't it?" said Stalky, shivering +through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before +them, and they followed his example... + +"I told you," moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. "Oh, Stalky, you +are a fool!" + +"_Je_cat_, _tu_cat_, _il_cat_. _Nous cattons_!" McTurk handed up his +contribution and lay hopelessly on the cold iron. + +"Something's wrong with the beastly thing. I say, Beetle, have you +been droppin' ink on it?" + +But Beetle was in no case to answer. Limp and empty, they sprawled +across the harrow, the rust marking their ulsters in red squares and +the abandoned cheroot-end reeking under their very cold noses. +Then--they had heard nothing--the Head himself stood before them--the +Head who should have been in town bribing examiners--the Head +fantastically attired in old tweeds and a deer-stalker! + +"Ah," he said, fingering his mustache. "Very good. I might have +guessed who it was. You will go back to the College and give my +compliments to Mr. King and ask him to give you an extra-special +licking. You will then do me five hundred lines. I shall be back +to-morrow. Five hundred lines by five o'clock to-morrow. You are also +gated for a week. This is not exactly the time for breaking bounds. +Extra-special, please." + +He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had come. There was a +murmur of women's voices in the deep lane. + +"Oh, you Prooshan brute!" said McTurk as the voices died away. +"Stalky, it's all your silly fault." + +"Kill him! Kill him!" gasped Beetle. + +"I ca-an't. I'm going to cat again... I don't mind that, but King'll +gloat over us horrid. Extra-special, ooh!" + +Stalky made no answer--not even a soft one. They went to College and +received that for which they had been sent. King enjoyed himself most +thoroughly, for by virtue of their seniority the boys were exempt +from his hand, save under special order. Luckily, he was no expert +in the gentle art. + +"'Strange, how desire doth outrun performance,'" said Beetle +irreverently, quoting from some Shakespeare play that they were +cramming that term. They regained their study and settled down to the +imposition. + +"You're quite right, Beetle." Stalky spoke in silky and propitiating +tones. "Now, if the Head had sent us up to a prefect, we'd have got +something to remember!" + +"Look here," McTurk began with cold venom, "we aren't goin' to row you +about this business, because it's too bad for a row; but we want you +to understand you're jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. You're a +plain ass." + +"How was I to know that the Head 'ud collar us? What was he doin' in +those ghastly clothes, too?" + +"Don't try to raise a side-issue," Beetle grunted severely. + +"Well, it was all Stettson major's fault. If he hadn't gone an' got +diphtheria 'twouldn't have happened. But don't you think it rather +rummy--the Head droppin' on us that way?" + +"Shut up! You're dead!" said Beetle. "We've chopped your spurs off +your beastly heels. We've cocked your shield upside down and---and I +don't think you ought to be allowed to brew for a month." + +"Oh, stop jawin' at me. I want--" + +"Stop? Why--why, we're gated for a week." McTurk almost howled as the +agony of the situation overcame him. "A lickin' from King, five +hundred lines, _and_ a gatin'. D'you expect us to kiss you, Stalky, +you beast?" + +"Drop rottin' for a minute. I want to find out about the Head bein' +where he was." + +"Well, you have. You found him quite well and fit. Found him makin' +love to Stettson major's mother. That was her in the lane--I heard +her. And so we were ordered a lickin' before a day-boy's mother. Bony +old widow, too," said McTurk. "Anything else you'd like to find out?" + +"I don't care. I swear I'll get even with him some day," Stalky +growled. + +"Looks like it," said McTurk. "Extra-special, week's gatin' and five +hundred... and now you're goin' to row about it! Help scrag him, +Beetle!" Stalky had thrown his Virgil at them. + +The Head returned next day without explanation, to find the lines +waiting for him and the school a little relaxed under Mr. King's +viceroyalty. Mr. King had been talking at and round and over the +boys' heads, in a lofty and promiscuous style, of public-school +spirit and the traditions of ancient seats; for he always improved an +occasion. Beyond waking in two hundred and fifty young hearts a lively +hatred of all other foundations, he accomplished little--so little, +indeed, that when, two days after the Head's return, he chanced to +come across Stalky & Co., gated but ever resourceful, playing marbles +in the corridor, he said that he was not surprised--not in the least +surprised. This was what he had expected from persons of their +_morale_. + +"But there isn't any rule against marbles, sir. Very interestin' +game," said Beetle, his knees white with chalk and dust. Then he +received two hundred lines for insolence, besides an order to go to +the nearest prefect for judgment and slaughter. + +This is what happened behind the closed doors of Flint's study, and +Flint was then Head of the Games:-- + +"Oh, I say, Flint. King has sent me to you for playin' marbles in the +corridor an' shoutin' 'alley tor' an' 'knuckle down.'" + +"What does he suppose I have to do with that?" was the answer. + +"Dunno. Well?" Beetle grinned wickedly. "What am I to tell him? He's +rather wrathy about it." + +"If the Head chooses to put a notice in the corridor forbiddin' +marbles, I can do something; but I can't move on a house-master's +report. He knows that as well as I do." + +The sense of this oracle Beetle conveyed, all unsweetened, to King, +who hastened to interview Flint. + +Now Flint had been seven and a half years at the College, counting six +months with a London crammer, from whose roof he had returned, +homesick, to the Head for the final Army polish. There were four or +five other seniors who had gone through much the same mill, not to +mention boys, rejected by other establishments on account of a +certain overwhelmingness, whom the Head had wrought into very fair +shape. It was not a Sixth to be handled without gloves, as King +found. + +"Am I to understand it is your intention to allow board-school games +under your study windows, Flint? If so, I can only say--" He said +much, and Flint listened politely. + +"Well, sir, if the Head sees fit to call a prefects' meeting we are +bound to take the matter up. But the tradition of the school is that +the prefects can't move in any matter affecting the whole school +without the Head's direct order." + +Much more was then delivered, both sides a little losing their +temper. + +After tea, at an informal gathering of prefects in his study, Flint +related the adventure. + +"He's been playin' for this for a week, and now he's got it. You know +as well as I do that if he hadn't been gassing at us the way he has, +that young devil Beetle wouldn't have dreamed of marbles." + +"We know that," said Perowne, "but that isn't the question. On Flint's +showin' King has called the prefects names enough to justify a +first-class row. Crammers' rejections, ill-regulated hobble-de-hoys, +wasn't it? Now it's impossible for prefects--" + +"Rot," said Flint. "King's the best classical cram we've got; and +'tisn't fair to bother the Head with a row. He's up to his eyes with +extra-tu and Army work as it is. Besides, as I told King, we +_aren't_ a public school. We're a limited liability company payin' +four per cent. My father's a shareholder, too." + +"What's that got to do with it?" said Venner, a red-headed boy of +nineteen. + +"Well, seems to me that we should be interferin' with ourselves. We've +got to get into the Army or--get out, haven't we? King's hired by the +Council to teach us. All the rest's gumdiddle. Can't you see?" + +It might have been because he felt the air was a little thunderous +that the Head took his after-dinner cheroot to Flint's study; but he +so often began an evening in a prefect's room that nobody suspected +when he drifted in pensively, after the knocks that etiquette +demanded. + +"Prefects' meeting?" A cock of one wise eye-brow. + +"Not exactly, sir; we're just talking things over. Won't you take the +easy chair?" + +"Thanks. Luxurious infants, you are." He dropped into Flint's big +half-couch and puffed for a while in silence. "Well, since you're all +here, I may confess that I'm the mute with the bowstring." + +The young faces grew serious. The phrase meant that certain of their +number would be withdrawn from all further games for extra-tuition. +It might also mean future success at Sandhurst; but it was present +ruin for the First Fifteen. + +"Yes, I've come for my pound of flesh. I ought to have had you out +before the Exeter match; but it's our sacred duty to beat Exeter." + +"Isn't the Old Boys' match sacred, too, sir?" said Perowne. The Old +Boys' match was the event of the Easter term. + +"We'll hope they aren't in training. Now for the list. First I want +Flint. It's the Euclid that does it. You must work deductions with +me. Perowne, extra mechanical drawing. Dawson goes to Mr. King for +extra Latin, and Venner to me for German. Have I damaged the First +Fifteen much?" He smiled sweetly. + +"Ruined it, I'm afraid, sir," said Flint. "Can't you let us off till +the end of the term?" + +"Impossible. It will be a tight squeeze for Sandhurst this year." + +"And all to be cut up by those vile Afghans, too," said Dawson. +"Wouldn't think there'd be so much competition, would you?" + +"Oh, that reminds me. Crandall is coming down with the Old Boys--I've +asked twenty of them, but we shan't get more than a weak team. I +don't know whether he'll be much use, though. He was rather knocked +about, recovering poor old Duncan's body." + +"Crandall major--the Gunner?" Perowne asked. + +"No, the minor--'Toffee' Crandall--in a native infantry regiment. He +was almost before your time, Perowne." + +"The papers didn't say anything about him. We read about Fat-Sow, of +course. What's Crandall done, sir?" + +"I've brought over an Indian paper that his mother sent me. It was +rather a--hefty, I think you say--piece of work. Shall I read it?" +The Head knew how to read. When he had finished the quarter-column of +close type everybody thanked him politely. + +"Good for the old Coll.!" said Perowne. "Pity he wasn't in time to +save Fat-Sow, though. That's nine to us, isn't it, in the last three +years?" + +"Yes... And I took old Duncan off all games for extra-tu five years +ago this term," said the Head. "By the way, who do you hand over the +Games to, Flint?" + +"Haven't thought yet. Who'd you recommend, sir?" + +"No, thank you. I've heard it casually hinted behind my back that the +Prooshan Bates is a downy bird, but he isn't going to make himself +responsible for a new Head of the Games. Settle it among yourselves. +Good-night." + +"And that's the man," said Flint, when the door shut, "that you want +to bother with a dame's school row." + +"I was only pullin' your fat leg," Perowne returned, hastily. "You're +so easy to draw, Flint." + +"Well, never mind that. The Head's knocked the First Fifteen to bits, +and we've got to pick up the pieces, or the Old Boys will have a +walk-over. Let's promote all the Second Fifteen and make Big Side +play up. There's heaps of talent somewhere that we can polish up +between now and the match." + +The case was represented so urgently to the school that even Stalky +and McTurk, who affected to despise football, played one Big-Side +game seriously. They were forthwith promoted ere their ardor had time +to cool, and the dignity of their Caps demanded that they should keep +some show of virtue. The match-team was worked at least four days out +of seven, and the school saw hope ahead. + +With the last week of the term the Old Boys began to arrive, and their +welcome was nicely proportioned to their worth. Gentlemen cadets from +Sandhurst and Woolwich, who had only left a year ago, but who carried +enormous side, were greeted with a cheerful "Hullo! What's the Shop +like?" from those who had shared their studies. Militia subalterns +had more consideration, but it was understood they were not precisely +of the true metal. Recreants who, failing for the Army, had gone into +business or banks were received for old sake's sake, but in no way +made too much of. But when the real subalterns, officers and +gentlemen full-blown--who had been to the ends of the earth and back +again and so carried no side--came on the scene strolling about with +the Head, the school divided right and left in admiring silence. And +when one laid hands on Flint, even upon the Head of the Games crying, +"Good Heavens! What do you mean by growing in this way? You were a +beastly little fag when I left," visible haloes encircled Flint. They +would walk to and fro in the corridor with the little red +school-sergeant, telling news of old regiments; they would burst into +form-rooms sniffing the well-remembered smells of ink and whitewash; +they would find nephews and cousins in the lower forms and present +them with enormous wealth; or they would invade the gymnasium and +make Foxy show off the new stock on the bars. + +Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was father-confessor +and agent-general to them all; for what they shouted in their +unthinking youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhood--to wit, +that the Prooshan Bates was "a downy bird." Young blood who had +stumbled into an entanglement with a pastry-cook's daughter at +Plymouth; experience who had come into a small legacy but mistrusted +lawyers; ambition halting at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that +would lead him farthest; extravagance pursued by the money-lender; +arrogance in the thick of a regimental row--each carried his trouble +to the Head; and Chiron showed him, in language quite unfit for +little boys, a quiet and safe way round, out, or under. So they +overflowed his house, smoked his cigars, and drank his health as they +had drunk it all the earth over when two or three of the old school +had foregathered. + +"Don't stop smoking for a minute," said the Head. "The more you're out +of training the better for us. I've demoralized the First Fifteen +with extra-tu." + +"Ah, but we're a scratch lot. Have you told 'em we shall need a +substitute even if Crandall can play?" said a Lieutenant of Engineers +with a D.S.O. to his credit. + +"He wrote me he'd play, so he can't have been much hurt. He's coming +down to-morrow morning." + +"Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor Duncan's body?" The +Head nodded. "Where are you going to put him? We've turned you out +of house and home already, Head Sahib." This was a Squadron Commander +of Bengal Lancers, home on leave. + +"I'm afraid he'll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know old +boys can claim that privilege. Yes, I think little Crandall minor +must bed down there once more." + +"Bates Sahib "--a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head's +neck--"you've got something up your sleeve. Confess! I know that +twinkle." + +"Can't you see, you cuckoo?" a Submarine Miner interrupted. "Crandall +goes up to the dormitory as an object-lesson, for moral effect and so +forth. Isn't that true, Head Sahib?" + +"It is. You know too much, Purvis. I licked you for that in '79." + +"You did, sir, and it's my private belief you chalked the cane." + +"N-no. But I've a very straight eye. Perhaps that misled you." + +That opened the flood-gates of fresh memories, and they all told tales +out of school. + +When Crandall minor that was--Lieutenant R. Crandall of an ordinary +Indian regiment--arrived from Exeter on the morning of the match, he +was cheered along the whole front of the College, for the prefects +had repeated the sense of that which the Head had read them in +Flint's study. When Prout's house understood that he would claim his +Old Boy's right to a bed for one night, Beetle ran into King's house +next door and executed a public "gloat" up and down the enemy's big +form-room, departing in a haze of ink-pots. + +"What d'you take any notice of those rotters for?" said Stalky, +playing substitute for the Old Boys, magnificent in black jersey, +white knickers, and black stockings. "I talked to _him_ up in the +dormitory when he was changin'. Pulled his sweater down for him. He's +cut about all over the arms--horrid purply ones. He's goin' to tell +us about it to-night. I asked him to when I was lacin' his boots." + +"Well, you _have_ got cheek," said Beetle, enviously. + +"Slipped out before I thought. But he wasn't a bit angry. He's no end +of a chap. I swear, I'm goin' to play up like beans. Tell Turkey!" + +The technique of that match belongs to a bygone age. Scrimmages were +tight and enduring; hacking was direct and to the purpose; and around +the scrimmage stood the school, crying, "Put down your heads and +shove!" Toward the end everybody lost all sense of decency, and +mothers of day-boys too close to the touch-line heard language not +included in the bills. No one was actually carried off the field, but +both sides felt happier when time was called, and Beetle helped +Stalky and McTurk into their overcoats. The two had met in the +many-legged heart of things, and, as Stalky said, had "done each +other proud." As they swaggered woodenly behind the teams-- +substitutes do not rank as equals of hairy men--they passed a +pony-carriage near the wall, and a husky voice cried, "Well played. +Oh, played indeed!" It was Stettson major, white-checked and +hollow-eyed, who had fought his way to the ground under escort of an +impatient coachman. + +"Hullo, Stettson," said Stalky, checking. "Is it safe to come near you +yet?" + +"Oh, yes. I'm all right. They wouldn't let me out before, but I had to +come to the match. Your mouth looks pretty plummy." + +"Turkey trod on it accidental-done-a-purpose. Well, I'm glad you're +better, because we owe you something. You and your membranes got us +into a sweet mess, young man." + +"I heard of that," said the boy, giggling. "The Head told me." + +"Dooce he did! When?" + +"Oh, come on up to Coll. My shin'll stiffen if we stay jawin' here." + +"Shut up, Turkey. I want to find out about this. Well?" + +"He was stayin' at our house all the time I was ill." + +"What for? Neglectin' the Coll. that way? 'Thought he was in town." + +"I was off my head, you know, and they said I kept on callin' for +him." + +"Cheek! You're only a day-boy." + +"He came just the same, and he about saved my life. I was all bunged +up one night--just goin' to croak, the doctor said--and they stuck a +tube or somethin' in my throat, and the Head sucked out the stuff." + +"Ugh! 