Stalky Co. .............................................................................................................................................................1

Rudyard Kipling......................................................................................................................................1

"IN AMBUSH." .......................................................................................................................................2

SLAVES OF THE LAMPPART I....................................................................................................19

AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE...........................................................................................................30

THE IMPRESSIONISTS. ......................................................................................................................47

THE MORAL REFORMERS...............................................................................................................61

A LITTLE PREP...................................................................................................................................76

THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY.....................................................................................................89

THE LAST TERM. ..............................................................................................................................102

SLAVES OF THE LAMP. Part II.......................................................................................................116

In summer all rightminded boys built huts in the furzehill behind the Collegelittle lairs whittled out of

the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd rootends, 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

Now, there was nothing in their characters as known to Mr. Prout, their housemaster, at all commanding

respect; nor did Foxy, the subtle redhaired school Sergeant, trust them. His business was to wear

tennisshoes, 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

schoolname, 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 briarwood pipe.

Crusoe, at sight of the footprint, did not act more swiftly than Stalky. He removed the pipes, swept up all

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 longsmothered interest in firstflowerings, 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 chanceheard remarks

from the three, and specially Beetle. So he was gracious to that repentant sinner, and entered the three names

Then, and not till then, did Stalky seek Beetle and McTurk in their house formroom. They were stowing

"All up," said Stalky, serenely. "I spotted Heffy's fairy feet round our hut after dinner. 'Blessing they're so

"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

"Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. He and Foxy will watch it. It's nothing to do with us; only we

"Yes, and where else are we to go?" said Beetle. "You chose that place, tooan'an' I wanted to read this

"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 mantracks marchin' round

our hut, I found little Hartopp_destricto_ense_wavin' a butterflynet. I conciliated Hartopp. 'Told him

that you'd read papers to the Bughunters if he'd let you join, Beetle. 'Told him you liked butterflies, Turkey.

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

"I'm an ass, Stalky!" he said, guarding the afflicted part. "_Pax_, Turkey. I'm an ass."

"All the same bughuntin'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 botanycase." 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,

"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 Bughunters! 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

"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 furzehills, crossing

combe after gorzy combe. They took no heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and all that Turkey said

"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 onehalf the combe were filled with golden fire to the cliff's edge.

"'_Prosecuted_with_the_utmost_rigour_of_the_law_. G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P.,' an' all the rest of it. 'Don't

"You've got to prove damage 'fore you can prosecute for anything! 'Can't prosecute for trespass," said

"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 butterflynet."

Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up the handle to a twofoot stave, and slid the

canering round his waist. Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile from the

"_Now_ we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up at all," said the tactician. "Beetle, go

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 foxtrack. 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

"By gum! There isn't a single thing to do except lie down," said Stalky, returning a knife to his pocket. "Look

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 cliffrabbit

could have found foothold. Great gray and black gulls screamed against the jackdaws; the heavyscented

acres of bloom round them were alive with lownesting 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

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

"Hullo, here's a keeper," said Stalky, shutting "Handley Cross" cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A

man with a gun appeared on the skyline 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,

"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

"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

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,

McTurk's lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half open, was tight shut, and his eyes

"Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?" he said, in a grating voice, as he brushed prickles from

"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

"Are you crazy? He'll swear it served us jolly well right. He'll report us. It'll be a public lickin'. Oh, Turkey,

"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 Turkeya haughty, angular,

noselifted Turkeywhom they accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a whitewhiskered

"II am, and" his eyes traveled up and down the boy"whowhat 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 meEh? You saw my noticeboards? Must have. Don't attempt to

He choked with emotion. McTurk's heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered a littletwo sure signs that he was

"Lolook here, sir. Dodo you shoot foxes? Because, if you don't, your keeper does. We've seen him! I

dodon't care what you call usbut it's an awful thing. It's the ruin of good feelin' among neighbors. A

maman 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

"No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer me now, as one gentleman to another. Do

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 slainonce by the old gentleman and once

by the Head. A public licking for the throe was the least they could expect. Yetif their eyes and ears were

to be trustedthe old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before the storm, but

"Then you must sack your keeper. He's not fit to live in the same county with a Godfearin' fox. An' a vixen,

"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

Forgottenforgotten 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 threehundredyearold house, lord of a crazy fishingboat, and the idol of his father's shiftless

tenantry. It was the landed man speaking to his equaldeep calling to deepand the old gentleman

"I apologize," said he. "I apologize unreservedlyto you, and to the Old Country. Now, will you be good

"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. Iweone never wants to accuse a neighbor's man; but I took the liberty in this case"

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 fishermana fishermanfrom his lobsterpots. 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 Nono! Not that by any odds. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye're not! Sherry always catches me

under the liver, butbeer, now? Eh? What d'you say to beer, and something to eat? It's long since I was a

boyabominable nuisances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, too!" They were fed on the terrace

by a grayhaired housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but McTurk with bright eyes continued a free

"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 tonight again. He shall! Wish I could drown him. I'll convoy

you to the Lodge. My people are not preciselyahbroke to boy, but they'll know you again."

He dismissed them with many compliments by the high Lodgegate in the splitoak 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 homebrewed 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'

Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle would have fallen upon him, for that song was barred

utterlyanathemathe sin of witchcraft. But seeing what he had wrought, they danced round him in

The teabell 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 housemaster, who had spent the afternoon watching their abandoned hut in the

Unluckily, all Mr. Prout's imagination leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those youngeyed

cherubims most sourly. Boys that he understood attended housematches and could be accounted for at any

moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricketeven housematches; 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. Consequentlysince human nature is what it isthose boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He

"_Tiraralaitu_! I gloat! Hear me!" Stalky, still on his heels, whirled like a dancing dervish to the

"_Tiralalaitu_! I gloat! Hear me!" Beetle spun behind him with outstretched arms.

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 housemaster 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 housemaster,

"Ahhaa!" said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. "Curious! Now _my_ house never dream of

"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

"But they've no following in the school, and they are distinctlyer brutal to their juniors," said Prout, who

had from a distance seen Beetle return, with interest, his butterflynet to a tearful fag.

"Ah! They consider themselves superior to ordinary delights. Selfsufficient 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

overweening selfconceit. Were I you, I should devote myself for a week to their little performances. Boys

of that orderand I may flatter myself, but I think I know boysdon't join the Bughunters for love. Tell

the Sergeant to keep his eye open; and, of course, in my peregrinations I may casually keep mine open, too."

"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 Lodgegates on the upper roadthey were careful to ingratiate themselves with the

Lodgekeeper and his wifedrop down into the combe, and return along the cliffs; or they could begin at

They were careful not to cross the Colonel's pathhe had served his turn, and they would not outwear their

welcomenor did they show up on the skyline when they could move in cover. The shelter of the gorze by

the cliffedge 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

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 Bughunters, their extended bounds ran up to his noticeboards

"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 Beetlehe was stretched at the edge of the cliff spitting thoughtfully. "We've got to thank Turkey

"They've got us under suspicion," said Stalky. "Hoophats _is_ so suspicious somehow; and Foxy always

"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

"I never got squiffy but oncethat 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

"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

"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

"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_,

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 callover. They nod and wink and giggle one to the other, scattering at the

approach of a master. But Stalky and his allies had long outlived these manifestations of youth. They

strolled forth unconcernedly, and returned in excellent shape after a light refreshment of strawberries and

The Lodgekeeper 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 crossroads inn; and it was curious that Prout and King, members of

Commonroom seldom friendly, walked together in the same directionthat is to say, northeast.

Now, the Pleasant Isle of Aves lay due southwest. "They're deepdayvilish deep," said Stalky. "Why are

"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

"Well, it can't last forever," said Stalky. "Heffy's bankin' up like a thundercloud, 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 expectedcame when the Sergeant, whose duty it was to collect

"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

"Of course, but I'm not smokin' _aujourd'hui_. _Parceque_je_ jolly well _pense_ that we'll be _suivi_. We'll

They strolled towards the swimmingbaths, 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

They walked leisurely over the combes till they reached the line of noticeboards.

"Listen a shake. Foxy's up wind comin' down hill like beans. When you hear him move in the bushes, go

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

"Aha! Foxy don't like the noticeboards, and he don't like the prickles either. Now we'll cut up the tunnel and

The Sergeant was waistdeep 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

Suddenly the keeper passed them at a trot. "Who'm they to combebottom for Lard's sake? Master'll be

"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 funnellike 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

"Explain to the proprietor. You can explain, Sergeant," shouted King. Evidently the Sergeant had surrendered

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

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 heavilyleaded diamond panes, and then the voice of Colonel Dabney,

Beetle snatched a crochetwork antimacassar from the shiny horsehair sofa, stuffed it into his mouth, and

"You saw my noticeboards. Your duty? Curse your impudence, sir. Your duty was to keep off my grounds.

Talk of duty to _me_! Whywhywhy, 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 itI don't believe a word of it. Ye've a furtive look in your

eyea 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

"Now. March!" The high Lodge gate shut with a clang. "My duty! A sergeant to tell me my duty!" puffed

"It's King! It's King!" gulped Stalky, his head on the horsehair pillow. McTurk was eating the ragcarpet

before the speckless hearth, and the sofa heaved to the emotions of Beetle. Through the thick glass the figures

"II protest against this outrage." King had evidently been running up hill. "The man was entirely within his

"Unfortunatelymost unfortunatelyI have not one with me, but my name is King, sir, a housemaster of

the College, and you will find me preparedfully preparedto answer for this man's action. We've seen

"I stand _in_loco_parentis_." Prout's deep voice was added to the discussion. They could hear him pant.

"Ye are, are ye? Then all I can say is that ye set them a very bad examplea 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?"

"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

A second time the gate clanged. They waited till Colonel Dabney had returned to the house, and fell into one

"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."

"GeGeget the badger and make little Hartopp happy. Mamamake 'em all happy," sobbed McTurk,

They found the beast in an evilsmelling box, left two halfcrowns 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

"Well, take this box to Mr. Hartopp's rooms, then. We've done something for the Natural History Society, at

"'Fraid that won't save you, young gen'elmen," Foxy answered, in an awful voice. He was sorely ruffled in his

"All sereno, Foxibus." Stalky had reached the extreme stage of hiccups. "Wewe'll never desert you, Foxy.

Hounds choppin' foxes in cover is more a proof of vice, ain't it?... No, you're right. I'mI'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 'emsomehow. King and Prout they 'ad their dressin'down same as me.

"Now, we must pull up," said Stalky, rising from the bed on which he had thrown himself. "We're injured

"No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public disgrace before the house," said McTurk, whose eyes were running

"Well, hold on, till King loses his temper," said Beetle. "He's a libelous old rip, an' he'll be in a ravin'

paddywack. Prout's too beastly cautious. Keep your eye on King, and, if he gives us a chance, appeal to the

They were summoned to their housemaster'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'

Yes, they had walked along the cliffs. Yes, they had entered Colonel Dabney's grounds. Yes, they had seen

the noticeboards (at this point Beetle sputtered hysterically). For what purpose had they entered Colonel

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 boilingpoint. 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

fellowcountryman, the lesson of their race, which is to put away all emotion and entrap the alien at the

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 thoughtThe 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 creptwho sneakedwho lurkedout of bounds, even the generous bounds of the Natural History

Society, which they had falsely joined as a cloak for their misdeedstheir vicestheir villainiestheir

"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 lepersthe current of his words was carrying King off his

He was merely working up to a peroration, and the boys knew it; but McTurk cut through the frothing

It was their unquestioned right. Drunkenness meant expulsion after a public flogging. They had been accused

"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

"Are we allowed to associate with the rest of the school till we see the Head, sir?" said McTurk to his

housemaster, 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 twentyfour cold

"Wellerif you persist in your defiant attitude," said King, with a loving look at the canes under Foxy's

Ten minutes later the news was over the whole school. Stalky and Co. had fallen at lastfallen by drink.

They had been drinking. They had returned blinddrunk 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

"We've got himgot him on the Caudine Toastingfork!" said Stalky, after those hints were taken. "King'll

"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

"No prep., either, O ye incipient drunkards," said McTurk, "and it's trig night, too. Hullo! Here's our dear

"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

"II 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 muchwhat'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.

"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 tonight, an'it looks bad on the face of it."

"'Trocious bad, Foxy. Twentyseven cuts in the Gym before all the school, and public expulsion. 'Wine is a

"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 noticeboards?" croaked McTurk, in the very brogue of Colonel Dabney.

"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. "Wherewhere the devil _was_ you? I might ha'

"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 Dabneydon'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.

"Look 'ere, young gentlemen," he said, earnestly. "You aren't surely ever goin' to tell, are you? Wasn't Mr.

"Foxibusculus, they _was_. They wassingular 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

"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 boyssaying

"That I didn't," said Foxy. "II only said that you be'aved uncommon odd when you come back with 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,

"Not with three thoroughgoin' 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 Lodgegates this time, instead of chasin' your dam' boysoh, that was the

Epistle to Kingso it was. Weel, Foxy?" Stalky put his chin on his hands and regarded the victim with

"_Tiralalaitu_! I gloat! Hear me!" said McTurk. "Foxy brought us tea when we were moral lepers.