'Shot if _I_ would!" + +"He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the doctor said. So he +stayed on at our house instead of going back. I'd ha' croaked in +another twenty minutes, the doctor says." + +Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up and nearly ran over +the three. + +"My Hat!" said Beetle. "That's pretty average heroic." + +"Pretty average!" McTurk's knee in the small of his back cannoned him +into Stalky, who punted him back. "You ought to be hung!" + +"And the Head ought to get the V.C.," said Stalky. "Why, he might have +been dead _and_ buried by now. But he wasn't. But he didn't. Ho! ho! +He just nipped through the hedge like a lusty old blackbird. +Extra-special, five hundred lines, an' gated for a week--all +sereno!" + +"I've read o' somethin' like that in a book," said Beetle. "Gummy, +what a chap! Just think of it!" + +"I'm thinking," said McTurk; and he delivered a wild Irish yell that +made the team turn round. + +"Shut your fat mouth," said Stalky, dancing with impatience. "Leave it +to your Uncle Stalky, and he'll have the Head on toast. If you say a +word, Beetle, till I give you leave, I swear I'll slay you. +_Habeo_Capitem_crinibus_minimis._ I've got him by the short hairs! +Now look as if nothing had happened." + +There was no need of guile. The school was too busy cheering the drawn +match. It hung round the lavatories regardless of muddy boots while +the team washed. It cheered Crandall minor whenever it caught sight +of him, and it cheered more wildly than ever after prayers, because +the Old Boys in evening dress, openly twirling their mustaches, +attended, and instead of standing with the masters, ranged themselves +along the wall immediately before the prefects; and the Head called +them over, too--majors, minors, and tertiuses, after their old names. + +"Yes, it's all very fine," he said to his guests after dinner, "but +the boys are getting a little out of hand. There will be trouble and +sorrow later, I'm afraid. You'd better turn in early, Crandall. The +dormitory will be sitting up for you. I don't know to what dizzy +heights you may climb in your profession, but I do know you'll never +get such absolute adoration as you're getting now." + +"Confound the adoration. I want to finish my cigar, sir." + +"It's all pure gold. Go where glory waits, Crandall--minor." + +The setting of that apotheosis was a ten-bed attic dormitory, +communicating through doorless openings with three others. The gas +flickered over the raw pine washstands. There was an incessant +whistling of drafts, and outside the naked windows the sea beat on +the Pebbleridge. + +"Same old bed--same old mattress, I believe," said Crandall, yawning. +"Same old everything. Oh, but I'm lame! I'd no notion you chaps could +play like this." He caressed a battered shin. "You've given us all +something to remember you by." + +It needed a few minutes to put them at their ease; and, in some way +they could not understand, they were more easy when Crandall turned +round and said his prayers--a ceremony he had neglected for some +years. + +"Oh, I _am_ sorry. I've forgotten to put out the gas." + +"Please don't bother," said the prefect of the dormitory. "Worthington +does that." + +A nightgowned twelve-year-old, who had been waiting to show off, +leaped from his bed to the bracket and back again, by way of a +washstand. + +"How d'you manage when he's asleep?" said Crandall, chuckling. + +"Shove a cold cleek down his neck." + +"It was a wet sponge when I was junior in the dormitory... Hullo! +What's happening?" + +The darkness had filled with whispers, the sound of trailing rugs, +bare feet on bare boards, protests, giggles, and threats such as: + +"Be quiet, you ass!... Squattez-vous on the floor, then!... I swear +you aren't going to sit on _my_ bed!... Mind the tooth-glass," etc. + +"Sta--Corkran said," the prefect began, his tone showing his sense of +Stalky's insolence, "that perhaps you'd tell us about that business +with Duncan's body." + +"Yes--yes--yes," ran the keen whispers. "Tell us" + +"There's nothing to tell. What on earth are you chaps hoppin' about in +the cold for?" + +"Never mind us," said the voices. "Tell about Fat-Sow." + +So Crandall turned on his pillow and spoke to the generation he could +not see. + +"Well, about three months ago he was commanding a treasure-guard--a +cart full of rupees to pay troops with--five thousand rupees in +silver. He was comin' to a place called Fort Pearson, near Kalabagh." + +"I was born there," squeaked a small fag. "It was called after my +uncle." + +"Shut up--you and your uncle! Never mind him, Crandall." + +"Well, ne'er mind. The Afridis found out that this treasure was on the +move, and they ambushed the whole show a couple of miles before he +got to the fort, and cut up the escort. Duncan was wounded, and the +escort hooked it. There weren't more than twenty Sepoys all told, and +there were any amount of Afridis. As things turned out, I was in +charge at Fort Pearson. Fact was, I'd heard the firing and was just +going to see about it, when Duncan's men came up. So we all turned +back together. They told me something about an officer, but I +couldn't get the hang of things till I saw a chap under the wheels of +the cart out in the open, propped up on one arm, blazing away with a +revolver. You see, the escort had abandoned the cart, and the +Afridis--they're an awfully suspicious gang--thought the retreat was +a trap--sort of draw, you know--and the cart was the bait. So they +had left poor old Duncan alone. 'Minute they spotted how few we were, +it was a race across the flat who should reach old Duncan first. We +ran, and they ran, and we won, and after a little hackin' about they +pulled off. I never knew it was one of us till I was right on top of +him. There are heaps of Duncans in the service, and of course the name +didn't remind me. He wasn't changed at all hardly. He'd been shot +through the lungs, poor old man, and he was pretty thirsty. I gave +him a drink and sat down beside him, and--funny thing, too--he said, +'Hullo, Toffee!' and I said, 'Hullo, Fat-Sow! hope you aren't hurt,' +or something of the kind. But he died in a minute or two--never +lifted his head off my knees... I say, you chaps out there will get +your death of cold. Better go to bed." + +"All right. In a minute. But your cuts--your cuts. How did you get +wounded?" + +"That was when we were taking the body back to the Fort. They came on +again, and there was a bit of a scrimmage." + +"Did you kill any one?" + +"Yes. Shouldn't wonder. Good-night." + +"Good-night. Thank you, Crandall. Thanks awf'ly, Crandall. +Good-night." + +The unseen crowds withdrew. His own dormitory rustled into bed and lay +silent for a while. + +"I say, Crandall"--Stalky's voice was tuned to a wholly foreign +reverence. + +"Well, what?" + +"Suppose a chap found another chap croaking with diphtheria--all +bunged up with it--and they stuck a tube in his throat and the chap +sucked the stuff out, what would you say?" + +"Um," said Crandall, reflectively. "I've only heard of one case, and +that was a doctor. He did it for a woman." + +"Oh, this wasn't a woman. It was just a boy." + +"Makes it all the finer, then. It's about the bravest thing a man can +do. Why?" + +"Oh, I heard of a chap doin' it. That's all." + +"Then he's a brave man." + +"Would _you_ funk it?" + +"Ra-ather. Anybody would. Fancy dying of diphtheria in cold blood." + +"Well--ah! Er! Look here!" The sentence ended in a grunt, for Stalky +had leaped out of bed and with McTurk was sitting on the head of +Beetle, who would have sprung the mine there and then. + +Next day, which was the last of the term and given up to a few wholly +unimportant examinations, began with wrath and war. Mr. King had +discovered that nearly all his house--it lay, as you know, next door +but one to Prout's in the long range of buildings--had unlocked the +doors between the dormitories and had gone in to listen to a story +told by Crandall. He went to the Head, clamorous, injured, appealing; +for he never approved of allowing so-called young men of the world +to contaminate the morals of boyhood. Very good, said the Head, he +would attend to it. + +"Well, I'm awf'ly sorry," said Crandall guiltily. "I don't think I +told 'em anything they oughtn't to hear. Don't let them get into +trouble on my account." + +"Tck!" the Head answered, with the ghost of a wink. "It isn't the boys +that make trouble; it's the masters. However, Prout and King don't +approve of dormitory gatherings on this scale, and one must back up +the house-masters. Moreover, it's hopeless to punish two houses only, +so late in the term. We must be fair and include everybody. Let's +see. They have a holiday task for the Easters, which, of course, none +of them will ever look at. We will give the whole school, except +prefects and study-boys, regular prep. to-night; and the Common-room +will have to supply a master to take it. We must be fair to all." + +"Prep. on the last night of the term. Whew!" said Crandall, thinking +of his own wild youth. "I fancy there will be larks." + +The school, frolicking among packed trunks, whooping down the +corridor, and "gloating" in form-rooms, received the news with +amazement and rage. No school in the world did prep. on the last +night of the term. This thing was monstrous, tyrannical, subversive +of law, religion, and morality. They would go into the form-rooms, +and they would take their degraded holiday task with them, but--here +they smiled and speculated what manner of man the Common-room would +send up against them. The lot fell on Mason, credulous and +enthusiastic, who loved youth. No other master was anxious to take +that "prep.," for the school lacked the steadying influence of +tradition; and men accustomed to the ordered routine of ancient +foundations found it occasionally insubordinate. The four long +form-rooms, in which all below the rank of study-boys worked, +received him with thunders of applause. Ere he had coughed twice they +favored him with a metrical summary of the marriage laws of Great +Britain, as recorded by the High Priest of the Israelites and +commented on by the leader of the host. The lower forms reminded him +that it was the last day, and that therefore he must "take it all in +play." When he dashed off to rebuke them, the Lower Fourth and Upper +Third began with one accord to be sick, loudly and realistically. Mr. +Mason tried, of all vain things under heaven, to argue with them, and +a bold soul at a back desk bade him "take fifty lines for not 'olding +up 'is 'and before speaking." As one who prided himself upon the +perfection of his English this cut Mason to the quick, and while he +was trying to discover the offender, the Upper and Lower Second, +three form-rooms away, turned out the gas and threw ink-pots. It was +a pleasant and stimulating "prep." The study-boys and prefects heard +the echoes of it far off, and the Common-room at dessert smiled. + +Stalky waited, watch in hand, till half-past eight. "If it goes on +much longer the Head will come up," said he. "We'll tell the studies +first, and then the dorm-rooms. Look sharp!" + +He allowed no time for Beetle to be dramatic or McTurk to drawl. They +poured into study after study, told their tale, and went again so +soon as they saw they were understood, waiting for no comment; while +the noise of that unholy "prep." grew and deepened. By the door of +Flint's study they met Mason flying towards the corridor.--"He's +gone to fetch the Head. Hurry up! Come on!" They broke into Number +Twelve form-room abreast and panting. + +"The Head! The Head! The Head!" That call stilled the tumult for a +minute, and Stalky, leaping to a desk, shouted, "He went and sucked +the diphtheria stuff out of Stettson major's throat when we thought +he was in town. Stop rotting, you asses! Stettson major would have +croaked if the Head hadn't done it. The Head might have died himself. +Crandall says it's the bravest thing any livin' man can do, and +I"--his voice cracked--"the Head don't know we know!" + +McTurk and Beetle, jumping from desk to desk, drove the news home +among the junior forms. There was a pause, and then, Mason behind +him, the Head entered. It was in the established order of things that +no boy should speak or move under his eye. He expected the hush of +awe. He was received with cheers--steady, ceaseless cheering. Being +a wise man, he went away, and the forms were silent and a little +frightened. + +"It's all right," said Stalky. "He can't do much. 'Tisn't as if you'd +pulled the desks up like we did when old Carleton took prep. once. +Keep it up! Hear 'em cheering in the studies!" He rocketed out with a +yell, to find Flint and the prefects lifting the roof off the +corridor. + +When the Head of a limited liability company, paying four per cent., +is cheered on his saintly way to prayers, not only by four form-rooms +of boys waiting punishment, but by his trusted prefects, he can +either ask for an explanation or go his road with dignity, while the +senior house-master glares like an excited cat and points out to a +white and trembling mathematical master that certain methods--not +his, thank God---usually produce certain results. Out of delicacy the +Old Boys did not attend that call-over; and it was to the school +drawn up in the gymnasium that the Head spoke icily. + +"It is not often that I do not understand you; but I confess I do not +to-night. Some of you, after your idiotic performances at prep., seem +to think me a fit person to cheer. I am going to show you that I am +not." + +Crash--crash--crash--came the triple cheer that disproved it, and the +Head glowered under the gas. "That is enough. You will gain nothing. +The little boys (the Lower School did not like that form of address) +will do me three hundred lines apiece in the holidays. I shall take +no further notice of them. The Upper School will do me one thousand +lines apiece in the holidays, to be shown up the evening of the day +they come back. And further--" + +"Gummy, what a glutton!" Stalky whispered. + +"For your behavior towards Mr. Mason I intend to lick the whole of the +Upper School to-morrow when I give you your journey-money. This will +include the three study-boys I found dancing on the form-room desks +when I came up. Prefects will stay after call-over." + +The school filed out in silence, but gathered in groups by the +gymnasium door waiting what might befall. + +"And now, Flint," said the Head, "will you be good enough to give me +some explanation of your conduct?" + +"Well, sir," said Flint desperately, "if you save a chap's life at the +risk of your own when he's dyin' of diphtheria, and the Coll. finds +it out, wha-what can you expect, sir?" + +"Um, I see. Then that noise was not meant for--ah, cheek. I can +connive at immorality, but I cannot stand impudence. However, it does +not excuse their insolence to Mr. Mason. I'll forego the lines this +once, remember; but the lickings hold good." + +When this news was made public, the school, lost in wonder and +admiration, gasped at the Head as he went to his house. Here was a +man to be reverenced. On the rare occasions when he caned he did it +very scientifically, and the execution of a hundred boys would be +epic--immense. + +"It's all right, Head Sahib. _We_ know," said Crandall, as the Head +slipped off his gown with a grunt in his smoking-room. "I found out +just now from our substitute. He was gettin' my opinion of your +performance last night in the dormitory. I didn't know then that it +was you he was talkin' about. Crafty young animal. Freckled chap with +eyes---Corkran, I think his name is." + +"Oh, I know _him_, thank you," said the Head, and reflectively. +"Ye-es, I should have included them even if I hadn't seen 'em." + +"If the old Coll. weren't a little above themselves already, we'd +chair you down the corridor," said the Engineer. "Oh, Bates, how +could you? You might have caught it yourself, and where would we have +been, then?" + +"I always knew you were worth twenty of us any day. Now I'm sure of +it," said the Squadron Commander, looking round for contradictions. + +"He isn't fit to manage a school, though. Promise you'll never do it +again, Bates Sahib. We--we can't go away comfy in our minds if you +take these risks," said the Gunner. + +"Bates Sahib, you aren't ever goin' to cane the whole Upper School, +are you?" said Crandall. + +"I can connive at immorality, as I said, but I can't stand impudence. +Mason's lot is quite hard enough even when I back him. Besides, the +men at the golf-club heard them singing 'Aaron and Moses.' I shall +have complaints about that from the parents of day-boys. Decency must +be preserved." + +"We're coming to help," said all the guests. + + +The Upper School were caned one after the other, their overcoats over +their arms, the brakes waiting in the road below to take them to the +station, their journey-money on the table. The Head began with +Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle. He dealt faithfully by them. + +"And here's your journey-money. Good-by, and pleasant holidays." + +"Good-by. Thank you, sir. Good-by." + +They shook hands. "Desire don't outrun performance--much--this +mornin'. We got the cream of it," said Stalky. "Now wait till a few +chaps come out, and we'll really cheer him." + +"Don't wait on our account, please," said Crandall, speaking for the +Old Boys. "We're going to begin now." + +It was very well so long as the cheering was confined to the corridor, +but when it spread to the gymnasium, when the boys awaiting their +turn cheered, the Head gave it up in despair, and the remnant flung +themselves upon him to shake hands. Then they seriously devoted +themselves to cheering till the brakes were hustled off the premises +in dumb-show. + +"Didn't I say I'd get even with him?" said Stalky on the box-seat, as +they swung into the narrow Northam street. "Now all together--takin' +time from your Uncle Stalky: + It's a way we have in the Army, + It's a way we have in the Navy, + It's a way we have at the Public Schools, + Which nobody can deny!" + + + + +THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY. + + +It was winter and bitter cold of mornings. Consequently Stalky and +Beetle--McTurk being of the offensive type that makes ornate toilet +under all circumstances--drowsed till the last moment before turning +out to call-over in the gas-lit gymnasium. It followed that they were +often late; and since every unpunctuality earned them a black mark, +and since three black marks a week meant defaulters' drill, equally +it followed that they spent hours under the Sergeant's hand. Foxy +drilled the defaulters with all the pomp of his old parade-ground. +"Don't think it's any pleasure to me" (his introduction never +varied). "I'd much sooner be smoking a quiet pipe in my own +quarters--but I see we 'ave the Old Brigade on our 'ands this +afternoon. If I only 'ad you regular, Muster Corkran," said he, +dressing the line. + +"You've had me for nearly six weeks, you old glutton. Number off from +the right!" + +"Not _quite_ so previous, please. I'm taking this drill. Left, +half--turn! Slow--march." Twenty-five sluggards, all old offenders, +filed into the gymnasium. "Quietly provide yourselves with the +requisite dumb-bells; returnin' quietly to your place. Number off +from the right, in a low voice. Odd numbers one pace to the front. +Even numbers stand fast. Now, leanin' forward from the 'ips, takin' +your time from me." + +The dumb-bells rose and fell, clashed and were returned as one. The +boys were experts at the weary game. + +"Ve-ry good. I shall be sorry when any of you resume your 'abits of +punctuality. Quietly return dumb-bells. We will now try some simple +drill." + +"Ugh! I know that simple drill." + +"It would he 'ighly to your discredit if you did not, Muster Corkran. +_At_ the same time, it is not so easy as it looks." + +"Bet you a bob, I can drill as well as you, Foxy." + +"We'll see later. Now try to imagine you ain't defaulters at all, but +an 'arf company on parade, me bein' your commandin' officer. There's +no call to laugh. If you're lucky, most of you will 'ave to take +drills 'arf your life. Do me a little credit. You've been at it long +enough, goodness knows." + +They were formed into fours, marched, wheeled, and countermarched, the +spell of ordered motion strong on them. As Foxy said, they had been +at it a long time. + +The gymnasium door opened, revealing McTurk in charge of an old +gentleman. + +The Sergeant, leading a wheel, did not see. "Not so bad," he murmured. +"Not 'arf so bad. The pivot-man of the wheel _honly_ marks time, +Muster Swayne. Now, Muster Corkran, you say you know the drill? +Oblige me by takin' over the command and, reversin' my words step by +step, relegate them to their previous formation." + +"What's this? What's this?" cried the visitor authoritatively. + +"A--a little drill, sir," stammered Foxy, saying nothing of first +causes. + +"Excellent--excellent. I only wish there were more of it," he +chirruped. "Don't let me interrupt. You were just going to hand over +to someone, weren't you?" + +He sat down, breathing frostily in the chill air. "I shall muck it. I +know I shall," whispered Stalky uneasily; and his discomfort was not +lightened by a murmur from the rear rank that the old gentleman was +General Collinson, a member of the College Board of Council. + +"Eh--what?" said Foxy. + +"Collinson, K.C.B.