"I wish I'd ha' had you in my company, young gentlemen," said the Sergeant from the depths of his heart; "I'd

"Silence at drumhead courtmartial," 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:

"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."

"Right, O! Led away by bad companions in the execution of his duty oror 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

"Well," said the Sergeant, gathering up the teathings, "knowin' what I know o' the young devgentlemen

To say that the Head was annoyed when the Sergeant appeared after dinner with the day's crimesheet would

"Corkran, McTurk, and Co., I see. Bounds as usual. Hullo! What the deuce is this? Suspicion of drinking.

"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."

"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, andMr. King and Mr. Prout come alongand the fact was, sir, we was mistook

for poachers by Colonel Dabney's peopleMr. 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 himselfColonel Dabney bein' strict. Then they preferred to come straight

to you, sir, on account of whatwhat 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."

"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. II might ha' known when they led me on so that they 'eld the inner line of

communications. It'sit's a plain do, sir, if you ask me; an' they're g]oatin' over it in the dormitory."

The Head sawsaw even to the uttermost farthingand his mouth twitched a little under his mustache.

"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 fortwentyfive. 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?

"And this I think"the Head replaced the cane, and flung the written charge into the wastepaper

basket"covers the situation. When you find a variation from the normalthis will be useful to you in later

lifealways meet him in an abnormal way. And that reminds me. There are a pile of paperbacks 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. Goodnight," said that

"I swear I'll pray for the Head tonight," 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

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 seemsand who so astonished as they?that they had held back material

facts; were guilty both of _suppressio_veri_ and _suggestio_falsi_ (wellknown 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

housematchtheir own house, tooin 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

"Don't ask me," said Beetle. "I'll have nothin' private with you. Ye can be as private as ye please the other end

"Well, ye should ha' come up to the lodge like Christians instead o' chasin' yourahemboys through the

length an' breadth of my covers. _I_ think these housematches are all rot. Let's go over to Colonel Dabney's

The musicroom on the top floor of Number Five was filled with the "Aladdin" company at rehearsal.

Dickson Quartus, commonly known as Dick Four, was Aladdin, stagemanager, balletmaster, 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 downstairs 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 stampandgo 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

Aladdin came to his own at last, Abanazar lay poisoned on the floor, the Widow Twankay danced her dance,

"What about the last song, though?" said the Emperor, a tallish, fairheaded boy with a ghost of a mustache,

"'John Peel'? 'Drink, Puppy, Drink'?" suggested Abanazar, smoothing his baggy lilac pajamas. "Pussy"

Abanazar never looked more than onehalf awake, but he owned a soft, slow smile which well suited the part

"Stale," said Aladdin. "Might as well have 'Grandfather's Clock.' What's that thing you were humming at

Stalky, The Slave of the Lamp, in black tights and doublet, a black silk halfmask on his forehead, whistled

"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,

"Rippin'! Oh, rippin'!" said Dick Four. "Only we shan't have any piano on the night. We must work it with the

The Emperor pushed aside his peagreen sleeves of state, and followed Dick Four on a heavy nickel plated

"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

"All right. You two play it again," said Beetle, who, in a gray skirt and a wig of chestnut sausagecurls, set

slantwise above a pair of spectacles mended with an old bootlace, represented the Widow Twankay. He

"'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

"_Nous_twiggons_. Good enough. What's the chorus for the final ballet? It's four kicks and a turn," said Dick

John Short will ring the curtain down. And ring the prompter's bell; We hope you know before you go That

"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,

"Locked doors! Locked doors!" he snapped with a scowl. "What's the meaning of this; and what, may I ask, is

"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 wellfitting tights, but Beetle strove to efface himself behind the

piano. A gray princessskirt borrowed from a dayboy's mother and a spotted cotton bodice unsystematically

padded with impositionpaper 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 criminalsallied forces of disorderCorkran"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

"I have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my address, I believean effusion intended

to rhyme. Soso you despise me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite awareyou need not explain that

it was ostensibly not intended for my edification. I read it with laughteryes, with laughter. These paper

pellets of inky boys still a boy we are, Master Gigadibsdo not disturb my equanimity."

"Wonder which it was," thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons on an appreciative public ever

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 associateswith the usual result. His wild flowers of speechKing had an unpleasant

tonguerestored 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 Commonroom, where he triumphed anew

"And the worst of it," he explained in a loud voice over his soup, "is that I waste such gems of sarcasm on

"Weell," said the school chaplain slowly, "I don't know what Corkran's appreciation of your style may be,

"He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up

"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."

But in the musicroom there were wrath and bad language. Only Stalky, Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano

"That little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. He's always suckin' up to King. Go and

"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 formroom next door to

King's study, which, again, was immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a

formroom 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, hamandtongue paste, pilchards, three jams, and at

"My hat!" said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. "Who stumped up for this, Stalky?" It was within a

"Watch! I lost itweeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to shoot the old ramthe day our pistol

"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 today. Got thirteen and

"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

"You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated beast! Why, last month you and Beetle

"Ah, that was because you locked your trunk, and we wasted half the afternoon hammering it open. We might

"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.

RabbitsEggs was the local carrieran 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. RabbitsEggs 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 tonight. Oh, don't begin reading, Beetle; there's a council of war on.

"'Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third boxroom. 'Had all his beastly little friends on top of me,"

"You ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to," said McTurk.

"Course you didn't. You never do." McTurk adjusted Beetle's collar with a savage tug. "Don't drop oil all

The book was a fat, brownbacked 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

seenseveral things. The quartercomprehended 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

"Mad! Quite mad!" said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. "Beetle reads an ass called

"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

"It's two to one," said Stalky, warningly, and Beetle closed the book, in obedience to the law under which he

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

"King! War!" said McTurk, jerking his head toward the wall, where hung a small wooden WestAfrican

"Then we shall be turned out of the study again," said Beetle, who loved his fleshpots. "Mason turned us out

forjust warbling on it." Mason was the mathematical master who had testified in Commonroom.

"Warbling?O Lord!" said Abanazar. "We couldn't hear ourselves speak in our study when you played the

"We lived in the formrooms for a week, too," said Beetle, tragically. "And it was beastly cold."

"Yees, 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

"Jolly well there wasn't," said Stalky, "when I got out on the roof and dropped the beastly things down his

chimney. But, look herequestion is, are our characters good enough just now to stand a study row?"

"I'm not thinking of you," Stalky returned scornfully. "You aren't going up for the Army, you old bat. I don't

"Rot!" said McTurk. "The Head never expels except for beastliness or stealing. But I forgot; you and Stalky

"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

"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

"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

"'Course not. Mason kept it jolly quiet. He wrote down all our statements on impotpaper. There wasn't

"And handed it all up to the Head, _with_ an extempore prayer. It took about forty pages," said Beetle. "I

"Oh, we were sent for; and Stalky asked to have the 'depositions' read out, and the Head knocked him

spinning into a wastepaper basket. Then he gave us eight cuts apieceweltersforfortakin'

unheardof 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

"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

"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 hearthrug. "If Mason didn't know Number Fivewell, 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 musicroom, and in the presence of thesethese ossifers of the Ninetythird, wot look like hairdressers.

"And, besides," said McTurk, "he's a Philistine, a baskethanger. He wears a tartan tie. Ruskin says that any

"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 fretsaw!

Down went McTurk's inky thumb over an imaginary arena full of bleeding Kings. "_Placete_, child of a

"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

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

"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,

"More fool you! Construe," said McTurk. "Those six bargees scragged the Czar, and left no evidence.

"There's a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it entails Twentynine distinct damnations, One sure if

"He's just come in from dinner," said Dick Four, looking through the window. "Manders minor is with him."

"Then you chaps had better clear out," said Stalky politely to the visitors. "'Tisn't fair to mix you up in a study

"Immediately, if not sooner," said Stalky, and turned out the gas. "Strong, perseverin' manKing. Make him

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

"Wonder if I ought to take any notice of it officially," said Abanazar, who had just remembered he was a

"It's none of your business, Pussy. Besides, if you did, we'd have them hostile to us; and we shouldn't be able

Now that WestAfrican wardrum 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 trumpetsof 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 Kingthree 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

"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 doorknob, dancing a noiseless wardance.

King went downstairs again, and Beetle and McTurk lit the gas to confer with Stalky. But Stalky had

"Looks like no end of a mess," said Beetle, collecting his books and mathematical instrument case. "A week

"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 formroom."

"Wait till we see," said McTurk, hopefully. "I don't know any more than you do what Stalky means, but it's

No sooner had the key turned in the door than the lid of the coalbox, which was also the windowseat, 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 wellworn 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

windsloped trees, the dark levels of the Burrows, and the white line of breakers falling ninedeep along the

Pebbleridge. Far down the steepbanked 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 ginbottle essaying to sing, "It's a way we

Stalky smiled a tightlipped smile, and at extreme range opened fire: the old horse half wheeled in the shafts.

"Where he gwaine tu?" hiccoughed RabbitsEggs. Another buckshot tore through the rotten canvas tilt with a

"_Habet_!" murmured Stalky, as RabbitsEggs swore into the patient night, protesting that he saw the

"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 Fifthform 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 wellestablished 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 RabbitsEggs 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 RabbitsEggs, now that he had found a visible

foeanother shot from the darkness above. "Yiss, yeou, yeou longnosed, fowereyed, gingywhiskered

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 RabbitsEggs. 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 treecalf bindings in the bookshelf. Another quoited along the writingtable. 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 windowseat; the

china basketMcTurk's aversioncracked 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 cheekbone; and King, using strange

words, every one of which Beetle treasured, ran forth to find the schoolsergeant, that RabbitsEggs might

"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

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 tablecloth; why the big gumbottle, unstoppered, had rolled

semicircularly across the floor; and in what manner the white china doorknob 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

"You never told me to go, sir," he said, with the air of Casabianca, and King consigned him to the outer

But it was to a bootcupboard 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

"Go to the dormitory and get me my things. Bring 'em to Number Five lavatory. I'm still in tights," hissed

But Beetle staggered into the formroom 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

"_Moi_! _Je_! _Ich_! _Ego_!" gasped Stalky. "I waited till I couldn't hear myself think, while you played the

drum! Hid in the coallockerand tweaked RabbitsEggsand RabbitsEggs rocked King. Wasn't it

"Thethe glass was nothing. Manders minor's head's cut open. Lalalamp 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

"I bunked for the bootcupboard the second I heard King go downstairs. 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

"And he turned us out himselfhimselfhimself!" This from McTurk. "He can't begin to suspect us. Oh,

"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 RabbitsEggs told King to poultice his nose! Did you hit RabbitsEggs, 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

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 halfhitched 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

The Lower Third had set a guard upon their formroom for the space of a full hour, which to a boy is a

lifetime. Now they were busy with their Saturday evening businessescooking sparrows over the gas with

rusty nibs; brewing unholy drinks in gallipots; skinning moles with pocketknives; 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 rabbithole, 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, halfprepared bones and

skulls, and a dozen pots of homemade sloe jam. It was a great wreckage, and the formroom looked as

"Phew!" said Stalky, drawing breath outside the door (amid groans of "Oh, you beastly caads! You think

yourselves awful funny," and so forth). "_That's_ all right. Never let the sun go down upon your wrath.

"Six of 'em sat on my head when I went in after Manders minor," said Beetle. "I warned 'em what they'd get,

"Everybody paid in fullbeautiful feelin'," said McTurk absently, as they strolled along the corridor. "Don't

"Not _much_. Our line is injured innocence, of coursesame 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 ghaastly facetious about that. 'Called us birdstuffers 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

"Poor old King!" said Beetle. "He's unpopular in Commonroom, and they'll chaff his head off about

RabbitsEggs. Golly! How lovely! How beautiful! How holy! But you should have seen his face when the

"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 wardrum. We've got turned out for that

"Do you chaps mean to say you didn't make RabbitsEggs 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 RabbitsEggs rock King? Strong,

"Wait a sec," said Stalky, continuing the conversation in a loud and cheerful voice, as they descended the

"Hush, you ass!" hissed the Emperor of China. "Oh, he's gone down to prayers," said Beetle, watching the

shadow of the housemaster on the wall. "RabbitsEggs was only a bit drunk, swearin' at his horse, and King

King was behind them, and every wellweighed 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

The other study hurried forward. They did not wish to be dragged into stage asides of this nature. So it was

"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 thunderstorm, 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,

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 windowsill 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

Whereupon Stalky rose up to grapple with him, but McTurk sat on Stalky's head, calling him a "pureminded

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 cricketmatch, they began to renew their acquaintance,

"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

"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 missednot 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 studydoor without knockinganother sinand looked at them suspiciously. "Very sorry, indeed, I am

"We've been out ever since dinner, sir," said. McTurk wearily. One housematch is just like another, and

"I can't see a ball when it's coming, sir," said Beetle. "I've had my giglamps smashed at the Nets till I got

"Tuck is probably your form. Tuck and brewing. Why can't you three take any interest in the honor of your

They had heard that phrase till they were wearied. The "honor of the house" was Prout's weak point, and they

"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, selfisolated, stood to

attention for half an hour in full view of all the visitors, to whom fags, subsidized for that end, pointed them

In the infinitely petty confederacies of the Commonroom, King and Macrea, fellow housemasters, 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 housemaster; but he was

never so left, and with the devilish insight of youth, the boys knew to whom they were indebted for his zeal.