--He commanded the Pompadours-my father's old +regiment," hissed Swayne major. + +"Take your time," said the visitor. "_I_ know how it feels. Your first +drill--eh?" + +"Yes, sir." He drew an unhappy breath. "'Tention. Dress!" The echo of +his own voice restored his confidence. + +The wheel was faced about, flung back, broken into fours, and restored +to line without a falter. The official hour of punishment was long +passed, but no one thought of that. They were backing up +Stalky--Stalky in deadly fear lest his voice should crack. + +"He does you credit, Sergeant," was the visitor's comment. "A good +drill--and good material to drill. Now, it's an extraordinary thing: +I've been lunching with your head-master and he never told me you had +a cadet-corps in the College." + +"We 'aven't, sir. This is only a little drill," said the Sergeant. + +"But aren't they keen on it?" said McTurk, speaking for the first +time, with a twinkle in his deep-set eyes. + +"Why aren't you in it, though, Willy?" + +"Oh, I'm not punctual enough," said McTurk. "The Sergeant only takes +the pick of us." + +"Dismiss! Break off!" cried Foxy, fearing an explosion in the ranks. +"I--I ought to have told you, sir, that--" + +"But you should have a cadet-corps." The General pursued his own line +of thought. "You _shall_ have a cadet-corps, too, if my +recommendation in Council is any use. I don't know when I've been so +pleased. Boys animated by a spirit like yours should set an example +to the whole school." + +"They do," said McTurk. + +"Bless my soul! Can it be so late? I've kept my fly waiting half an +hoar. Well, I must run away. Nothing like seeing things for one's +self. Which end of the buildings does one get out at? Will you show +me, Willy? Who was that boy who took the drill?" + +"Corkran, I think his name is." + +"You ought to know him. That's the kind of boy you should cultivate. +Evidently an unusual sort. A wonderful sight. Five and twenty boys, +who, I dare say, would much sooner be playing cricket--"(it was the +depth of winter; but grown people, especially those who have lived +long in foreign parts, make these little errors, and McTurk did not +correct him)--"drilling for the sheer love of it. A shame to waste so +much good stuff; but I think I can carry my point." + +"An' who's your friend with the white whiskers?" demanded Stalky, on +McTurk's return to the study. + +"General Collinson. He comes over to shoot with my father sometimes. +Rather a decent old bargee, too. He said I ought to cultivate your +acquaintance, Stalky." + +"Did he tip you?" McTurk exhibited a blessed whole sovereign. + +"Ah," said Stalky, annexing it, for he was treasurer. "We'll have a +hefty brew. You'd pretty average cool cheek, Turkey, to jaw about +our keenness an' punctuality." + +"Didn't the old boy know we were defaulters?" said Beetle. + +"Not him. He came down to lunch with the Head. I found him pokin' +about the place on his own hook afterwards, an' I thought I'd show +him the giddy drill. When I found he was so pleased, I wasn't goin' +to damp his giddy ardor. He mightn't ha' given me the quid if I had." + +"Wasn't old Foxy pleased? Did you see him get pink behind the ears?" +said Beetle. "It was an awful score for him. Didn't we back him up +beautifully? Let's go down to Keyte's and get some cocoa and +sassingers." + +They overtook Foxy, speeding down to retail the adventure to Keyte, +who in his time had been Troop Sergeant-Major in a cavalry regiment, +and now, war-worn veteran, was local postmaster and confectioner. + +"You owe us something," said Stalky, with meaning. + +"I'm 'ighly grateful, Muster Corkran. I've 'ad to run against you +pretty hard in the way o' business, now and then, but I will say that +outside o' business--bounds an' smokin', an' such like--I don't wish +to have a more trustworthy young gentleman to 'elp me out of a hole. +The way you 'andled the drill was beautiful, though I say it. Now, +if you come regular henceforward--" + +"But he'll have to be late three times a week," said Beetle. "You +can't expect a chap to do that--just to please you, Foxy." + +"Ah, that's true. Still, if you could manage it--and you, Muster +Beetle--it would give you a big start when the cadet-corps is formed. +I expect the General will recommend it." + +They raided Keyte's very much at their own sweet will, for the old +man, who knew them well, was deep in talk with Foxy. "I make what +we've taken seven and six," Stalky called at last over the counter; +"but you'd better count for yourself." + +"No--no. I'd take your word any day, Muster Corkran.--In the +Pompadours, was he, Sergeant? We lay with them once at Umballa, I +think it was." + +"I don't know whether this ham-and-tongue tin is eighteen pence or one +an' four." + +"Say one an' fourpence, Muster Corkran... Of course, Sergeant, if it +was any use to give my time, I'd be pleased to do it, but I'm too +old. I'd like to see a drill again." + +"Oh, come on, Stalky," cried McTurk. "He isn't listenin' to you. Chuck +over the money." + +"I want the quid changed, you ass. Keyte! Private Keyte! Corporal +Keyte! Terroop-Sergeant-Major Keyte, will you give me change for a +quid?" + +"Yes--yes, of course. Seven an' six." He stared abstractedly, pushed +the silver over, and melted away into the darkness of the back room. + +"Now those two'll jaw about the Mutiny till tea-time," said Beetle. + +"Old Keyte was at Sobraon," said Stalky. "Hear him talk about that +sometimes! Beats Foxy hollow." + + +The Head's face, inscrutable as ever, was bent over a pile of +letters. + +"What do you think?" he said at last to the Reverend John Gillett. + +"It's a good idea. There's no denying that--an estimable idea." + +"We concede that much. Well?" + +"I have my doubts about it--that's all. The more I know of boys the +less do I profess myself capable of following their moods; but I own +I shall be very much surprised if the scheme takes. It--it isn't the +temper of the school. We prepare for the Army." + +"My business--in _this_ matter--is to carry out the wishes of the +Council. They demand a volunteer cadet-corps. A volunteer cadet-corps +will be furnished. I have suggested, however, that we need not embark +upon the expense of uniforms till we are drilled. General Collinson +is sending us fifty lethal weapons--cut-down Sniders, he calls +them--all carefully plugged." + +"Yes, that is necessary in a school that uses loaded saloon-pistols to +the extent we do." The Reverend John smiled. + +"Therefore there will be no outlay except the Sergeant's time." + +"But if he fails you will be blamed." + +"Oh, assuredly. I shall post a notice in the corridor this afternoon, +and--" + +"I shall watch the result." + + +"Kindly keep your 'ands off the new arm-rack." Foxy wrestled with a +turbulent crowd in the gymnasium. "Nor it won't do even a condemned +Snider any good to be continual snappin' the lock, Mr. Swayne.--Yiss, +the uniforms will come later, when we're more proficient; at present +we will confine ourselves to drill. I am 'ere for the purpose o' +takin' the names o' those willin' to join.--Put down that Snider, +Muster Hogan!" + +"What are you goin' to do, Beetle?" said a voice. + +"I've had all the drill _I_ want, thank you." + +"What! After all you've learned? Come on! Don't be a scab! They'll +make you corporal in a week," cried Stalky. + +"I'm not goin' up for the Army." Beetle touched his spectacles. + +"Hold on a shake, Foxy," said Hogan. "Where are you goin' to drill +us?" + +"Here--in the gym--till you are fit an' capable to be taken out on the +road." The Sergeant threw a chest. + +"For all the Northam cads to look at? Not good enough, Foxibus." + +"Well, we won't make a point of it. You learn your drill first, an' +later we'll see." + +"Hullo," said Ansell of Macrea's, shouldering through the mob. "What's +all this about a giddy cadet-corps?" + +"It will save you a lot o' time at Sandburst," the Sergeant replied +promptly. "You'll be dismissed your drills early if you go up with a +good groundin' before'and." + +"Hm! 'Don't mind learnin' my drill, but I'm not goin' to ass about the +country with a toy Snider. Perowne, what are you goin' to do? Hogan's +joinin'." + +"Don't know whether I've the time," said Perowne. "I've got no end of +extra-tu as it is." + +"Well, call this extra-tu," said Ansell. "'Twon't take us long to mug +up the drill." + +"Oh, that's right enough, but what about marchin' in public?" said +Hogan, not foreseeing that three years later he should die in the +Burmese sun-light outside Minhla Fort. + +"Afraid the uniform won't suit your creamy complexion?" McTurk asked +with a villainous sneer. + +"Shut up, Turkey. You aren't goin' up for the Army." + +"No, but I'm goin' to send a substitute. Hi! Morrell an' Wake! You two +fags by the arm-rack, you've got to volunteer." + +Blushing deeply--they had been too shy to apply before--the youngsters +sidled towards the Sergeant. + +"But I don't want the little chaps--not at first," said the Sergeant +disgustedly. "I want--I'd like some of the Old Brigade the +defaulters--to stiffen 'em a bit." + +"Don't be ungrateful, Sergeant. They're nearly as big as you get 'em +in the Army now." McTurk read the papers of those years and could be +trusted for general information, which he used as he used his +"tweaker." Yet he did not know that Wake minor would be a bimbashi of +the Egyptian Army ere his thirtieth year. + +Hogan, Swayne, Stalky, Perowne, and Ansell were deep in consultation +by the vaulting-horse, Stalky as usual laying down the law. The +Sergeant watched them uneasily, knowing that many waited on their +lead. + +"Foxy don't like my recruits," said McTurk, in a pained tone, to +Beetle. "You get him some." + +Nothing loath, Beetle pinioned two more fags--each no taller than a +carbine. "Here you are, Foxy. Here's food for powder. Strike for your +hearths an' homes, you young brutes--an' be jolly quick about it." + +"Still he isn't happy," said McTurk. + + "For the way we have with our Army + Is the way we have with our Navy." + +Here Beetle joined in. They had found the poem in an old volume of +"Punch," and it seemed to cover the situation: + + "An' both of 'em led to adversity, + Which nobody can deny!" + +"You be quiet, young gentlemen. If you can't 'elp--don't 'inder." +Foxy's eye was still on the council by the horse. Carter, White, and +Tyrrell, all boys of influence, had joined it. The rest fingered the +rifles irresolutely. "Wait a shake," cried Stalky. "Can't we turn out +those rotters before we get to work?" + +"Certainly," said Foxy. "Any one wishful to join will stay 'ere. Those +who do not so intend will go out, quietly closin' the door be'ind +'em." + +Half a dozen of the earnest-minded rushed at them, and they had just +time to escape into the corridor. + +"Well, why don't you join?" Beetle asked, resettling his collar. + +"Why didn't you?" + +"What's the good? We aren't goin' up for the Army. Besides, I know the +drill--all except the manual, of course. 'Wonder what they're doin' +inside?" + +"Makin' a treaty with Foxy. Didn't you hear Stalky say: 'That's what +we'll do--an' if he don't like it he can lump it'? They'll use Foxy +for a cram. Can't you see, you idiot? They're goin' up for Sandhurst +or the Shop in less than a year. They'll learn their drill an' then +they'll drop it like a shot. D'you suppose chaps with their amount of +extra-tu are takin' up volunteerin' for fun?" + +"Well, I don't know. I thought of doin' a poem about it--rottin' 'em, +you know--'The Ballad of the Dogshooters'--eh?" + +"I don't think you can, because King'll be down on the corps like a +cartload o' bricks. He hasn't been consulted, he's sniffin' round the +notice-board now. Let's lure him." They strolled up carelessly +towards the honse-master--a most meek couple. + +"How's this?" said King with a start of feigned surprise. "Methought +you would be learning to fight for your country." + +"I think the company's full, sir," said McTurk. + +"It's a great pity," sighed Beetle. + +"Forty valiant defenders, have we, then? How noble! What devotion! I +presume that it is possible that a desire to evade their normal +responsibilities may be at the bottom of this zeal. Doubtless they +will be accorded special privileges, like the Choir and the Natural +History Society--one must not say Bug-hunters." + +"Oh, I suppose so, sir," said McTurk, cheerily. "The Head hasn't said +anything about it yet, but he will, of course." + +"Oh, sure to." + +"It is just possible, my Beetle," King wheeled on the last speaker, +"that the house-masters--a necessary but somewhat neglected factor in +our humble scheme of existence--may have a word to say on the matter. +Life, for the young at least, is not all weapons and munitions of +war. Education is incidentally one of our aims." + +"What a consistent pig he is," cooed McTurk, when they were out of +earshot. "One always knows where to have him. Did you see how he rose +to that draw about the Head and special privileges?" + +"Confound him, he might have had the decency to have backed the +scheme. I could do such a lovely ballad, rottin' it; and now I'll +have to be a giddy enthusiast. It don't bar our pulling Stalky's leg +in the study, does it?" + +"Oh, no; but in the Coll. we must be pro-cadet-corps like anything. +Can't you make up a giddy epigram, _a'_la_Catullus_, about King +objectin' to it?" Beetle was at this noble task when Stalky returned +all hot from his first drill. + +"Hullo, my ramrod-bunger!" began McTurk. "Where's your dead dog? Is it +Defence or Defiance?" + +"Defiance," said Stalky, and leaped on him at that word. "Look here, +Turkey, you mustn't rot the corps. We've arranged it beautifully. +Foxy swears he won't take us out into the open till we say we want to +go." + +"_Dis_-gustin' exhibition of immature infants apin' the idiosyncrasies +of their elders. Snff!" + +"Have you drawn King, Beetle?" Stalky asked in a pause of the +scuffle. + +"Not exactly; but that's his genial style." + +"Well, listen to your Uncle Stalky--who is a great man. Moreover and +subsequently, Foxy's goin' to let us drill the corps in +turn--_privatim_et_seriatim_--so that we'll all know how to handle a +half company anyhow. _Ergo_, an' _propter_hoc_, when we go to the +Shop we shall be dismissed drill early; thus, my beloved 'earers, +combinin' education with wholesome amusement." + +"I knew you'd make a sort of extra-tu of it, you cold-blooded brute," +said McTurk. "Don't you want to die for your giddy country?" + +"Not if I can jolly well avoid it. So you mustn't rot the corps." + +"We'd decided on that, years ago," said Beetle, scornfully. "King'll +do the rottin'." + +"Then you've got to rot King, my giddy poet. Make up a good catchy +Limerick, and let the fags sing it." + +"Look here, you stick to volunteerin', and don't jog the table." + +"He won't have anything to take hold of," said Stalky, with dark +significance. + +They did not know what that meant till, a few days later, they +proposed to watch the corps at drill. They found the gymnasium door +locked and a fag on guard. "This is sweet cheek," said McTurk, +stooping. + +"Mustn't look through the key-hole," said the sentry. + +"I like that. Why, Wake, you little beast, I made you a volunteer." + +"Can't help it. My orders are not to allow any one to look." + +"S'pose we do?" said McTurk. "S'pose we jolly well slay you?" + +"My orders are, I am to give the name of anybody who interfered with +me on my post, to the corps, an' they'd deal with him after drill, +accordin' to martial law." + +"What a brute Stalky is!" said Beetle. They never doubted for a moment +who had devised that scheme. + +"You esteem yourself a giddy centurion, don't you?" said Beetle, +listening to the crash and rattle of grounded arms within. + +"My ordcrs are, not to talk except to explain my orders--they'll lick +me if I do." + +McTurk looked at Beetle. The two shook their heads and turned away. + +"I swear Stalky _is_ a great man," said Beetle after a long pause. +"One consolation is that this sort of secret-society biznai will +drive King wild." + +It troubled many more than King, but the members of the corps were +muter than oysters. Foxy, being bound by no vow, carried his woes to +Keyte. + +"I never come across such nonsense in my life. They've tiled the +lodge, inner and outer guard, all complete, and then they get to +work, keen as mustard." + +"But what's it all for?" asked the ex-Troop Sergeant-Major. + +"To learn their drill. You never saw anything like it. They begin +after I've dismissed 'em--practisin' tricks; but out into the open +they will _not_ come--not for ever so. The 'ole thing is +pre-posterous. If you're a cadet-corps, _I_ say, be a cadet-corps, +instead o' hidin' be'ind locked doors." + +"And what do the authorities say about it?" + +"That beats me again." The Sergeant spoke fretfully. "I go to the 'Ead +an' 'e gives me no help. There's times when I think he's makin' fun +o' me. I've never been a Volunteer-sergeant, thank God--but I've +always had the consideration to pity 'em. I'm glad o' that." + +"I'd like to see 'em," said Keyte. "From your statements, Sergeant, I +can't get at what they're after." + +"Don't ask me, Major! Ask that freckle-faced young Corkran. He's +their generalissimo." + +One does not refuse a warrior of Sobraon, or deny the only pastry-cook +within bounds. So Keyte came, by invitation, leaning upon a stick, +tremulous with old age, to sit in a corner and watch. + +"They shape well. They shape uncommon well," he whispered between +evolutions. + +"Oh, this isn't what they're after. Wait till I dismiss 'em." + +At the "break-off" the ranks stood fast. Perowne fell out, faced them, +and, refreshing his memory by glimpses at a red-bound, metal-clasped +book, drilled them for ten minutes. (This is that Perowne who was +shot in Equatorial Africa by his own men.) Ansell followed him, and +Hogan followed Ansell. All three were implicitly obeyed. Then Stalky +laid aside his Snider, and, drawing a long breath, favored the +company with a blast of withering invective. + +"'Old 'ard, Muster Corkran. That ain't in any drill," cried Foxy. + +"All right, Sergeant. You never know what you may have to say to your +men.