"I don't want to order you to do what a rightthinking boy should do gladly. I'm sorry." And he lurched out

"Oh, he's cracked. King jaws him in Commonroom 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 Commonroom butler)

talking to Richards (Prout's houseservant) about it down in the basement the other day when I went down to

"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 Proutwhat 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

"Why, King talks about Prout in formroommakes allusions, an' all thatonly 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,"

"Well, we didn't come here to mix up in their rows," McTurk said wrathfully. "Who'll bathe after callover?

King's takin' it in the cricketfield. Come on." Turkey seized his straw and led the way.

They reached the sunblistered pavilion over against the gray Pebbleridge just before rollcall, 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

"And whence this sudden zeal for cleanliness? There is nothing about you that particularly suggests it.

King scowled. "_One_ of you was that thing called a waterfunk. Yes, a waterfunk. So now you wish to

wash? It is well. Cleanliness never injured a boy ora house. We will proceed to business," and he

"What the deuce did you say anything to him for, Beetle?" said McTurk angrily, as they strolled towards the

"'Twasn't fairremindin' one of bein' a waterfunk. My first term, too. Heaps of chaps arewhen they can't

"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 washfor the honor of

"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

When they returned from the baths, dampheaded, languid, at peace with the world, Beetle's forecast came

only too true. They were met in the corridor by a faga common, LowerSecond fagwho 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?

"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 will go on to the end of the term, though," Beetle wagged his head sorrowfully. He had worn many jests

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

"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

"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, Beetlefrom '_jugurtha_tamen_'and,

Prout's house was furious because Macrea's and Hartopp's houses joined King's to insult them. They called a

housemeeting after dinneran 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

Number Five study attended, with its usual air of bland patronage. At last McTurk, of the lanthorn jaws,

"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 chockfull of

"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.

But Stalky puffed out his cheeks and squinted down his nose in the style of Panurge, and all he said was, "Oh,

"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 saloonpistols, with a supply of bulleted breechcaps, were stored in Stalky's trunk, and this trunk was

in their dormitory, and their dormitory was a threebed attic one, opening out of a tenbed 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 arrangementsthe

College had originally been a terrace of twelve large houseswas a replica of the next; one straight roof

They found Stalky's bed drawn out from the wall to the left of the dormer window, and the latter end of

"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.

"I can't rache un. Yiss, 'tess a turncock, Muster McTurk. They've took an' runned all the watterpipes a storey

higher in the housesrunned 'em all along under the 'ang of the heaves, like. Runned 'em in last holidays.

"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 sharpedged joists, and whose side was the

"Right along, Muster Corkranright 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 downstairs 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

The boys sat roundeyed 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 midafternoon of a

"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

"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 nowI can see a bit of Rattray's trunk. How these beastly boards hurt one's knees!" They heard his

"That's the ceiling below. Look out! If we smashed that the plaster 'ud fall down in the lower dormitory," said

"An' be collared first thing? Not much. Why, I can shove my hand ever so far up between these boards."

"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

They crawled out, brushed one another clean, slid the saloonpistols down a trouserleg, and hurried forth to

a deep and solitary Devonshire lane in whose flanks a boy might sometimes slay a young rabbit. They threw

"You know," said Stalky at last, sighting at a distant sparrow, "we could hide our sallies in there like

"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 itViolet somebody. But it's translated, you know; and it's very interestin'. Tells you how a

"Well, if you're in a sweat to find out that, you can go down to the new cottages they're building for the

"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

"Oh, leave him alone. He's been taken worse with a poem," said McTurk. "He'll go burbling down to the

"Then why did he want the tuppence, Turkey? He's gettin' too beastly independent. Hi! There's a bunny. No,

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 halffinished cottage. He produced some ferocious tobacco, and was

"Well, let's have your beastly epic," said Turkey, as they burst into the study, to find Beetle deep in

"No epic? Then we will slay you, O Beetle," said Stalky, moving to the attack. "You've got something up

"Your Uncle Beetle"with an attempt to imitate Stalky's warvoice"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 futilelook out for my tie!futile burblers. I am

"Beetle, deah"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

"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 impostorI knew you had a notion when you went away! Turkey said it was a

"I've found out how houses are built. Le' me get up. The floorjoists of one room are the ceilingjoists of the

"Well, the man told me. The floor is laid on top of those joiststhose boards on edge that we crawled

overbut 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 floorboards and the lath and

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

"An' then They've been calling us stinkers, you know. We might shove somethin' undersulphur, or

something that stunk pretty badan' stink 'em out. I know it can be done somehow." Beetle's eyes turned to

"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 afternoonjust after Beetle went away! _She's_ the very

"Come to my arms, my beamish boy," caroled McTurk, and they fell into each other's arms dancing. "Oh,

"Dearr man! It shall, though. Oh, Artie, my puresouled youth, let us tell our darling Reggie about

"I say," said Orrin, stiffly, as they fell into their places along the walls of the gymnasium. "The house are

Gamboling like kids at play, with bounds and sidestarts, with caperings and curvetings, they led the almost

bursting Beetle to the rabbitlane, and from under a pile of stones drew forth the newslain corpse of a cat.

Then did Beetle see the inner meaning of what had gone before, and lifted up his voice in thanksgiving for

"Wellnourished old lady, ain't she?" said Stalky. "How long d'you suppose it'll take her to get a bit whiff in

"Bit whiff! What a coarse brute you are!" said McTurk. "Can't a poor pussycat get under King's dormitory

"A cat may look at a king." McTurk rolled down the bank at his own jest. "Pussy, you don't know how useful

"They'll have to take up the floor for her, same as they did in Number Nine when the rat croaked. Big

medicineheap 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 meetingon 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 bedrugs, 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

"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 tenbedder. 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.

"They've been calling us stinkers for a week now," said McTurk. "Oh, _won't_ they catch it!"

"And she's there," said Stalky, a hand on either boy's shoulder. "Sheisthere, 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

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

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

"The house sent me to give you this." He laid a folded sheet of paper on the table and retired with an awful

"It's the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. I'm too sillysick with laughin' to see," said Beetle. Stalky jerked it

'_The_house_notices_with_pain_and_contempt_the_attitude_of_indiference_' how many f's in

_the_insults_offered_to_Mr._Prout's_house_at_the_recent_meeting_in_Number_Twelve_

_formroom,_and_the_House_hereby_pass_a_vote_of_censure__on_the_said_study._ That's all."

The situation was beyond speech, but not laughter. There was some attempt that night to demonstrate against

"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 tomorrow you'll find that out. If

But or ever the dinnerbell 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 fearedhe sadly

fearedthat 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 Commonroom 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 Kinghe made hay of youan' 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!"

"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

Here the house grew angry, and in many voices pointed out how this blunder would never have come to pass

"But you chaps are so beastly conceited, an'an' you swaggered into the meetin' as if we were a lot of

"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

That night was the first of sorrow among the jubilant King's. By some accident of underfloor 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

paleblue 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 wellbeing. 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

But Macrea's boy had also a bosom friend in Prout's, a shockheaded fag of malignant disposition, who,

when he had wormed out the secret, toldtold it in a highpitched treble that rang along the corridor like a

"An'an' they've been calling us 'stinkers' all this week. Why, Harland minor says they simply can't sleep in

"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 twelveyearolds were embroiled on the gravel outside King's

"Hark to the minutegun at sea!" said Stalky. They were in their study collecting books for second

lessonLatin, with King. "I thought his azure brow was a bit cloudy at prayers. 'She is comin', sister Mary.

"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.

"My Aunt! King'll be a cheerful customer at second lesson. I haven't prepared my Horace one little bit,

They were outside the formroom door now. It was within five minutes of the bell, and King might arrive at

Turkey elbowed into a cohort of scuffling fags, cut out Thornton tertius (he that had been Harland's bosom

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

"Snf! Snf! He does, though. I think it's leprosyor thrush. P'raps it's both. Take it away."

"Indeed, Master Beetle"King generally came to the housedoor 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

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

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

"My word, she _is_ doin' herself proud," said Stalky. "Did you ever smell anything like it? Ah, an' she isn't

"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"

"Highminded, puresouled 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 skirmishersall houses mixedflying, reforming, shrieking insults. On its tortured

flanks marched the Hoplites, seniors hurling jests one after anothersimple 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?"

"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

"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 formroom. Straightway Stalky chalked a large cross, with

The wind shifted that night and wafted a carrionreek 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

"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 formroom beforebefore 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."

"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

"Keep clear of anything coarse, then," said Stalky. "I shouldn't like to be coarse on this happy occasion."

In Commonroom 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

"But you didn't seem to consider this when your house called usahstinkers. 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

"You spoke to Beetle yourself, didn't you? Something about not bathing, and being a waterfunk?" the school

"I may havejestingly. I really don't pretend to remember every remark I let fall among small boys; and full

"May be; but he, or theyit comes to to same thinghave 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 theirwellattentions."

"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 openhanded 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

The Commonroom looked at one another out of the corners of their eyes, and Prout blushed.

"I deny it absolutely," he said. "Erin fact, I own that I personally object to all three of them. It is not fair,

"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 theyou prefer the good old AngloSaxon, I believestink in your house. My

"What can you expect? You know what boys are. Naturally they take advantage of what to them is a

heavensent 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 sighthat 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 bitterby most

bitterexperience 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

"Heigho!" said the chaplain. "Ours is a dwarfing lifea belittling life, my brethren. God help all

"I don't like the boys, I own"Prout dug viciously with his fork into the tablecloth"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

"Falling into the pit he has digged," said little Hartopp. "Certainly not, Prout. No one accuses you of setting

"A belittling lifea 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

"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 smokingroom 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 Commonroom 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

"Rattray!" in a subdued voiceRattray's study fronted that way. "D'you know if Mr. King's anywhere about?

"Ah! The learned Lipsius is airing himself, is he? His Royal Highness has gone to fumigate." McTurk

"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

"Shut up, you mad Irishman!" There was the sound of a golfball 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.

"Where's the Pomposo Stinkadore? 'Tisn't safe for a puresouled, highminded 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

"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 leavegranted, I trust, Master Rattray, granted, I

truststudy thisthis 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 golfballs, 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"

"But to say that you stink, as certain lewd fellows of the baser sort aver, is to say nothingless than nothing.

In the absence of your beloved housemaster, for whom no one has a higher regard than myself, I will, if you

will allow me, explain the grossnessthe unparalleled enormitythe appalling fetor of the stenches (I

believe in the good old AngloSaxon 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,

"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

"You think yourself funny, don't you?" said Rattray, stung from his dignity by this last. "It's only a rat or

"Don't try to shuffle it off on a poor dumb animal, and dead, too. I loathe prevarication. 'Pon my soul,

"Hold on. The Hartoffles never said 'Pon my soul' in all his little life," said Beetle critically.

"Upon my word, sir, upon my word, sir, I expected better things of you, Rattray. Why can you not own up to

("It's not brutality," murmured little Hartopp, as though answering a question no one had asked. "It's boy;

"And this was the house," Stalky changed from a pecking, fluttering voice to tragic earnestness. "This was

thetheopen cesspit that dared to call us 'stinkers.' And nowand 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

"And what may you be doing here, my little friends?" the housemaster began. "I had a fleeting

notioncorrect me if I am wrong" (the listeners with one accord choked)"that if I found you outside my

"Yes, sir. We've been throwing golfballs," 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.

"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

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 socalled 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

"'Tis a cat, a dead cat!" Richards's face showed purple at the window. He had been in the chamber of death

"Cat be blowed!" cried McTurk. "It's a dead fag left over from last term. Three cheers for King's dead fag!"

"Show it, show it! Let's have a squint at it!" yelled the juniors. "Give her to the Bughunters." (This was the

Natural History Society). "The cat looked at the Kingand died of it! Hoosh! Yai! Yaow! Maiow! Ftzz!"

"Well, come on out for a walk," said Stalky in a wellchosen pause. "It's all very disgustin', and I do hope the

"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?"