--For pity's sake, try to stand up without leanin' against each +other, you blear-eyed, herrin'-gutted gutter-snipes. It's no pleasure +to me to comb you out. That ought to have been done before you came +here, you--you militia broom-stealers." + +"The old touch--the old touch. _We_ know it," said Keyte, wiping his +rheumy eyes. "But where did he pick it up?" + +"From his father--or his uncle. Don't ask me! Half of 'em must have +been born within earshot o' the barracks." (Foxy was not far wrong in +his guess.) "I've heard more back-talk since this volunteerin' +nonsense began than I've heard in a year in the service." + +"There's a rear-rank man lookin' as though his belly were in the +pawn-shop. Yes, you, Private Ansell," and Stalky tongue-lashed the +victim for three minutes, in gross and in detail. + +"Hullo!" He returned to his normal tone. "First blood to me. You +flushed, Ansell. You wriggled." + +"Couldn't help flushing," was the answer. "Don't think I wriggled, +though." + +"Well, it's your turn now." Stalky resumed his place in the ranks. + +"Lord, Lord! It's as good as a play," chuckled the attentive Keyte. +Ansell, too, had been blessed with relatives in the service, and +slowly, in a lazy drawl--his style was more reflective than +Stalky's--descended the abysmal depths of personality. + +"Blood to me!" he shouted triumphantly. "You couldn't stand it, +either." Stalky was a rich red, and his Snider shook visibly. + +"I didn't think I would," he said, struggling for composure, "but +after a bit I got in no end of a bait. Curious, ain't it?" + +"Good for the temper," said the slow-moving Hogan, as they returned +arms to the rack. + +"Did you ever?" said Foxy, hopelessly, to Keyte. + +"I don't know much about volunteers, but it's the rummiest show I ever +saw. I can see what they're gettin' at, though. Lord! how often I've +been told off an' dressed down in my day! They shape well--extremely +well they shape." + +"If I could get 'em out into the open, there's nothing I couldn't do +with 'em, Major. Perhaps when the uniforms come down, they'll change +their mind." + +Indeed it was time that the corps made some concession to the +curiosity of the school. Thrice had the guard been maltreated and +thrice had the corps dealt out martial law to the offender. The +school raged. What was the use, they asked, of a cadet-corps which +none might see? Mr. King congratulated them on their invisible +defenders, and they could not parry his thrusts. Foxy was growing +sullen and restive. A few of the corps expressed openly doubts as to +the wisdom of their course; and the question of uniforms loomed on +the near horizon. If these were issued, they would be forced to wear +them. + +But, as so often happens in this life, the matter was suddenly settled +from without. + +The Head had duly informed the Council that their recommendation had +been acted upon, and that, so far as he could learn, the buys were +drilling. He said nothing of the terms on which they drilled. +Naturally, General Collinson was delighted and told his friends. One +of his friends rejoiced in a friend, a Member of Parliament--a +zealous, an intelligent, and, above all, a patriotic person, anxious +to do the most good in the shortest possible time. But we cannot +answer, alas! for the friends of our friends. If Collinson's friend +had introduced him to the General, the latter would have taken his +measure and saved much. But the friend merely spoke of his friend; +and since no two people in the world see eye to eye, the picture +conveyed to Collinson was inaccurate. Moreover, the man was an M.P., +an impeccable Conservative, and the General had the English soldier's +lurking respect for any member of the Court of Last Appeal. He was +going down into the West country, to spread light in somebody's +benighted constituency. Wouldn't it be a good idea if, armed with the +General's recommendation, he, taking the admirable and newly +established cadet-corps for his text, spoke a few words--"Just talked +to the boys a little--eh? You know the kind of thing that would be +acceptable; and he'd be the very man to do it. The sort of talk that +boys understand, you know." + +"They didn't talk to 'em much in my time," said the General, +suspiciously. + +"Ah! but times change--with the spread of education and so on. The +boys of to-day are the men of to-morrow. An impression in youth is +likely to be permanent. And in these times, you know, with the +country going to the dogs?" + +"You're quite right." The island was then entering on five years of +Mr. Gladstone's rule; and the General did not like what he had seen +of it. He would certainly write to the Head, for it was beyond +question that the boys of to-day made the men of to-morrow. That, if +he might say so, was uncommonly well put. + +In reply, the Head stated that he should be delighted to welcome Mr. +Raymond Martin, M.P., of whom he had heard so much; to put him up for +the night, and to allow him to address the school on any subject that +he conceived would interest them. If Mr. Martin had not yet faced an +audience of this particular class of British youth, the Head had no +doubt that he would find it an interesting experience. + +"And I don't think I am very far wrong in that last," he confided to +the Reverend John. "Do you happen to know anything of one Raymond +Martin?" + +"I was at College with a man of that name," the chaplain replied. "He +was without form and void, so far as I remember, but desperately +earnest." + +"He will address the Coll. on 'Patriotism' next Saturday." + +"If there is one thing our boys detest more than another it is having +their Saturday evenings broken into. Patriotism has no chance beside +'brewing.'" + +"Nor art either. D'you remember our 'Evening with Shakespeare'?" The +Head's eyes twinkled. "Or the humorous gentleman with the magic +lantern?" + + +"An' who the dooce is this Raymond Martin, M.P.?" demanded Beetle, +when he read the notice of the lecture in the corridor. "Why do the +brutes always turn up on a Saturday?" + +"Ouh! Reomeo, Reomeo. Wherefore art thou Reomeo?" said McTurk over his +shoulder, quoting the Shakespeare artiste of last term. "Well, he +won't be as bad as _her_, I hope. Stalky, are you properly patriotic? +Because if you ain't, this chap's goin' to make you." + +"Hope he won't take up the whole of the evening. I suppose we've got +to listen to him." + +"Wouldn't miss him for the world," said McTurk. "A lot of chaps +thought that Romeo-Romeo woman was a bore. _I_ didn't. I liked her! +'Member when she began to hiccough in the middle of it? P'raps he'll +hiccough. Whoever gets into the Gym first, bags seats for the other +two." + + +There was no nervousness, but a brisk and cheery affability about Mr. +Raymond Martin, M.P., as he drove up, watched by many eyes, to the +Head's house. + +"Looks a bit of a bargee," was McTurk's comment. "Shouldn't be +surprised if he was a Radical. He rowed the driver about the fare. I +heard him." + +"That was his giddy patriotism," Beetle explained. After tea they +joined the rush for seats, secured a private and invisible corner, +and began to criticise. Every gas-jet was lit. On the little dais at +the far end stood the Head's official desk, whence Mr. Martin would +discourse, and a ring of chairs for the masters. + +Entered then Foxy, with official port, and leaned something like a +cloth rolled round a stick against the desk. No one in authority was +yet present, so the school applauded, crying: "What's that, Foxy? +What are you stealin' the gentleman's brolly for?--We don't birch +here. We cane! Take away that bauble!--Number off from the right" +--and so forth, till the entry of the Head and the masters ended all +demonstrations. + +"One good job--the Common-room hate this as much as we do. Watch King +wrigglin' to get out of the draft." + +"Where's the Raymondiferous Martin? Punctuality, my beloved 'earers, +is the image o' war--" + +"Shut up. Here's the giddy Dook. Golly, what a dewlap!" Mr. Martin, in +evening dress, was undeniably throaty--a tall, generously designed, +pink-and-white man. Still, Beetle need not have been coarse. + +"Look at his back while he's talkin' to the Head. Vile bad form to +turn your back on the audience! He's a Philistine--a Bopper--a +Jebusite--an' a Hivite." McTurk leaned back and sniffed +contemptuously. + +In a few colorless words, the Head introduced the speaker and sat down +amid applause. When Mr. Martin took the applause to himself, they +naturally applauded more than ever. It was some time before he could +begin. He had no knowledge of the school--its tradition or heritage. +He did not know that the last census showed that eighty per cent. of +the boys had been born abroad--in camp, cantonment, or upon the high +seas; or that seventy-five per cent. were sons of officers in one or +other of the services--Willoughbys, Paulets, De Castros, Maynes, +Randalls, after their kind--looking to follow their fathers' +profession. The Head might have told him this, and much more; but, +after an hour-long dinner in his company, the Head decided to say +nothing whatever. Mr. Raymond Martin seemed to know so much already. + +He plunged into his speech with a long-drawn, rasping "Well, boys," +that, though they were not conscious of it, set every young nerve +ajar. He supposed they knew--hey?--what he had come down for? It was +not often that he had an opportunity to talk to boys. He supposed +that boys were very much the same kind of persons--some people +thought them rather funny persons--as they had been in his youth. + +"This man," said McTurk, with conviction, "is _the_ Gadarene Swine." + +But they must remember that they would not always be boys. They would +grow up into men, because the boys of to-day made the men of +to-morrow, and upon the men of to-morrow the fair fame of their +glorious native land depended. + +"If this goes on, my beloved 'earers, it will be my painful duty to +rot this bargee." Stalky drew a long breath through his nose. + +"Can't do that," said McTurk. "He ain't chargin' anything for his +Romeo." + +And so they ought to think of the duties and responsibilities of the +life that was opening before them. Life was not all--he enumerated a +few games, and, that nothing might be lacking to the sweep and impact +of his fall, added "marbles." "Yes, life was not," he said, "all +marbles." + +There was one tense gasp--among the juniors almost a shriek--of +quivering horror, he was a heathen--an outcast---beyond the extremest +pale of toleration--self-damned before all men. Stalky bowed his head +in his hands. McTurk, with a bright and cheerful eye, drank in every +word, and Beetle nodded solemn approval. + +Some of them, doubtless, expected in a few years to have the honor of +a commission from the Queen, and to wear a sword. Now, he himself had +had some experience of these duties, as a Major in a volunteer +regiment, and he was glad to learn that they had established a +volunteer corps in their midst. The establishment of such an +establishment conduced to a proper and healthy spirit, which, if +fostered, would be of great benefit to the land they loved and were +so proud to belong to. Some of those now present expected, he had no +doubt--some of them anxiously looked forward to leading their men +against the bullets of England's foes; to confronting the stricken +field in all the pride of their youthful manhood. + +Now the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, +she being made for one end only by blind Nature, but man for several. +With a large and healthy hand, he tore down these veils, and trampled +them under the well-intentioned feet of eloquence. In a raucous +voice, he cried aloud little matters, like the hope of Honor and the +dream of Glory, that boys do not discuss even with their most +intimate equals, cheerfully assuming that, till he spoke, they had +never considered these possibilities. He pointed them to shining +goals, with fingers which smudged out all radiance on all horizons. +He profaned the most secret places of their souls with outcries and +gesticulations, he bade them consider the deeds of their ancestors in +such a fashion that they were flushed to their tingling ears. Some of +them--the rending voice cut a frozen stillness--might have had +relatives who perished in defence of their country. They thought, not +a few of them, of an old sword in a passage, or above a +breakfast-room table, seen and fingered by stealth since they could +walk. He adjured them to emulate those illustrious examples; and they +looked all ways in their extreme discomfort. + +Their years forbade them even to shape their thoughts clearly to +themselves. They felt savagely that they were being outraged by a fat +man who considered marbles a game. + +And so he worked towards his peroration--which, by the way, he used +later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors--while they +sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many, many words, he +reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. +This--this was the concrete symbol of their land--worthy of all honor +and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to +worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them--a +large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colors, and waited for +the thunder of applause that should crown his effort. + +They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before--down +at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high +when a brig went ashore on Braunton Sands; above the roof of the +Golf-club, and in Keyte's window, where a certain kind of striped +sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never +displayed it; it was no part of the scheme of their lives; the Head +had never alluded to it; their fathers had not declared it unto them. +It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of +everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before +their eyes? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk. + +The Head saved the situation by rising swiftly to propose a vote of +thanks, and at his first motion, the school clapped furiously, from a +sense of relief. + +"And I am sure," he concluded, the gaslight full on his face, "that +you will all join me in a very hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Raymond +Martin for the most enjoyable address he has given us." + +To this day we shall never know the rights of the case. The Head vows +that he did no such thing; or that, if he did, it must have been +something in his eye; but those who were present are persuaded that +he winked, once, openly and solemnly, after the word "enjoyable." Mr. +Raymond Martin got his applause full tale. As he said, "Without +vanity, I think my few words went to their hearts. I never knew boys +could cheer like that." + +He left as the prayer-bell rang, and the boys lined up against the +wall. The flag lay still unrolled on the desk, Foxy regarding it with +pride, for he had been touched to the quick by Mr. Martin's +eloquence. The Head and the Common-room, standing back on the dais, +could not see the glaring offence, but a prefect left the line, +rolled it up swiftly, and as swiftly tossed it into a glove and foil +locker. + +Then, as though he had touched a spring, broke out the low murmur of +content, changing to quick-volleyed hand-clapping. + +They discussed the speech in the dormitories. There was not one +dissentient voice. Mr. Raymond Martin, beyond question, was born in +a gutter, and bred in a board-school, where they played marbles. He +was further (I give the barest handful from great store) a Flopshus +Cad, an Outrageous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper (this was +Stalky's contribution), and several other things which it is not +seemly to put down. + +The volunteer cadet-corps fell in next Monday, depressedly, with a +face of shame. Even then, judicious silence might have turned the +corner. + +Said Foxy: "After a fine speech like what you 'eard night before last, +you ought to take 'old of your drill with _re_-newed activity. I +don't see how you can avoid comin' out an' marchin' in the open now." + +"Can't we get out of it, then, Foxy?" Stalky's fine old silky tone +should have warned him. + +"No, not with his giving the flag so generously. He told me before he +left this morning that there was no objection to the corps usin' it +as their own. It's a handsome flag." + +Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead silence, and fell out. +His example was followed by Hogan and Ansell. Perowne hesitated. +"Look here, oughtn't we--?" he began. + +"I'll get it out of the locker in a minute," said the Sergeant, his +back turned. "Then we can--" + +"Come on!" shouted Stalky. "What the devil are you waiting for? +Dismiss! Break off." + +"Why--what the--where the--?" + +The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as +boy after boy fell out. + +"I--I don't know that I shan't have to report this to the Head," he +stammered. + +"Report, then, and be damned to you," cried Stalky, white to the lips, +and ran out. + + +"Rummy thing!" said Beetle to McTurk. "I was in the study, doin' a +simply lovely poem about the Jelly-Bellied Flag-Flapper, an' Stalky +came in, an' I said 'Hullo!' an' he cursed me like a bargee, and then +he began to blub like anything. Shoved his head on the table and +howled. Hadn't we better do something?" + +McTurk was troubled. "P'raps he's smashed himself up somehow." + +They found him, with very bright eyes, whistling between his teeth. + +"Did I take you in, Beetle? I thought I would. Wasn't it a good draw? +Didn't you think I was blubbin'? Didn't I do it well? Oh, you fat old +ass!" And he began to pull Beetle's ears and checks, in the fashion +that was called "milking." + +"I knew you were blubbin'," Beetle replied, composedly. "Why aren't +you at drill?" + +"Drill! What drill?" + +"Don't try to be a clever fool. Drill in the Gym." + +"'Cause there isn't any. The volunteer cadet-corps is broke +up--disbanded--dead--putrid--corrupt---stinkin'. An' if you look at +me like that, Beetle, I'll slay you too... Oh, yes, an' I'm goin' to +be reported to the Head for swearin'." + + + + +THE LAST TERM. + + +It was within a few days of the holidays, the term-end examinations, +and, more important still, the issue of the College paper which +Beetle edited. He had been cajoled into that office by the +blandishments of Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study +law. Once installed, he discovered, as others have done before him, +that his duty was to do the work while his friends criticized. Stalky +christened it the "Swillingford Patriot," in pious memory of +Sponge--and McTurk compared the output unfavorably with Ruskin and De +Quincey. Only the Head took an interest in the publication, and his +methods were peculiar. He gave Beetle the run of his brown-bound, +tobacco-scented library; prohibiting nothing, recommending nothing. +There Beetle found a fat arm-chair, a silver inkstand, and unlimited +pens and paper. There were scores and scores of ancient dramatists; +there were Hakluyt, his voyages; French translations of Muscovite +authors called Pushkin and Lermontoff; little tales of a heady and +bewildering nature, interspersed with unusual