Down in the basement, where the gas flickers and the boots stand in racks, Richards, amid his

blackingbrushes, held forth to Oke of the Commonroom, Gumbly of the dininghalls, and fair Lena of the

"Yiss. Her were in a shockin' staate an' condition. Her nigh made me sick, I tal 'ee. But I rowted un out, and I

"Then her moused different to any made cat o' God's world, Lena. I up with the topboard, an' she were lying

on her back, an' I turned un ovver with the brumehandle, 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

"Larned a little 'fore iver some maidens was born. Sarved in the Queen's Navy, I have, where yeou'm taught

"Ask me no questions, I'll give 'ee no lies. Bullethole clane thru from side to side, an' tu heartribs 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

They had dropped into the chaplain's study for a Saturday night smokeall four housemastersand 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,

bufferstate and general confidant, had worked for a week to bring about a good understanding. He was fat,

cleanshaven, 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 handiworkfour sorely tried men talking without

"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

"I can't admit that. I pulverize the egregious Beetle daily for his soul's good; and the others with him," said

"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 themI always said that that was entering the

"All I say is that you turned them out. That same evening your study was wrecked."

"Lastly, they conceive that aspersions are cast upon their personal cleanlinessa most delicate matter with

all boys. Very 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 ityou and Prout are made to appear as trespassers. You evict them. For a time your study is made

"She was under the centre of White's dormitory," said King. "There are double floorboards there to deaden

noise. No boy, even in my own house, could possibly have pried up the boards without leaving some

"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;

"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

"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; andfrankly, I think he

"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

"Our criminal tradition is not theftamong ourselves, at least," said little Hartopp.

"For the head of a house that raided seven head of cattle from the innocent potwallopers of Northam, isn't

"Precisely so," said Hartopp, unabashed. "That, with gatelifting, and a little poaching and hawkhunting on

"Than any hushedup 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 thansome 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

"You might, of course; but they have gone up the school together for six years. _I_ shouldn't care to do it,"

"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

"It rights itself at the exams. Then Beetle shows up blank sheets, and trusts to his 'English' to save him from a

"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'

"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 sickhouse last month"

"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

"It amounts to systematic cribbing," said Prout, his voice growing deeper and deeper.

"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

"I think your attitude in this matter is weak," said Prout, looking round for support. "It would be really better

"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 darebut I am going to think this out," said Prout. "It needs thought. In

"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

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 formrooms 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

"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 formroom, 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

"Yes! Heffy lurchin' into the formrooms 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.

"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 formrooms for a year. We've learned a lot since then. Oh, we'll make it a beautiful

house before we've done! 'Member that chap in 'Eric' or 'St. Winifred's'Belial somebody? I'm goin' to be

"Right O," said Beetle, "and I'll be Mammon. I'll lend money at usurythat'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,

"Head conspiraciesand cabalsand boycotts. Go in for that 'stealthy intrigue' that Heffy is always talkin'

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 housemaster has hove us out of our diggin's."

"This will never do," said Stalky. "We can't maintain our giddy prestige, Orrin, deah, if you make these

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 formroom, had gathered himself allies against vengeance. Orrin presently tore up at the

head of a boarding party, and the formroom 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

doorpanel, a window was broken, and a gasjet fell. Under cover of the confusion the three escaped to the

"Rescue, Kings! Kings! Kings! Number Twelve formroom! Rescue, ProutsProuts! Rescue, Macraes!

The juniors hurried out like bees aswarm, asking no questions, clattered up the staircase, and added

"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

"It was all your fault, you beast! You started it. We've got two hundred lines apiece, and Heffy's lookin' for

"I like your saying we started it. Who called us cribbers? Can't your infant mind connect cause and effect yet?

Stalky could not see Prout behind him, but returned the lead without a quaver. "I only owed you ninepence,

"You've forgotten the interest," said McTurk. "A halfpenny a week per bob is Beetle's charge. You must be

"Well, Beetle lent me sixpence." Stalky came to a full stop and made as to work it out on his fingers.

"Yes; hut you've forgotten you paid no interest on the other bobthe 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

"I didn't see you in that disgraceful affair in the formroom 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 seatfind another seat. D'you expect me to drynurse you? I wish to know whether you are in

"It is a most reprehensible habit. I thought that my house, at least, would be free from it. Even with my

"I am not going to bandy words with you on your notions of morality. How much have you lent Corkran?"

"II don't quite know," said Beetle. It is difficult to improvise a going concern on the spur of the minute.

"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 secondbest 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 moneylender. Two and fourpence,

"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 noteofhand,

and be thankful that I do not carry the matter any further. The money is stopped from your pocketmoney,

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 noteofhand?" said Beetle. "I only read about it in a book."

"Not him. He's too worried," said McTurk. "Sign your name on a bit of impotpaper, 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...

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 moneylending,

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 housemaster know. No names need be mentioned.

Beetle did not knowat least, he was not quite sure, sir. How could he give evidence against his friends?

The house might, of coursehere he feigned an anguished delicacybe 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 houseprefects would

"And," said the amateur Shylock, returning to the formroom and dropping at Stalky's side, "if he don't think

the house is putrid with it, I'm seveiral Dutchmenthat'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

After prayers, on the road to the dormitories, Harrison and Craye, senior houseprefects, zealous in their

office, waylaid them with great anger. "What have you been doing to Heffy this time, Beetle? He's been

"About Beetle lendin' money to Stalky," began Harrison; "and then Beetle went and told him that there was

"No, you don't," said Beetle, sitting on a bootbasket. "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

"Wellmeanin' man. Did it all for the best." Stalky curled gracefully round the stairrail. "Head in a

drainpipe. Full confession in the left boot. Bad for the honor of the housevery."

"Shut up," said Harrison. "You chaps always behave as if you were jawin' us when we come to jaw you."

"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."

"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 moneylenders. 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

"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

"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

"Then you hector and bullyrag us on the stairs," said Stalky, "about matters that are your business entirely.

"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

"I don't know. Onlyit always happens that way when one has anything to do with them. They're so beastly

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

So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any connection with any other establishment. Beetle promptly

went to his housemaster, and wished to know by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a matter

already settled between him and his housemaster. 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

"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 postoffice orderI cashed it at Keyte'sfor 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 seniorsfor the school had no tradition of deference to prefects outside

compulsory gamestold 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

When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its conscience, it breaks into knots and coteriessmall

gatherings in the twilight, boxroom 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

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 phrasescatchwords 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 housemaster 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 storiesunusual storiesare told in

the formrooms, between the lights, by a boy who does not command his confidence, agitates such a man;

and even elaborate and tender politenessfor the courtesy wisegrown men offer to a bewildered child was

"The tone of the house seems changedchanged for the worse," said Prout to Harrison and Craye. "Have

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 houseprefects 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

"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 salvationwith a light guiding hand on the reins, of course. But there is

a perceptible lack of reverencea lower tone in matters that touch the honor of the house, a sort of

Oh, Prout he is a nobleman, a nobleman, a nobleman! Our Heffy is a nobleman He does an awful lot,

Because his popularity Oh, popupopularity 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 formroom. The

"That's a thing no sensible man objects to," said Prout with a lopsided 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

"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 formrooms. 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,

"I think, sir," said Craye, plunging into the business boldly, "it would be a great deal better ff they wore sent

back to their studybetter for the house. They are rather old to be knocking about the formrooms."