songs--Peacock was that +writer's name; there was Borrow's "Lavengro"; an odd theme, purporting +to be a translation of something, called a "Ruba'iyat," which the +Head said was a poem not yet come to its own; there were hundreds of +volumes of verse---Crashaw; Dryden; Alexander Smith; L. E. L.; Lydia +Sigourney; Fletcher and a purple island; Donne; Marlowe's "Faust "; +and--this made McTurk (to whom Beetle conveyed it) sheer drunk for +three days--Ossian; "The Earthly Paradise"; "Atalanta in Calydon"; +and Rossetti--to name only a few. Then the Head, drifting in under +pretense of playing censor to the paper, would read here a verse and +here another of these poets, opening up avenues. And, slow breathing, +with half-shut eyes above his cigar, would he speak of great men +living, and journals, long dead, founded in their riotous youth; of +years when all the planets were little new-lit stars trying to find +their places in the uncaring void, and he, the Head, knew them as +young men know one another. So the regular work went to the dogs, +Beetle being full of other matters and meters, hoarded in secret and +only told to McTurk of an afternoon, on the sands, walking high and +disposedly round the wreck of the Armada galleons, shouting and +declaiming against the long-ridged seas. + +Thanks in large part to their house-master's experienced distrust, the +three for three consecutive terms had been passed over for promotion +to the rank of prefect--an office that went by merit, and carried +with it the honor of the ground-ash, and liberty, under restrictions, +to use it. + +"_But_," said Stalky, "come to think of it, we've done more giddy +jesting with the Sixth since we've been passed over than any one else +in the last seven years." + +He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of +stick-up collars, which custom decreed could be worn only by the +Sixth. And the Sixth saw those collars and said no word. "Pussy," +Abanazar, or Dick Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded +in five minutes or... But the Sixth of that term was made up mostly +of young but brilliantly clever boys, pets of the house-masters, too +anxious for their dignity to care to come to open odds with the +resourceful three. So they crammed their caps at the extreme back of +their heads, instead of a trifle over one eye as the Fifth should, +and rejoiced in patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous +made-up ties on Sundays--no man rebuking. McTurk was going up for +Cooper's Hill, and Stalky for Sandhurst, in the spring; and the Head +had told them both that, unless they absolutely collapsed during the +holidays, they were safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head seldom +erred in an estimate of form. + +He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him much good advice, not +one word of which did Beetle remember when he dashed up to the study, +white with excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It demanded +a great belief. + +"You begin on a hundred a year?" said McTurk unsympathetically. +"Rot!" + +"And my passage out! It's all settled. The Head says he's been +breaking me in for this for ever so long, and I never knew--I never +knew. One don't begin with writing straight off, y'know. Begin by +filling in telegrams and cutting things out o' papers with scissors." + +"Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you'll make of it," said Stalky. +"But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my +dearly beloved 'earers--though not prefects." + +"Not half bad years, either," said McTurk. "I shall be sorry to leave +the old Coll.; shan't you?" + +They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebbleridge in the +clear winter light. "Wonder where we shall all be this time next +year?" said Stalky absently. + +"This time five years," said McTurk. + +"Oh," said Beetle, "my leavin's between ourselves. The Head hasn't +told any one. I know he hasn't, because Prout grunted at me to-day +that if I were more reasonable--yah!--I might be a prefect next +term. I s'ppose he's hard up for his prefects." + +"Let's finish up with a row with the Sixth," suggested McTurk. + +"Dirty little schoolboys!" said Stalky, who already saw himself a +Sandhurst cadet. "What's the use?" + +"Moral effect," quoth McTurk. "Leave an imperishable tradition, and +all the rest of it." + +"Better go into Bideford an' pay up our debts," said Stalky. "I've got +three quid out of my father--_ad_hoc_. Don't owe more than thirty +bob, either. Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say you +want to correct the 'Swillingford Patriot.'" + +"Well, I do," said Beetle. "It'll be my last issue, and I'd like it to +look decent. I'll catch him before he goes to his lunch." + +Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace released from +five o'clock call-over, and all the afternoon lay before them. So +also unluckily did King, who never passed without witticisms. But +brigades of Kings could not have ruffled Beetle that day. + +"Aha! Enjoying the study of light literature, my friends," said he, +rubbing his hands. "Common mathematics are not for such soaring minds +as yours, are they?" + +("One hundred a year," thought Beetle, smiling into vacancy.) + +"Our open incompetence takes refuge in the flowery paths of inaccurate +fiction. But a day of reckoning approaches, Beetle mine. I myself +have prepared a few trifling foolish questions in Latin prose which +can hardly be evaded even by your practised acts of deception. Ye-es, +Latin prose. I think, if I may say so--but we shall see when the +papers are set--'Ulpian serves your need.' Aha! '_Elucescebat_, quoth +our friend.' We shall see! We shall see!" + +Still no sign from Beetle. He was on a steamer, his passage paid into +the wide and wonderful world--a thousand leagues beyond Lundy Island. + +King dropped him with a snarl. + +"He doesn't know. He'll go on correctin' exercises an' jawin' an' +showin' off before the little boys next term--and next." Beetle +hurried after his companions up the steep path of the furze-clad hill +behind the College. + +They were throwing pebbles on the top of the gasometer, and the grimy +gas-man in change bade them desist. They watched him oil a turncock +sunk in the ground between two furze-bushes. + +"Cokey, what's that for?" said Stalky. + +"To turn the gas on to the kitchens," said Cokey. "If so be I didn't +turn her on, yeou young gen'lemen 'ud be larnin' your book by +candlelight." + +"Um!" said Stalky, and was silent for at least a minute. + +"Hullo! Where are you chaps going?" A bend of the lane brought them +face to face with Tulke, senior prefect of King's house--a smallish, +white-haired boy, of the type that must be promoted on account of its +intellect, and ever afterwards appeals to the Head to support its +authority when zeal has outrun discretion. + +The three took no sort of notice. They were on lawful pass. Tulke +repeated his question hotly, for he had suffered many slights from +Number Five study, and fancied that he had at last caught them +tripping. + +"What the devil is that to you?" Stalky replied with his sweetest +smile. + +"Look here, I'm not goin'--I'm not goin' to be sworn at by the Fifth!" +sputtered Tulke. + +"Then cut along and call a prefects' meeting," said McTurk, knowing +Tulke's weakness. + +The prefect became inarticulate with rage. + +"Mustn't yell at the Fifth that way," said Stalky. "It's vile bad +form." + +"Cough it up, ducky!" McTurk said calmly. + +"I--I want to know what you chaps are doing out of bounds?" This with +an important flourish of his ground-ash. + +"Ah," said Stalky. "Now we're gettin' at it. Why didn't you ask that +before?" + +"Well, I ask it now. What are you doing?" + +"We're admiring you, Tulke," said Stalky. "We think you're no end of a +fine chap, don't we?" + +"We do! We do!" A dog-cart with some girls in it swept round the +corner, and Stalky promptly kneeled before Tulke in the attitude of +prayer; so Tulke turned a color. + +"I've reason to believe--" he began. + +"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" shouted Beetle, after the manner of Bideford's +town crier, "Tulke has reason to believe! Three cheers for Tulke!" + +They were given. "It's all our giddy admiration," said Stalky. "You +know how we love you, Tulke. We love you so much we think you ought +to go home and die. You're too good to live, Tulke." + +"Yes," said McTurk. "Do oblige us by dyin'. Think how lovely you'd +look stuffed!" + +Tulke swept up the road with an unpleasant glare in his eye. + +"That means a prefects' meeting--sure pop," said Stalky. "Honor of the +Sixth involved, and all the rest of it. Tulke'll write notes all this +afternoon, and Carson will call us up after tea. They daren't +overlook that." + +"Bet you a bob he follows us!" said McTurk. "He's King's pet, and it's +scalps to both of 'em if we're caught out. We must be virtuous." + +"Then I move we go to Mother Yeo's for a last gorge. We owe her about +ten bob, and Mary'll weep sore when she knows we're leaving," said +Beetle. + +"She gave me an awful wipe on the head last time--Mary," said Stalky. + +"She does if you don't duck," said McTurk. "But she generally kisses +one back. Let's try Mother Yeo." + +They sought a little bottle-windowed half dairy, half restaurant, a +dark-brewed, two-hundred-year-old house, at the head of a narrow side +street. They had patronized it from the days of their fagdom, and +were very much friends at home. + +"We've come to pay our debts, mother," said Stalky, sliding his arm +round the fifty-six-inch waist of the mistress of the establishment. +"To pay our debts and say good-by--and--and we're awf'ly hungry." + +"Aie!" said Mother Yeo, "makkin' love to me! I'm shaamed of 'ee." + +"'Rackon us wouldn't du no such thing if Mary was here," said McTurk, +lapsing into the broad North Devon that the boys used on their +campaigns. + +"Who'm takin' my name in vain?" The inner door opened, and Mary, +fair-haired, blue-eyed, and apple-checked, entered with a bowl of +cream in her bands. McTurk kissed her. Beetle followed suit, with +exemplary calm. Both boys were promptly cuffed. + +"Niver kiss the maid when 'e can kiss the mistress," said Stalky, +shamelessly winking at Mother Yeo, as he investigated a shelf of +jams. + +"Glad to see one of 'ee don't want his head slapped no more?" said +Mary invitingly, in that direction. + +"Neu! Reckon I can get 'em give me," said Stalky, his back turned. + +"Not by me--yeou little masterpiece!" + +"Niver asked 'ee. There's maids to Northam. Yiss--an' Appledore." An +unreproducible sniff, half contempt, half reminiscence, rounded the +retort. + +"Aie! Yeou won't niver come to no good end. Whutt be 'baout, smellin' +the cream?" + +"'Tees bad," said Stalky. "Zmell 'un." + +Incautiously Mary did as she was bid. + +"Bidevoor kiss." + +"Niver amiss," said Stalky, taking it without injury. + +"Yeou--yeou--yeou--" Mary began, bubbling with mirth. + +"They'm better to Northam--more rich, laike an' us gets them give back +again," he said, while McTurk solemnly waltzed Mother Yeo out of +breath, and Beetle told Mary the sad news, as they sat down to +clotted cream, jam, and hot bread. + +"Yiss. Yeou'll niver zee us no more, Mary. We're goin' to be passons +an' missioners." + +"Steady the Buffs!" said McTurk, looking through the blind. "Tulke has +followed us. He's comin' up the street now." + +"They've niver put us out o' bounds," said Mother Yeo. "Bide yeou +still, my little dearrs." She rolled into the inner room to make the +score. + +"Mary," said Stalky, suddenly, with tragic intensity. "Do 'ee lov' me, +Mary?" + +"Iss--fai! Talled 'ee zo since yeou was zo high!" the damsel replied. + +"Zee 'un comin' up street, then?" Stalky pointed to the unconscious +Tulke. "He've niver been kissed by no sort or manner o' maid in hees +borned laife, Mary. Oh, 'tees shaamful!" + +"Whutt's to do with me? 'Twill come to 'un in the way o' nature, I +rackon." She nodded her head sagaciously. "You niver want me to kiss +un--sure-_ly_?" + +"Give 'ee half-a-crown if 'ee will," said Stalky, exhibiting the +coin. + +Half-a-crown was much to Mary Yeo, and a jest was more; but + +"Yeu'm afraid," said McTurk, at the psychological moment. + +"Aie!" Beetle echoed, knowing her weak point. "There's not a maid to +Northam 'ud think twice. An' yeou such a fine maid, tu!" + +McTurk planted one foot firmly against the inner door lest Mother Yeo +should return inopportunely, for Mary's face was set. It was then +that Tulke found his way blocked by a tall daughter of Devon--that +county of easy kisses, the pleasantest under the sun. He dodged aside +politely. She reflected a moment, and laid a vast hand upon his +shoulder. + +"Where be 'ee gwaine tu, my dearr?" said she. + +Over the handkerchief he had crammed into his mouth Stalky could see +the boy turn scarlet. + +"Gie I a kiss! Don't they larn 'ee manners to College?" + +Tulke gasped and wheeled. Solemnly and conscientiously Mary kissed him +twice, and the luckless prefect fled. + +She stepped into the shop, her eyes full of simple wonder. "Kissed +'un?" said Stalky, handing over the money. + +"Iss, fai! But, oh, my little body, he'm no Colleger. 'Zeemed +tu-minded to cry, like." + +"Well, we won't. Yell couldn't make us cry that way," said McTurk. +"Try." + +Whereupon Mary cuffed them all round. + +As they went out with tingling ears, said Stalky generally, "Don't +think there'll be much of a prefects' meeting." + +"Won't there, just!" said Beetle. "Look here. If he kissed her--which +is our tack--he is a cynically immoral hog, and his conduct is +blatant indecency. _Confer_orationes_Regis_furiosissimi_, when he +collared me readin' 'Don Juan.'" + +"'Course he kissed her," said McTurk. "In the middle of the street. +With his house-cap on!" + +"Time, 3.57 p.m. Make a note o' that. What d'you mean, Beetle?" said +Stalky. + +"Well! He's a truthful little beast. He may say he was kissed." + +"And then?" + +"Why, then!" Beetle capered at the mere thought of it. "Don't you see? +The corollary to the giddy proposition is that the Sixth can't +protect 'emselves from outrages an' ravishin's. Want nursemaids to +look after 'em! We've only got to whisper that to the Coll. Jam for +the Sixth! Jam for us! Either way it's jammy!" + +"By Gum!" said Stalky. "Our last term's endin' well. Now you cut along +an' finish up your old rag, and Turkey and me will help. We'll go in +the back way. No need to bother Randall." + +"Don't play the giddy garden-goat, then?" Beetle knew what help meant, +though he was by no means averse to showing his importance before his +allies. The little loft behind Randall's printing office was his own +territory, where he saw himself already controlling the "Times." +Here, under the guidance of the inky apprentice, he had learned to +find his way more or less circuitously about the case, and considered +himself an expert compositor. + +The school paper in its locked formes lay on a stone-topped table, a +proof by the side; but not for worlds would Beetle have corrected +from the mere proof. With a mallet and a pair of tweezers, he knocked +out mysterious wedges of wood that released the forme, picked a +letter here and inserted a letter there, reading as he went along and +stopping much to chuckle over his own contributions. + +"You won't show off like that," said McTurk, "when you've got to do it +for your living. Upside down and backwards, isn't it? Let's see if I +can read it." + +"Get out!" said Beetle. "Go and read those formes in the rack there, +if you think you know so much." + +"Formes in a rack! What's that? Don't be so beastly professional." + +McTurk drew off with Stalky to prowl about the office. They left +little unturned. + +"Come here a shake, Beetle. What's this thing?" aid Stalky, in a few +minutes. "Looks familiar." + +Said Beetle, after a glance: "It's King's Latin prose exam. paper. +_In_--_In_Varrem: _actio_prima_. What a lark!" + +"Think o' the pure-souled, high-minded boys who'd give their eyes for +a squint at it!" said McTurk. + +"No, Willie dear," said Stalky; "that would be wrong and painful to +our kind teachers. You wouldn't crib, Willie, would you?" + +"Can't read the beastly stuff, anyhow," was the reply. "Besides, we're +leavin' at the end o' the term, so it makes no difference to us." + +"'Member what the Considerate Bloomer did to Spraggon's account of the +Puffin'ton Hounds? We must sugar Mr. King's milk for him," said +Stalky, all lighted from within by a devilish joy. "Let's see what +Beetle can do with those forceps he's so proud of." + +"Don't see now you can make Latin prose much more cock-eye than it is, +but we'll try," said Beetle, transposing an _aliud_ and _Asiae_ from +two sentences. "Let's see! We'll put that full-stop a little further +on, and begin the sentence with the next capital. Hurrah! Here's +three lines that can move up all in a lump." + +"'One of those scientific rests for which this eminent huntsman is so +justly celebrated.'" Stalky knew the Puffington run by heart. + +"Hold on! Here's a _vol_--_voluntate_quidnam_ all by itself," said +McTurk. + +"I'll attend to her in a shake. _Quidnam_ goes after _Dolabella_." + +"Good old Dolabella," murmured Stalky. "Don't break him. Vile prose +Cicero wrote, didn't he? He ought to be grateful for--" + +"Hullo!" said McTurk, over another forme. "What price a giddy ode? +_Qui_--_quis_--oh, it's _Quis_multa_gracilis_, o' course." + +"Bring it along. We've sugared the milk here," said Stalky, after a +few minutes' zealous toil. "Never thrash your hounds unnecessarily." + +"_Quis_munditiis_? I swear that's not bad," began Beetle, plying the +tweezers. "Don't that interrogation look pretty? +_Heu_quoties_fidem_! That sounds as if the chap were anxious an' +excited. _Cui_flavam_religas_in_rosa_--Whose flavor is relegated to a +rose. _Mutatosque_Deos_flebit_in_antro." + +"Mute gods weepin' in a cave," suggested Stalky. "'Pon my Sam, Horace +needs as much lookin' after as--Tulke." + +They edited him faithfully till it was too dark to see. + + +"'Aha! Elucescebat, quoth our friend.' Ulpian serves my need, does it? +If King can make anything out of _that_, I'm a blue-eyed squatteroo," +said Beetle, as they slid out of the loft window into a back alley of +old acquaintance and started on a three-mile trot to the College. But +the revision of the classics had detained them too long. They halted, +blown and breathless, in the furze at the back of the gasometer, the +College lights twinkling below, ten minutes at least late for tea and +lock-up. + +"It's no good," puffed McTurk. "Bet a bob Foxy is waiting for +defaulters under the lamp by the Fives Court. It's a nuisance, too, +because the Head gave us long leave, and one doesn't like to break +it." + +"'Let me now from the bonded ware'ouse of my knowledge,'" began +Stalky. + +"Oh, rot! Don't Jorrock. Can we make a run for it?" snapped McTurk. + +"'Bishops' boots Mr. Radcliffe also condemned, an' spoke 'ighly in +favor of tops cleaned with champagne an' abricot jam.' Where's that +thing Cokey was twiddlin' this afternoon?" + +They heard him groping in the wet, and presently beheld a great +miracle. The lights of the Coastguard cottages near the sea went out; +the brilliantly illuminated windows of the Golf-club disappeared, and +were followed by the frontages of the two hotels. Scattered villas +dulled, twinkled, and vanished. Last of all, the College lights died +also. They were left in the pitchy darkness of a windy winter's +night. + +"'Blister my kidneys. It _is_ a frost. The dahlias are dead!'" said +Stalky. "Bunk!" + +They squattered through the dripping gorse as the College hummed like +an angry hive and the dining-rooms chorused, "Gas! gas! gas!" till +they came to the edge of the sunk path that divided them from their +study. Dropping that ha-ha like bullets, and rebounding like boys, +they dashed to their study, in less than two minutes had changed into +dry trousers and coat, and, ostentatiously slippered, joined the mob +in the dining-hall, which resembled the storm-centre of a South +American revolution. + +"'Hellish dark and smells of cheese.'" Stalky elbowed his way into the +press, howling lustily for gas. "Cokey must have gone for a walk. +Foxy'll have to find him." + +Prout, as the nearest house-master, was trying to restore order, for +rude boys were flicking butter-pats across chaos, and McTurk had +turned on the fags' tea-urn, so that many were parboiled and wept +with an unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke into the +school song, the "Vive la Compagnie," to the accompaniment of +drumming knife-handles; and the junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks +and raided one another's victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high +condition, seeking for more light, are truly earnest inquirers. + +When a most vile smell of gas told them that supplies had been +renewed, Stalky, waistcoat unbuttoned, sat gorgedly over what might +have been his fourth cup of tea. "And that's all right," he said. +"Hullo! 'Ere's Pomponius Ego!" + +It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, straight-minded soul, +and a pillar of the First Fifteen, who crossed over from the +prefects' table and in a husky, official voice invited the three to +attend in his study in half an hour. "Prefects' meetin'! Prefects' +meetin'!" hissed the tables, and they imitated barbarically the +actions and effects of the ground-ash. + +"How are we goin' to jest with 'em?" said Stalky, turning half-face to +Beetle. "It's your play this time!" + +"Look here," was the answer, "all I want you to do is not to laugh. +I'm goin' to take charge o' young Tulke's immorality--_a'_la_ King, +and it's goin' to be serious. If you can't help laughin' don't look +at me, or I'll go pop." + +"I see. All right," said Stalky. + +McTurk's lank frame stiffened in every muscle and his eyelids dropped +half over his eyes. That last was a war-signal. + +The eight or nine seniors, their faces very set and sober, were ranged +in chairs round Carson's severely Philistine study. Tulke was not +popular among them, and a few who had had experience of Stalky and +Company doubted that he might, perhaps, have made an ass of himself. +But the dignity of the Sixth was to be upheld. So Carson began +hurriedly: "Look here, you chaps, I've--we've sent for you to tell +you you're a good deal too cheeky to the Sixth--have been for some +time--and--and we've stood about as much as we're goin' to, and it +seems you've been cursin' and swearin' at Tulke on the Bideford road +this afternoon, and we're goin' to show you you can't do it. That's +all." + +"Well, that's awfully good of you," said Stalky, "but we happen to +have a few rights of our own, too. You can't, just because you happen +to be made prefects, haul up seniors and jaw 'em on spec., like a +house-master. We aren't fags, Carson. This kind of thing may do for +Davies Tertius, but it won't do for us." + +"It's only old Prout's lunacy that we weren't prefects long ago. You +know that," said McTurk. "You haven't any tact." + +"Hold on," said Beetle. "A prefects' meetin' has to be reported to the +Head. I want to know if the Head backs Tulke in this business?" + +"Well--well, it isn't exactly a prefects' meeting," said Carson. "We +only called you in to warn you." + +"But all the prefects are here," Beetle insisted. "Where's the +difference?" + +"My Gum!" said Stalky. "Do you mean to say you've just called us in +for a jaw--after comin' to us before the whole school at tea an' +givin' 'em the impression it was a prefects' meeting? 'Pon my Sam, +Carson, you'll get into trouble, you will." + +"Hole-an'-corner business--hole-an'-corner business," said McTurk, +wagging his head. "Beastly suspicious." + +The Sixth looked at each other uneasily. Tulke had called three +prefects' meetings in two terms, till the Head had informed the Sixth +that they were expected to maintain discipline without the recurrent +menace of his authority. Now, it seemed that they had made a blunder +at the outset, but any right-minded boy would have sunk the legality +and been properly impressed by the Court. Beetle's protest was +distinct "cheek." + +"Well, you chaps deserve a lickin'," cried one Naughten incautiously. +Then was Beetle filled with a noble inspiration. + +"For interferin' with Tulke's amours, eh?" Tulke turned a rich sloe +color. "Oh, no, you don't!" Beetle went on. "You've had your innings. +We've been sent up for cursing and swearing at you, and we're goin' +to be let off with a warning! _Are_ we? Now then, you're going to +catch it." + +"I--I--I" Tulke began. "Don't let that young devil start jawing." + +"If you've anything to say you must say it decently,'' said Carson. + +"Decently? I will. Now look here. When we went into Bideford we met +this ornament of the Sixth--is that decent enough?--hanging about on +the road with a nasty look in his eye. We didn't know _then_ why he +was so anxious to stop us, _but_ at five minutes to four, when we +were in Yeo's shop, we saw Tulke in broad daylight, with his +house-cap on, kissin' an' huggin' a woman on the pavement. Is that +decent enough for you?" + +"I didn't--I wasn't." + +"We saw you!" said Beetle. "And now--I'll be decent, Carson--you sneak +back with her kisses" (not for nothing had Beetle perused the later +poets) "hot on your lips and call prefects' meetings, which aren't +prefects' meetings, to uphold the honor of the Sixth." A new and +heaven-cleft path opened before him that instant. "And how do we +know," he shouted--"how do we know how many of the Sixth are mixed up +in this abominable affair?" + +"Yes, that's what we want to know," said McTurk, with simple dignity. + +"We meant to come to you about it quietly, Carson, but you would have +the meeting," said Stalky sympathetically. + +The Sixth were too taken aback to reply. So, carefully modelling his +rhetoric on King, Beetle followed up the attack, surpassing and +surprising himself, "It--it isn't so much the cynical immorality of +the biznai, as the blatant indecency of it, that's so awful. As far +as we can see, it's impossible for us to go into Bideford without +runnin' up against some prefect's unwholesome amours. There's nothing +to snigger over, Naughten. I don't pretend to know much about these +things--but it seems to me a chap must be pretty far dead in sin" +(that was a quotation from the school chaplain) "when he takes to +embracing his paramours" (that was Hakluyt) "before all the city" (a +reminiscence of Milton). "He might at least have the decency--you're +authorities on decency, I believe--to wait till dark. But he didn't. +You didn't! Oh, Tulke. You--you incontinent little animal!" + +"Here, shut up a minute. What's all this about, Tulke?" said Carson. + +"I--look here. I'm awfully sorry. I never thought Beetle would take +this line." + +"Because--you've--no decency--you--thought--I hadn't," cried Beetle +all in one breath. + +"Tried to cover it all up with a conspiracy, did you?" said Stalky. + +"Direct insult to all three of us," said McTurk. "A most filthy mind +you have, Tulke." + +"I'll shove you fellows outside the door if you go on like this," said +Carson angrily. + +"That proves it's a conspiracy," said Stalky, with the air of a virgin +martyr. + +"I--I was goin' along the street--I swear I was," cried Tulke, +"and--and I'm awfully sorry about it--a woman came up and kissed me. +I swear I didn't kiss her." + +There was a pause, filled by Stalky's long, liquid whistle of +contempt, amazement, and derision. + +"On my honor," gulped the persecuted one. "Oh, do stop him jawing." + +"Very good," McTurk interjected. "We are compelled, of course, to +accept your statement." + +"Confound it!" roared Naughten. "You aren't head-prefect here, +McTurk." + +"Oh, well," returned the Irishman, "you know Tulke better than we do. +I am only speaking for ourselves. _We_ accept Tulke's word. But all I +can say is that if I'd been collared in a similarly disgustin' +situation, and had offered the same explanation Tulke has, I--I +wonder what you'd have said. However, it seems on Tulke's word of +honor--" + +"And Tulkus--beg pardon--_kiss_, of course---Tulkiss is an honorable +man," put in Stalky. + +"--that the Sixth can't protect 'emselves from bein' kissed when they +go for a walk!" cried Beetle, taking up the running with a rush. +"Sweet business, isn't it? Cheerful thing to tell the fags, ain't +it? We aren't prefects, of course, but we aren't kissed very much. +Don't think that sort of thing ever enters our heads; does it, +Stalky?" + +"Oh, no!" said Stalky, turning aside to hide his emotions. McTurk's +face merely expressed lofty contempt and a little weariness. + +"Well, you seem to know a lot about it," interposed a prefect. + +"Can't help it--when you chaps shove it under our noses." Beetle +dropped into a drawling parody of King's most biting colloquial +style--the gentle rain after the thunder-storm. "Well, it's all very +sufficiently vile and disgraceful, isn't it? I don't know who comes +out of it worst: Tulke, who happens to have been caught; or the other +fellows who haven't. And we--" here he wheeled fiercely on the other +two--"we've got to stand up and be jawed by them because we've +disturbed their intrigues." + +"Hang it! I only wanted to give you a word of warning," said Carson, +thereby handing himself bound to the enemy. + +"Warn? You?" This with the air of one who finds loathsome gifts in his +locker. "Carson, would you be good enough to tell us what +conceivable thing there is that you are entitled to warn us about +after this exposure? Warn? Oh, it's a little too much! Let's go +somewhere where it's clean." + +The door banged behind their outraged innocence. + +"Oh, Beetle! Beetle! Beetle! Golden Beetle!" sobbed Stalky, hurling +himself on Beetle's panting bosom as soon as they reached the study. +"However did you do it?" + +"Dear-r man" said McTurk, embracing Beetle's head with both arms, +while he swayed it to and fro on the neck, in time to this ancient +burden-- + + "Pretty lips--sweeter than--cherry or plum. + Always look--jolly and--never look glum; + Seem to say--Come away. Kissy!--come, come! + Yummy-yum! Yummy-yum! Yummy-yum-yum!" + +"Look out. You'll smash my gig-lamps," puffed Beetle, emerging. +"Wasn't it glorious? Didn't I 'Eric' 'em splendidly? Did you spot my +cribs from King? Oh, blow!" His countenance clouded. "There's one +adjective I didn't use--obscene. Don't know how I forgot that. It's +one of King's pet ones, too." + +"Never mind. They'll be sendin' ambassadors round in half a shake to +beg us not to tell the school. It's a deuced serious business for +them," said McTurk. "Poor Sixth--poor old Sixth!" + +"Immoral young rips," Stalky snorted. "What an example to pure-souled +boys like you and me!" + +And the Sixth in Carson's study sat aghast, glowering at Tulke, who +was on the edge of tears. "Well," said the head-prefect acidly. +"You've made a pretty average ghastly mess of it, Tulke." + +"Why--why didn't you lick that young devil Beetle before he began +jawing?" Tulke wailed. + +"I knew there'd be a row," said a prefect of Prout's house. "But you +would insist on the meeting, Tulke." + +"Yes, and a fat lot of good it's done us," said Naughten. "They come +in here and jaw our heads off when we ought to be jawin' them. Beetle +talks to us as if we were a lot of blackguards and--and all that. And +when they've hung us up to dry, they go out and slam the door like a +house-master. All your fault, Tulke." + +"But I didn't kiss her." + +"You ass! If you'd said you _had_ and stuck to it, it would have been +ten times better than what you did," Naughten retorted. "Now they'll +tell the whole school--and Beetle'll make up a lot of beastly rhymes +and nick-names." + +"But, hang it, she kissed me!" Outside of his work, Tulke's mind moved +slowly. + +"I'm not thinking of you. I'm thinking of us. I'll go up to their +study and see if I can make 'em keep quiet!" + +"Tulke's awf'ly cut up about this business," Naughten began, +ingratiatingly, when he found Beetle. + +"Who's kissed him this time?" + +"--and I've come to ask you chaps, and especially you, Beetle, not to +let the thing be known all over the school. Of course, fellows as +senior as you are can easily see why." + +"Um!" said Beetle, with the cold reluctance of one who foresees an +unpleasant public duty. "I suppose I must go and talk to the Sixth +again." + +"Not the least need, my dear chap, I assure you," said Naughten +hastily. "I'll take any message you care to send." + +But the chance of supplying the missing adjective was too tempting. So +Naughten returned to that still undissolved meeting, Beetle, white, +icy, and aloof, at his heels. + +"There seems," he began, with laboriously crisp articulation, "there +seems to be a certain amount of uneasiness among you as to the steps +we may think fit to take in regard to this last revelation of +the--ah--obscene. If it is any consolation to you to know that we +have decided--for the honor of the school, you understand--to keep +our mouths shut as to these--ah--obscenities, you--ah--have it." + +He wheeled, his head among the stars, and strode statelily back to his +study, where Stalky and McTurk lay side by side upon the table wiping +their tearful eyes--too weak to move. + + +The Latin prose paper was a success beyond their wildest dreams. +Stalky and McTurk were, of course, out of all examinations (they did +extra-tuition with the Head), but Beetle attended with zeal. + +"This, I presume, is a par-ergon on your part," said King, as he dealt +out the papers. "One final exhibition ere you are translated to +loftier spheres? A last attack on the classics? It seems to confound +you already." + +Beetle studied the print with knit brows. "I can't make head or tail +of it," he murmured. "What does it mean?" + +"No, no!" said King, with scholastic coquetry. "We depend upon you to +give us the meaning. This is an examination, Beetle mine, not a +guessing-competition. You will find your associates have no +difficulty in--" + +Tulke left his place and laid the paper on the desk. King looked, +read, and turned a ghastly green. + +"Stalky's missing a heap," thought Beetle. "Wonder hew King'll get out +of it!" + +"There seems," King began with a gulp, "a certain modicum of truth in +our Beetle's remark. I am--er--inclined to believe that the worthy +Randall must have dropped this in ferule--if you know what that +means. Beetle, you purport to be an editor. Perhaps you can enlighten +the form as to formes." + +"What, sir! Whose form! I don't see that there's any verb in this +sentence at all, an'--an'--the Ode is all different, somehow." + +"I was about to say, before you volunteered your criticism, that an +accident must have befallen the paper in type, and that the printer +reset it by the light of nature. No--" he held the thing at arm's +length--"our Randall is not an authority on Cicero or Horace." + +"Rather mean to shove it off on Randall," whispered Beetle to his +neighbor. "King must ha' been as screwed as an owl when he wrote it +out." + +"But we can amend the error by dictating it." + +"No, sir." The answer came pat from a dozen throats at once. "That +cuts the time for the exam. Only two hours allowed, sir. 'Tisn't +fair. It's a printed-paper exam. How're we goin' to be marked for +it! It's all Randall's fault. It isn't our fault, anyhow. An exam.'s +an exam.," etc., etc. + +Naturally Mr. King considered this was an attempt to undermine his +authority, and, instead of beginning dictation at once, delivered a +lecture on the spirit in which examinations should be approached. As +the storm subsided, Beetle fanned it afresh. + +"Eh? What? What was that you were saying to MacLagan?" + +"I only said I thought the papers ought to have been looked at before +they were given out, sir." + +"Hear, hear!" from a back bench. Mr. King wished to know whether +Beetle took it upon himself personally to conduct the traditions of +the school. His zeal for knowledge ate up another fifteen minutes, +during which the prefects showed unmistakable signs of boredom. + +"Oh, it was a giddy time," said Beetle, afterwards, in dismantled +Number Five. "He gibbered a bit, and I kept him on the gibber, and +then he dictated about a half of Dolabella & Co." + +"Good old Dolabella! Friend of mine. Yes?" said Stalky, pensively. + +"Then we had to ask him how every other word was spelt, of course, and +he gibbered a lot more. He cursed me and MacLagan (Mac played up like +a trump) and Randall, and the 'materialized ignorance of the +unscholarly middle classes,' 'lust for mere marks,' and all the rest. +It was what you might call a final exhibition--a last attack--a giddy +par-ergon." + +"But o' course he was blind squiffy when he wrote the paper. I hope +you explained that?" said Stalky. + +"Oh, yes. I told Tulke so. I said an immoral prefect an' a drunken +house-master were legitimate inferences. Tulke nearly blubbed. He's +awfully shy of us since Mary's time." + +Tulke preserved that modesty till the last moment--till the +journey-money had been paid, and the boys were filling the brakes +that took them to the station. Then the three tenderly constrained +him to wait a while. + +"You see, Tulke, you may be a prefect," said Stalky, "but I've left +the Coll. Do you see, Tulke, dear?" + +"Yes, I see. Don't bear malice, Stalky." + +"Stalky? Curse your impudence, you young cub," shouted Stalky, +magnificent in top-hat, stiff collar, spats, and high-waisted, +snuff-colored ulster. "I want you to understand that _I'm_ Mister +Corkran, an' you're a dirty little schoolboy." + +"Besides bein' frabjously immoral," said McTurk. "Wonder you aren't +ashamed to foist your company on pure-minded boys like us." + +"Come on, Tulke,' cried Naughten, from the prefects' brake. + +"Yes, we're comin'. Shove up and make room, you Collegers. You've all +got to be back next term, with your 'Yes, sir,' and 'Oh, sir,' an' +'No sir' an' 'Please sir'; but before we say good-by we're going to +tell you a little story. Go on, Dickie" (this to the driver); "we're +quite ready. Kick that hat-box under the seat, an' don't crowd your +Uncle Stalky." + +"As nice a lot of high-minded youngsters as you'd wish to see," said +McTurk, gazing round with bland patronage. "A trifle immoral, but +then--boys will be boys. It's no good tryin' to look stuffy, Carson. +_Mister_ Corkran will now oblige with the story of Tulke an' Mary +Yeo!" + + + + +SLAVES OF THE LAMP. + +Part II. + + +That very Infant who told the story of the capture of Boh Na Ghee +[_A_Conference_ _of_the_Powers_: "Many Inventions"] to Eustace +Cleaver, novelist, inherited an estateful baronetcy, with vast +revenues, resigned the service, and became a landholder, while his +mother stood guard over him to see that he married the right girl. +But, new to his position, he presented the local volunteers with a +full-sized magazine-rifle range, two miles long, across the heart of +his estate, and the surrounding families, who lived in savage +seclusion among woods full of pheasants, regarded him as an erring +maniac. The noise of the firing disturbed their poultry, and Infant +was cast out from the society of J.P.'s and decent men till such time +as a daughter of the county might lure him back to right thinking. He +took his revenge by filling the house with choice selections of old +schoolmates home on leave--affable detrimentals, at whom the +bicycle-riding maidens of the surrounding families were allowed to +look from afar. I knew when a troop-ship was in port by the Infant's +invitations. Sometimes he would produce old friends of equal +seniority; at others, young and blushing giants whom I had left small +fags far down in the Lower Second; and to these Infant and the elders +expounded the whole duty of man in the Army. + +"I've had to cut the service," said the Infant; "but that's no reason +why my vast stores of experience should be lost to posterity." He was +just thirty, and in that same summer an imperious wire drew me to his +baronial castle: "Got good haul; ex _Tamar_. Come along." + +It was an unusually good haul, arranged with a single eye to my +benefit. There was a baldish, broken-down captain of Native Infantry, +shivering with ague behind an indomitable red nose--and they called +him Captain Dickson. There was another captain, also of Native +Infantry, with a fair mustache; his face was like white glass, and +his hands were fragile, but he answered joyfully to the cry of +Tertius. There was an enormously big and well-kept man, who had +evidently not campaigned for years, clean-shaved, soft-voiced, and +cat-like, but still Abanazar for all that he adorned the Indian +Political Service; and there was a lean Irishman, his face tanned +blue-black with the suns of the Telegraph Department. Luckily the +baize doors of the bachelors' wing fitted tight, for we dressed +promiscuously in the corridor or in each other's rooms, talking, +calling, shouting, and anon waltzing by pairs to songs of Dick Four's +own devising. + +There were sixty years of mixed work to be sifted out between us, and +since we had met one another from time to time in the quick +scene-shifting of India--a dinner, camp, or a race-meeting here; a +dak-bungalow or railway station up country somewhere else--we had +never quite lost touch. Infant sat on the banisters, hungrily and +enviously drinking it in. He enjoyed his baronetcy, but his heart +yearned for the old days. + +It was a cheerful babel of matters personal, provincial, and imperial, +pieces of old call-over lists, and new policies, cut short by the +roar of a Burmese gong, and we went down not less than a quarter of a +mile of stairs to meet Infant's mother, who had known us all in our +school-days and greeted us as if those had ended a week ago. But it +was fifteen years since, with tears of laughter, she had lent me a +gray princess-skirt for amateur theatricals. + +That was a dinner from the "Arabian Nights," served in an eighty-foot +hall full of ancestors and pots of flowering roses, and, what was +more impressive, heated by steam. When it was ended and the little +mother had gone away--("You boys want to talk, so I shall say +good-night now")--we gathered about an apple-wood fire, in a gigantic +polished steel grate, under a mantel-piece ten feet high, and the +Infant compassed us about with curious liqueurs and that kind of +cigarette which serves best to introduce your own pipe. + +"Oh, bliss!" grunted Dick Four from a sofa, where he had been packed +with a rug over him. "First time I've been warm since I came home." + +We were all nearly on top of the fire, except Infant, who had been +long enough at home to take exercise when he felt chilled. This is a +grisly diversion, but much affected by the English of the Island. + +"If you say a word about cold tubs and brisk walks," drawled McTurk, +"I'll kill you, Infant. I've got a liver, too. 'Member when we used +to think it a treat to turn out of our beds on a Sunday +morning--thermometer fifty-seven degrees if it was summer--and bathe +off the Pebbleridge? Ugh!" + +"'Thing I don't understand," said Tertius, "was the way we chaps used +to go down into the lavatories, boil ourselves pink, and then come up +with all our pores open into a young snow-storm or a black frost. Yet +none of our chaps died, that I can remember." + +"Talkin' of baths," said McTurk, with a chuckle, "'member our bath in +Number Five, Beetle, the night Rabbits-Eggs rocked King? What +wouldn't I give to see old Stalky now! He is the only one of the two +Studies not here." + +"Stalky is the great man of his Century," said Dick Four. + +"How d'you know?" I asked. + +"How do I know?" said Dick Four, scornfully. "If you've ever been in a +tight place with Stalky you wouldn't ask." + +"I haven't seen him since the camp at Pindi in '87," I said. "He was +goin' strong then--about seven feet high and four feet through." + +"Adequate chap. Infernally adequate," said Tertius, pulling his +mustache and staring into the fire. + +"Got dam' near court-martialed and broke in Egypt in '84," the Infant +volunteered. "I went out in the same trooper with him--as raw as he +was. Only _I_ showed it, and Stalky didn't." + +"What was the trouble?" said McTurk, reaching forward absently to +twitch my dress-tie into position. + +"Oh, nothing. His colonel trusted him to take twenty Tommies out to +wash, or groom camels, or something at the back of Suakin, and Stalky +got embroiled with Fuzzies five miles in the interior. He conducted a +masterly retreat and wiped up eight of 'em. He knew jolly well he'd +no right to go out so far, so he took the initiative and pitched in a +letter to his colonel, who was frothing at the mouth, complaining of +the 'paucity of support accorded to him in his operations.' Gad, it +might have been one fat brigadier slangin' another! Then he went into +the Staff Corps." + +"That--is--entirely--Stalky," said Abanazar from his arm-chair. + +"You've come across him, too?" I said. + +"Oh, yes," he replied in his softest tones. "I was at the tail of +that--that epic. Don't you chaps know?" + +We did not--Infant, McTurk, and I; and we called for information very +politely. + +"'Twasn't anything," said Tertius. "We got into a mess up in the +Khye-Kheen Hills a couple o' years ago, and Stalky pulled us through. +That's all." + +McTurk gazed at Tertius with all an Irishman's contempt for the +tongue-tied Saxon. + +"Heavens!" he said. "And it's you and your likes govern Ireland. +Tertius, aren't you ashamed?" + +"Well, I can't tell a yarn. I can chip in when the other fellow starts +_bukhing_. Ask him." He pointed to Dick Four, whose nose gleamed +scornfully over the rug. + +"I knew you wouldn't," said Dick Four. "Give me a whiskey and soda. +I've been drinking lemon-squash and ammoniated quinine while you +chaps were bathin' in champagne, and my head's singin' like a top." + +He wiped his ragged mustache above the drink; and, his teeth +chattering in his head, began: "You know the Khye-Kheen-Malo't +expedition, when we scared the souls out of 'em with a field force +they daren't fight against? Well, both tribes--there was a coalition +against us--came in without firing a shot; and a lot of hairy +villains, who had no more power over their men than I had, promised +and vowed all sorts of things. On that very slender evidence, Pussy +dear--" + +"I was at Simla," said Abanazar, hastily. + +"Never mind, you're tarred with the same brush. On the strength of +those tuppenny-ha'penny treaties, your asses of Politicals reported +the country as pacified, and the Government, being a fool, as usual, +began road-makin'--dependin' on local supply for labor. 'Member +_that_, Pussy? 'Rest of our chaps who'd had no look-in during the +campaign didn't think there'd be any more of it, and were anxious to +get back to India. But I'd been in two of these little rows before, +and I had my suspicions. I engineered myself, _summa_ingenio_, into +command of a road-patrol--no shovellin', only marching up and down +genteelly with a guard. They'd withdrawn all the troops they could, +but I nucleused about forty Pathans, recruits chiefly, of my +regiment, and sat tight at the base-camp while the road-parties went +to work, as per Political survey." + +"Had some rippin' sing-songs in camp, too," said Tertius. + +"My pup"--thus did Dick Four refer to his subaltern--"was a pious +little beast. He didn't like the sing-songs, and so he went down with +pneumonia. I rootled round the camp, and found Tertius gassing about +as a D.A.Q.M.G., which, God knows, he isn't cut out for. There were +six or eight of the old Coll. at base-camp (we're always in force for +a frontier row), but I'd heard of Tertius as a steady old hack, and I +told him he had to shake off his D.A.Q.M.G. breeches and help _me_. +Tertius volunteered like a shot, and we settled it with the +authorities, and out we went--forty Pathans, Tertius, and me, looking +up the road-parties. Macnamara's--'member old Mac, the Sapper, who +played the fiddle so damnably at Umballa?--Mac's party was the last +but one. The last was Stalky's. He was at the head of the road with +some of his pet Sikhs. Mac said he believed he was all right." + +"Stalky _is_ a Sikh," said Tertius. "He takes his men to pray at the +Durbar Sahib at Amritzar, regularly as clockwork, when he can." + +"Don't interrupt, Tertius. It was about forty miles beyond Mac's +before I found him; and my men pointed out gently, but firmly, that +the country was risin'. What kind o' country, Beetle? Well, _I_'m no +word-painter, thank goodness, but _you_ might call it a hellish +country! When we weren't up to our necks in snow, we were rolling +down the khud. The well-disposed inhabitants, who were to supply +labor for the road-making (don't forget that, Pussy dear), sat behind +rocks and took pot-shots at us. 'Old, old story! We all legged it in +search of Stalky. I had a feeling that he'd be in good cover, and +about dusk we found him and his road-party, as snug as a bug in a +rug, in an old Malo't stone fort, with a watch-tower at one corner. It +overhung the road they had blasted out of the cliff fifty feet below; +and under the road things went down pretty sheer, for five or six +hundred feet, into a gorge about half a mile wide and two or three +miles long. There were chaps on the other side of the gorge +scientifically gettin' our range. So I hammered on the gate and nipped +in, and tripped over Stalky in a greasy, bloody old poshteen, +squatting on the ground, eating with his men. I'd only seen him for +half a minute about three months before, but I might have met him +yesterday. He waved his hand all sereno. + +"'Hullo, Aladdin! Hullo, Emperor!' he said. 'You're just in time for +the performance.'" + +"I saw his Sikhs looked a bit battered. 'Where's your command? Where's +your subaltern?' I said. + +"'Here--all there is of it,' said Stalky. 'If you want young Everett, +he's dead, and his body's in the watch-tower. They rushed our +road-party last week, and got him and seven men. We've been besieged +for five days. I suppose they let you through to make sure of you. +The whole country's up. 'Strikes me you've walked into a first-class +trap.' He grinned, but neither Tertius nor I could see where the deuce +the fun was. We hadn't any grub for our men, and Stalky had only +four days' whack for his. That came of dependin' upon your asinine +Politicals, Pussy dear, who told us that the inhabitants were +friendly. + +"To make us _quite_ comfy, Stalky took us up to the watch-tower to see +poor Everett's body, lyin' in a foot o' drifted snow. It looked like +a girl of fifteen--not a hair on the little fellow's face. He'd been +shot through the temple, but the Malo'ts had left their mark on him. +Stalky unbuttoned the tunic, and showed it to us--a rummy +sickle-shaped cut on the chest. 'Member the snow all white on his +eyebrows, Tertius? 'Member when Stalky moved the lamp and it looked as +if he was alive?" + +"Ye-es," said Tertius, with a shudder. "'Member the beastly look on +Stalky's face, though, with his nostrils all blown out, same as he +used to look when he was bullyin' a fag? That was a lovely evening." + +"We held a council of war up there over Everett's body. Stalky said +the Malo'ts and Khye-Kheens were up together; havin' sunk their blood +feuds to settle us. The chaps we'd seen across the gorge were +Khye-Kheens. It was about half a mile from them to us as a bullet +flies, and they'd made a line of sungars under the brow of the hill +to sleep in and starve us out. The Malo'ts, he said, were in front of +us promiscuous. There wasn't good cover behind the fort, or they'd +have been there, too. Stalky didn't mind the Malo'ts half as much as +he did the Khye-Kheens. He said the Malo'ts were treacherous curs. +What I couldn't understand was, why in the world the two gangs didn't +join in and rush us. There must have been at least five hundred of +'em. Stalky said they didn't trust each other very well, because they +were ancestral enemies when they were at home; and the only time +they'd tried a rush he'd hove a couple of blasting-charges among 'em, +and that had sickened 'em a bit. + +"It was dark by the time we finished, and Stalky, always serene, said: +'You command now. I don't suppose you mind my taking any action I may +consider necessary to reprovision the fort?' I said, 'Of course not,' +and then the lamp blew out. So Tertius and I had to climb down the +tower steps (we didn't want to stay with Everett) and got back to our +men. Stalky had gone off--to count the stores, I supposed. Anyhow, +Tertius and I sat up in case of a rush (they were plugging at us +pretty generally, you know), relieving each other till the mornln'. + +"Mornin' came. No Stalky. Not a sign of him. I took counsel with his +senior native officer--a grand, white-whiskered old chap--Rutton +Singh, from Jullunder-way. He only grinned, and said it was all +right. Stalky had been out of the fort twice before, somewhere or +other, accordin' to him. He said Stalky 'ud come back unchipped, and +gave me to understand that Stalky was an invulnerable _Guru_ of +sorts. All the same, I put the whole command on half rations, and set +'em to pickin' out loopholes. + +"About noon there was no end of a snow-storm, and the enemy stopped +firing. We replied gingerly, because we were awfully short of +ammunition. Don't suppose we fired five shots an hour, but we +generally got our man. Well, while I was talking with Rutton Singh I +saw Stalky coming down from the watch-tower, rather puffy about the +eyes, his poshteen coated with claret-colored ice. + +"'No trustin' these snow-storms,' he said. 'Nip out quick and snaffle +what you can get. There's a certain amount of friction between the +Khye-Kheens and the Malo'ts just now.' + +"I turned Tertius out with twenty Pathans, and they bucked about in +the snow for a bit till they came on to a sort of camp about eight +hundred yards away, with only a few men in charge and half a dozen +sheep by the fire. They finished off the men, and snaffled the sheep +and as much grain as they could carry, and came back. No one fired a +shot at 'em. There didn't seem to be anybody about, but the snow was +falling pretty thick. + +"'That's good enough,' said Stalky when we got dinner ready and he was +chewin' mutton-kababs off a cleanin' rod. 'There's no sense riskin' +men. They're holding a pow-wow between the Khye-Kheens and the +Malo'ts at the head of the gorge. I don't think these so-called +coalitions are much good.' + +"Do you know what that maniac had done? Tertius and I shook it out of +him by instalments. There was an underground granary cellar-room +below the watch-tower, and in blasting the road Stalky had blown a +hole into one side of it. Being no one else _but_ Stalky, he'd kept +the hole open for his own ends; and laid poor Everett's body slap +over the well of the stairs that led down to it from the watch-tower. +He'd had to move and replace the corpse every time he used the +passage. The Sikhs wouldn't go near the place, of course. Well, he'd +got out of this hole, and dropped on to the road. Then, in the night +_and_ a howling snow-storm, he'd dropped over the edge of the khud, +made his way down to the bottom of the gorge, forded the nullah, which +was half frozen, climbed up on the other side along a track he'd +discovered, and come out on the right flank of the Khye-Kheens. He +had then--listen to this!--crossed over a ridge that paralleled their +rear, walked half a mile behind that, and come out on the left of +their line where the gorge gets shallow and where there was a regular +track between the Malo't and the Khye-Kheen camps. That was about two +in the morning, and, as it turned out, a man spotted him--a +Khye-Kheen. So Stalky abolished him quietly, and left him--_with_ the +Malo't mark on his chest, same as Everett had. + +"'I was just as economical as I could be,' Stalky said to us. 'If he'd +shouted I should have been slain. I'd never had to do that kind of +thing but once before, and that was the first time I tried that path. +It's perfectly practicable for infantry, you know.' + +"'What about your first man?' I said. + +"'Oh, that was the night after they killed Everett, and I went out +lookin' for a line of retreat for my men. A man found me. I abolished +him--_privatim_--scragged him. But on thinkin' it over it occurred to +me that if I could find the body (I'd hove it down some rocks) I +might decorate it with the Malo't mark and leave it to the +Khye-Kheens to draw inferences. So I went out again the next night and +did. The Khye-Kheens are shocked at the Malo'ts perpetratin' these +two dastardly outrages after they'd sworn to sink all bleed feuds. I +lay up behind their sungars early this morning and watched 'em. They +all went to confer about it at the head of the gorge. Awf'ly annoyed +they are. Don't wonder.' You know the way Stalky drops out his words, +one by one." + +"My God!" said the Infant, explosively, as the full depth of the +strategy dawned on him. + +"Dear-r man!" said McTurk, purring rapturously. + +"Stalky stalked," said Tertius. "That's all there is to it." + +"No, he didn't," said Dick Four. "Don't you remember how he insisted +that he had only applied his luck? Don't you remember how Rutton +Singh grabbed his boots and grovelled in the snow, and how our men +shouted?" + +"None of our Pathans believed that was luck," said Tertius. "They +swore Stalky ought to have been born a Pathan, and--'member we nearly +had a row in the fort when Rutton Singh said Stalky was a Pathan? +Gad, how furious the old chap was with my Jemadar! But Stalky just +waggled his finger and they shut up. + +"Old Rutton Singh's sword was half out, though, and he swore he'd +cremate every Khye-Kheen and Malo't he killed. That made the Jemadar +pretty wild, because he didn't mind fighting against his own creed, +but he wasn't going to crab a fellow Mussulman's chances of Paradise. +Then Stalky jabbered Pushtu and Punjabi in alternate streaks. Where +the deuce did he pick up his Pushtu from, Beetle?" + +"Never mind his language, Dick," said I. "Give us the gist of it." + +"I flatter myself I can address the wily Pathan on occasion, but, hang +it all, I can't make puns in Pushtu, or top off my arguments with a +smutty story, as he did. He played on those two old dogs o' war like +a--like a concertina. Stalky said--and the other two backed up his +knowledge of Oriental nature--that the Khye-Kheens and the Malo'ts +between 'em would organize a combined attack on us that night, as a +proof of good faith. They wouldn't drive it home, though, because +neither side would trust the other on account, as Rutton Singh put +it, of the little accidents. Stalky's notion was to crawl out at +dusk with his Sikhs, manoeuvre 'em along this ungodly goat-track that +he'd found, to the back of the Khye-Kheen position, and then lob in a +few long shots at the Malo'ts when the attack was well on. 'That'll +divert their minds and help to agitate 'em,' he said. 'Then you chaps +can come out and sweep up the pieces, and we'll rendezvous at the +head of the gorge. After that, I move we get back to Mac's camp and +have something to eat." + +"_You_ were commandin'?" the Infant suggested. + +"I was about three months senior to Stalky, and two months Tertius's +senior," Dick Four replied. "_But_ we were all from the same old +Coll. I should say ours was the only little affair on record where +some one wasn't jealous of some one else." + +"_We_ weren't," Tertius broke in, "but there was another row between +Gul Sher Khan and Rutton Singh. Our Jemadar said--he was quite +right--that no Sikh living could stalk worth a damn; and that Koran +Sahib had better take out the Pathans, who understood that kind of +mountain work. Rutton Singh said that Koran Sahib jolly well knew +every Pathan was a born deserter, and every Sikh was a gentleman, even +if he couldn't crawl on his belly. Stalky struck in with some woman's +proverb or other, that had the effect of doublin' both men up with a +grin. He said the Sikhs and the Pathans could settle their claims on +the Khye-Kheens and Malo'ts later on, but he was going to take his +Sikhs along for this mountain-climbing job, because Sikhs could +shoot. They can, too. Give 'em a mule-load of ammunition apiece, and +they're perfectly happy." + +"And out he gat," said Dick Four. "As soon as it was dark, and he'd +had a bit of a snooze, him and thirty Sikhs went down through the +staircase in the tower, every mother's son of 'em salutin' little +Everett where It stood propped up against the wall. The last I heard +him say was, 'Kubbadar! tumbleinga! [Look out; you'll fall!] and they +tumbleingaed over the black edge of nothing. Close upon 9 p.m. the +combined attack developed; Khye-Kheens across the valley, and Malo'ts +in front of us, pluggin' at long range and yellin' to each other to +come along and cut our infidel throats. Then they skirmished up to +the gate, and began the old game of calling our Pathans renegades, +and invitin' 'em to join the holy war. One of our men, a young fellow +from Dera Ismail, jumped on the wall to slang 'em back, and jumped +down, blubbing like a child. He'd been hit smack in the middle of the +hand. 'Never saw a man yet who could stand a hit in the hand without +weepin' bitterly. It tickles up all the nerves. So Tertius took his +rifle and smote the others on the head to keep them quiet at the +loopholes. The dear children wanted to open the gate and go in at 'em +generally, but that didn't suit our book. + +"At last, near midnight, I heard the wop, wop, wop, of Stalky's +Martinis across the valley, and some general cursing among the +Malo'ts, whose main body was hid from us by a fold in the hillside. +Stalky was brownin' 'em at a great rate, and very naturally they +turned half right and began to blaze at their faithless allies, the +Khye-Kheens--regular volley firin'. In less than ten minutes after +Stalky opened the diversion they were going it hammer and tongs, both +sides the valley. When we could see, the valley was rather a mixed-up +affair. The Khye-Kheens had streamed out of their sungars above the +gorge to chastise the Malo'ts, and Stalky--I was watching him through +my glasses--had slipped in behind 'em. Very good. The Khye-Kheens had +to leg it along the hillside up to where the gorge got shallow and +they could cross over to the Malo'ts, who were awfully cheered to see +the Khye-Kheens taken in the rear. + +"Then it occurred to me to comfort the Khye-Kheens. So I turned out +the whole command, and we advanced _a'_la_pas_de_charge_, doublin' up +what, for the sake of argument, we'll call the Malo'ts' left flank. +Even then, if they'd sunk their differences, they could have eaten us +alive; but they'd been firin' at each other half the night, and they +went on firin'. Queerest thing you ever saw in your born days! As +soon as our men doubled up to the Malo'ts, they'd blaze at the +Khye-Kheens more zealously than ever, to show they were on our side, +run up the valley a few hundred yards, and halt to fire again. The +moment Stalky saw our game he duplicated it his side the gorge; and, +by Jove! the Khye-Kheens did just the same thing." + +"Yes, but," said Tertius, "you've forgot him playin' 'Arrah, Patsy, +mind the baby' on the bugle to hurry us up." + +"Did he?" roared McTurk. Somehow we all began to sing it, and there +was an interruption. + +"Rather," said Tertius, when we were quiet. No one of the Aladdin +company could forget that tune. "Yes, he played 'Patsy.' Go on, +Dick." + +"Finally," said Dick Four, "we drove both mobs into each other's arms +on a bit of level ground at the head of the valley, and saw the whole +crew whirl off, fightin' and stabbin' and swearin' in a blindin' +snow-storm. They were a heavy, hairy lot, and we didn't follow 'em. + +"Stalky had captured one prisoner--an old pensioned Sepoy of +twenty-five years' service, who produced his discharge--an awf'ly +sportin' old card. He had been tryin' to make his men rush us early +in the day. He was sulky--angry with his own side for their +cowardice, and Rutton Singh wanted to bayonet him--Sikhs don't +understand fightin' against the Government after you've served it +honestly--but Stalky rescued him, and froze on to him tight--with +ulterior motives, I believe. When we got back to the fort, we buried +young Everett--Stalky wouldn't hear of blowin' up the place--and +bunked. We'd only lost ten men, all told." + +"Only ten, out of seventy. How did you lose 'em?" I asked. + +"Oh, there was a rush on the fort early in the night, and a few +Malo'ts got over the gate. It was rather a tight thing for a minute +or two, but the recruits took it beautifully. Lucky job we hadn't any +badly wounded men to carry, because we had forty miles to Macnamara's +camp. By Jove, how we legged it! Half way in, old Rutton Singh +collapsed, so we slung him across four rifles and Stalky's overcoat; +and Stalky, his prisoner, and a couple of Sikhs were his bearers. +After that I went to sleep. You can, you know, on the march, when +your legs get properly numbed. Mac swears we all marched into his +camp snoring and dropped where we halted. His men lugged us into the +tents like gram-bags. I remember wakin' up and seeing Stalky asleep +with his head on old Rutton Singh's chest. _He_ slept twenty-four +hours. I only slept seventeen, but then I was coming down with +dysentery." + +"Coming down? What rot! He had it on him before we joined Stalky in +the fort," said Tertius. + +"Well, _you_ needn't talk! You hove your sword at Macnamara and +demanded a drum-head court-martial every time you saw him. The only +thing that soothed you was putting you under arrest every half hour. +You were off your head for three days." + +"Don't remember a word of it," said Tertius, placidly. "I remember my +orderly giving me milk, though." + +"How did Stalky come out?" McTurk demanded, purling hard over his +pipe. + +"Stalky? Like a serene Brahmini bull. Poor old Mac was at his Royal +Engineers' wits' end to know what to do. You see I was putrid with +dysentery, Tertius was ravin', half the men had frost-bite, and +Macnamara's orders were to break camp and come in before winter. So +Stalky, who hadn't turned a hair, took half his supplies to save him +the bother o' luggin' 'em back to the plains, and all the ammunition +he could get at, and, _consilio_et_auxilio_ Rutton Singhi, tramped +back to his fort with all his Sikhs and his precious prisoners, and a +lot of dissolute hangers-on that he and the prisoner had seduced into +service. He had sixty men of sorts--and his brazen cheek. Mac nearly +wept with joy when he went. You see there weren't any explicit orders +to Stalky to come in before the passes were blocked: Mac is a great +man for orders, and Stalky's a great man for orders--when they suit +his book." + +"He told me he was goin' to the Engadine," said Tertius. "Sat on my +cot smokin' a cigarette, and makin' me laugh till I cried. Macnamara +bundled the whole lot of us down to the plains next day. We were a +walkin' hospital." + +"Stalky told me that Macnamara was a simple godsend to him," said Dick +Four. "I used to see him in Mac's tent listenin' to Mac playin' the +fiddle, and, between the pieces, wheedlin' Mac out of picks and +shovels and dynamite cartridges hand-over-fist. Well, that was the +last we saw of Stalky. A week or so later the passes were shut with +snow, and I don't think Stalky wanted to be found particularly just +then." + +"He didn't," said the fair and fat Abanazar. "He didn't. Ho, ho!" + +Dick Four threw up his thin, dry hand with the blue veins at the back +of it. "Hold on a minute, Pussy; I'll let you in at the proper time. +I went down to my regiment, and that spring, five mouths later, I got +off with a couple of companies on detachment: nominally to look after +some friends of ours across the border; actually, of course, to +recruit. It was a bit unfortunate, because an ass of a young Naick +carried a frivolous blood-feud he'd inherited from his aunt into those +hills, and the local gentry wouldn't volunteer into my corps. Of +course, the Naick had taken short leave to manage the business; that +was all regular enough; _but_ he'd stalked my pet orderly's uncle. It +was an infernal shame, because I knew Harris of the Ghuznees would be +covering that ground three months later, and he'd snaffle all the +chaps I had my eyes on. Everybody was down on the Naick, because they +felt he ought to have had the decency to postpone his--his disgustful +amours till our companies were full strength. + +"Still the beast had a certain amount of professional feeling left. He +sent one of his aunt's clan by night to tell me that, if I'd take +safeguard, he'd put me on to a batch of beauties. I nipped over the +border like a shot, and about ten miles the other side, in a nullah, +my rapparee-in-charge showed me about seventy men variously armed, +but standing up like a Queen's company. Then one of 'em stepped out +and lugged round an old bugle, just like--who's the man?--Bancroft, +ain't it?--feeling for his eye-glass in a farce, and played 'Arrah, +Patsy, mind the baby. Arrah, Patsy, mind'--that was as for as he +could get." + +That, also, was as far as Dick Four could get, because we had to sing +the old song through twice, again and once more, and subsequently, in +order to repeat it. + +"He explained that if I knew the rest of the song he had a note for me +from the man the song belonged to. Whereupon, my children, I finished +that old tune on that bugle, and _this_ is what I got. I knew you'd +like to look at it. Don't grab." (We were all struggling for a sight +of the well-known unformed handwriting.) "I'll read it aloud. + + "'Fort Everett, February 19. + +"'Dear Dick, or Tertius: The bearer of this is in charge of +seventy-five recruits, all pukka devils, but desirous of +leading new lives. They have been slightly polished, and +after being boiled may shape well. I want you to give thirty +of them to my adjutant, who, though God's own ass, will +need men this spring. The rest you can keep. You will be +interested to learn that I have extended my road to the end +of the Malo't country. All headmen and priests concerned in +last September's affair worked one month each, supplying +road metal from their own houses. Everett's grave is +covered by a forty-foot mound, which should serve well as a +base for future triangulations. Rutton Singh sends his best +salaams. I am making some treaties, and have given my +prisoner--who also sends his salaams--local rank of Khan +Bahadur. + "'A. L. Cockran.' + +"Well, that was all," said Dick Four, when the roaring, the shouting, +the laughter, and, I think, the tears, had subsided. "I chaperoned +the gang across the border as quick as I could. They were rather +homesick, but they cheered up when they recognized some of my chaps, +who had been in the Khye-Kheen row, and they made a rippin' good lot. +It's rather more than three hundred miles from Fort Everett to where +I picked 'em up. Now, Pussy, tell 'em the latter end o' Stalky as you +saw it." + +Abanazar laughed a little nervous, misleading, official laugh. + +"Oh, it wasn't much. I was at Simla in the spring, when our Stalky, +out of his snows, began corresponding direct with the Government." + +"After the manner of a king," suggested Dick Four. "My turn now, Dick. +He'd done a whole let of things he shouldn't have done, and +constructively pledged the Government to all sorts of action." + +"'Pledged the State's ticker, eh?" said McTurk, with a nod to me. + +"About that; but the embarrassin' part was that it was all so +thunderin' convenient, so well reasoned, don't you know? Came in as +pat as if he'd had access to all sorts of information--which he +couldn't, of course." + +"Pooh!" said Tertius, "I back Stalky against the Foreign Office any +day." + +"He'd done pretty nearly everything he could think of, except strikin' +coins in his own image and superscription, all under cover of +buildin' this infernal road and bein' blocked by the snow. His report +was simply amazin'. Von Lennaert tore his hair over it at first, and +then he gasped, 'Who the dooce is this unknown Warren Hastings? He +must be slain. He must be slain officially! The Viceroy'll never +stand it. It's unheard of. He must be slain by his Excellency in +person. Order him up here and pitch in a stinger.' Well, I sent him +no end of an official stinger, and I pitched in an unofficial +telegram at the same time." + +"You!" This with amazement from the Infant, for Abanazar resembled +nothing so much as a fluffy Persian cat. + +"Yes--me," said Abanazar. "'Twasn't much, but after what you've said, +Dicky, it was rather a coincidence, because I wired: + "'Aladdin now has got his wife, + Your Emperor is appeased. + I think you'd better come to life: + We hope you've all been pleased.' + +"Funny how that old song came up in my head. That was fairly +non-committal and encouragin'. The only flaw was that his Emperor +wasn't appeased by very long chalks. Stalky extricated himself from +his mountain fastnesses and leafed up to Simla at his leisure, to be +offered up on the horns of the altar." + +"But," I began, "surely the Commander-in-Chief is the proper--" + +"His Excellency had an idea that if he blew up one single junior +captain--same as King used to blow us up--he was holdin' the reins of +empire, and, of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert +encouraged him. I'm not sure Von Lennaert didn't put that notion into +his head." + +"They've changed the breed, then, since my time," I said. + +"P'r'aps. Stalky was sent up for his wiggin' like a bad little boy. +I've reason to believe that His Excellency's hair stood on end. He +walked into Stalky for one hour--Stalky at attention in the middle of +the floor, and (so he vowed) Von Lennaert pretending to soothe down +His Excellency's topknot in dumb show in the background. Stalky +didn't dare to look up, or he'd have laughed." + +"Now, wherefore was Stalky not broken publicly?" said the Infant, with +a large and luminous leer. + +"Ah, wherefore?" said Abanazar. "To give him a chance to retrieve his +blasted career, and not to break his father's heart. Stalky hadn't a +father, but that didn't matter. He behaved like a--like the Sanawar +Orphan Asylum, and His Excellency graciously spared him. Then he came +round to my office and sat opposite me for ten minutes, puffing out +his nostrils. Then he said, 'Pussy, if I thought that +basket-hanger--'" + +"Hah! He remembered that," said McTurk. + +"'That two-anna basket-hanger governed India, I swear I'd become a +naturalized Muscovite to-morrow. I'm a _femme_incomprise_. This +thing's broken my heart. It'll take six months' shootin'-leave in +India to mend it. Do you think I can get it, Pussy?' + +"He got it in about three minutes and a half, and seventeen days later +he was back in the arms of Rutton Singh--horrid disgraced--with +orders to hand over his command, etc., to Cathcart MacMonnie." + +"Observe!" said Dick Four. "One colonel of the Political Department in +charge of thirty Sikhs, on a hilltop. Observe, my children!" + +"Naturally, Cathcart not being a fool, even if he _is_ a Political, +let Stalky do his shooting within fifteen miles of Fort Everett for +the next six months, and I always understood they and Rutton Singh +and the prisoner were as thick as thieves. Then Stalky loafed back +to his regiment, I believe. I've never seen him since." + +"I have, though," said McTurk, swelling with pride. + +We all turned as one man. "It was at the beginning of this hot +weather. I was in camp in the Jullunder doab and stumbled slap on +Stalky in a Sikh village; sitting on the one chair of state, with +half the population grovellin' before him, a dozen Sikh babies on his +knees, an old harridan clappin' him on the shoulder, and a garland o' +flowers round his neck. Told me he was recruitin'. We dined together +that night, but he never said a word of the business at the Fort. +Told me, though, that if I wanted any supplies I'd better say I was +Koran Sahib's _bhai_; and I did, and the Sikhs wouldn't take my +money." + +"Ah! That must have been one of Rutton Singh's villages," said Dick +Four; and we smoked for some time in silence. + +"I say," said McTurk, casting back through the years, "did Stalky ever +tell you _how_ Rabbits-Eggs came to rock King that night?" + +"No," said Dick Four. Then McTurk told. "I see," said Dick Four, +nodding. "Practically he duplicated that trick over again. There's +nobody like Stalky." + +"That's just where you make the mistake," I said. "India's full of +Stalkies--Cheltenham and Haileybury and Marlborough chaps--that we +don't know anything about, and the surprises will begin when there is +really a big row on." + +"Who will be surprised?" said Dick Four. + +"The other side. The gentlemen who go to the front in first-class +carriages. Just imagine Stalky let loose on the south side of Europe +with a sufficiency of Sikhs and a reasonable prospect of loot. +Consider it quietly." + +"There's something in that, but you're too much of an optimist, +Beetle," said the Infant. + +"Well, I've a right to be. Ain't I responsible for the whole thing? +You needn't laugh. Who wrote 'Aladdin now has got his wife'--eh?" + +"What's that got to do with it?" said Tertius. + +"Everything," said I. + +"Prove it," said the Infant. + +And I have. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling + diff --git a/old/stlky11.zip b/old/stlky11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3eaa9d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/stlky11.zip |