"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

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 laughingstock 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 theirtheir lunacy. If they go back to their

"Hullo, Harrison." McTurk ambled round the corner, with a roving eye on all possible horizons. "Bearin' up,

"You look a little pensive," said McTurk. "Exhaustin' job superintendin' the honor of the house, ain't it? By

"Look here," said Harrison, hoping for instant reward. "We've recommended Prout to let you go back to your

"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 hardyou 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 backin secretwith ProutII don't know really what we ought to do."

"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 thisyou recommend that!

"Butbutwe thought you'd like it, Turkey. We did, indeed. You know you'll be ever so much more

"They're broke!" He hunted up Stalky and Beetle in a boxroom. "They're sick! They've been beggin' Heffy

"It's the olive branch," was Stalky's comment. "It's the giddy white flag, by gum! Come to think of it, we

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

formrooms 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

"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 housemaster 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

"I never knew such an ass as you are for justifyin' yourself," said McTurk. "I hope I jolly well skinned your

"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

"Never mind," said Stalky. "I knew we could make it a happy little house. I said so, rememberbut I swear I

"No," said Prout most firmly in Commonroom. "I maintain that Gillett is wrong. True, I let them return to

"With your known views on cribbing, too?" purred little Hartopp. "What an immoral compromise!"

"One moment," said the Reverend John. "Iweall of us have exercised an absolutely heartbreaking

discretion for the last ten days. Now we want to know. Confesshave 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

"I was forced to send them back. Their moral influence was unspeakablesimply unspeakable."

And bit by bit he told his tale, beginning with Beetle's usury, and ending with the houseprefects' appeal.

"Beetle in the _ro'le_ of Shylock is new to me," said King, with twitching lips. "I heard rumors of it"

"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

"Whywhywhy!" Mason, the mathematical master, stuttered, a fierce joy on his face, "you've been

"And so you held an inquiry?" Little Hartopp's voice drowned Mason's ere Prout caught the import of the

"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 houseprefectsand boys do not

willingly complain of each otherbesought 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.

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 officiallike

"You were under sentence," said the Reverend John. "I do not consort with malefactors."

"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 tonight.

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

"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

"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 formroom, 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.

"I got the notion out of that. Only, instead of a city, I made it the Coll. in a fogbesieged 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

"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

"You young demons!" the Reverend John replied. "And am I to understand that thethe usury business

"Wellwe 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, andand 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 pocketmoney just the same), and Beetle gave him my noteofhand all correct. I don't know what

"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 moneylendin', could I? I thought the houseprefects might know more about it than I did. They

"They did, tooby the time they'd finished," said McTurk. "As nice a pair of conscientious, wellmeanin',

upright, puresouled boys as you'd ever want to meet, Padre. They turned the house upside down Harrison

"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

"I'm not, sir. I'm givin' an illustrationsame as a sermon. These wrestlerchaps 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

"Well, I fancied I knew the normal range of your iniquities; hut if you take so much trouble to pile up

"We don't blame any one, Padre. We haven't said a word against Mr. Prout, have we?" Stalky looked at the

"H'm! You dissemble your love very well. Have you ever thought who got you turned out of your study in the

"Well, I was that man. I didn't mean it; but some words of mine, I'm afraid, gave Mr. Prout the impression"

"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."

"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

"My word! Mr. Prout's gone and told the Head," said Stalky. "He's a moral doubleender. Not fair, luggin' the

"I should recommend a copybook on ah'msafe and certain part," said the Reverend John

"Huh! He licks across the shoulders, an' it would slam like a beastly barndoor," said Beetle. "Goodnight,

Once more they stood in the presence of the HeadBelial, 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

"You've been bothering Mr. Prout," he said pensively. "Housemasters 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

"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.

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 thelower classes this would lay me open to a charge

ofassault. You should be more grateful for yourprivileges than you are. There is a limitone finds it by

experience, Beetlebeyond which it is never safe to pursue private vendettas, becausedon't

movesooner or later one comesinto collision with thehigher 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 toyour temperament. And that's all! You will tell your housemaster that you have been formally

"My word!" said McTurk, wriggling his shoulderblades all down the corridor. "That was business! The

"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

"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

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

"What are you doing down there?" Mr. Prout was at the head of the lavatory stairs, attracted by the noise of

"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

"But look here, why aren't we wrathy with the Head? He said it was a flagrant injustice. So it is!" said Beetle.

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

Commonroom, of a school where masters' studies are designedly dotted among studies and formrooms,

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

Behold him, then, in their only armchair, 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

"One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good," he said, twinkling and shaking all

"Raather, Padre! We could have proved it if he'd let us talk," said Stalky; "but he didn't. The Head's a downy

"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

"It isn't fair on the chaps," Stalky replied. "Makes 'em sulky. Of course it's different with you, sir. You belong

"Yees, but he took 'em after he came to the Coll. We saw him go up for his exam. That's all right," said

"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 usin that way."

"Huh!" said Beetle with a grunt. "They came here, an' they went away to get married. Jolly good riddance,

"No, Padre; don't make fun of me. I've met chaps in the holidays who've got married housemasters. 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 teapartiesteaparties, Padre!and ask the chaps to breakfast."

"That don't matter so much," said Stalky. "But the housemasters 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."

"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 bustup 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.

"And then"Stalky warmed to the work"everybody says, 'Who'd ha' thought it? Shockin' boys! Wicked

"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 seea nice separate house with a nice lady in charge, an' all that. But it

isn't. It takes the housemasters 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

"And so we want rather different masters, don't you think so, to other places? We aren't like the rest of the

"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 worldthe Commonroomis too much with you sometimes?"

"Not exactlyin summer, anyhow." Stalky's eye roved contentedly to the window. "Our bounds are pretty

"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

"And we generally know where the Commonroom are," said Beetle triumphantly. "Didn't you come through

"I went to smoke a pipe with your housemaster. No, I didn't give him any impressions. I took a short cut

"I sniffed a whiff of 'baccy, this mornin'. Yours is stronger than Mr. Prout's. _I_ knew," said Beetle, wagging

"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,

"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

"That's where you make a mistake. We're all inclined to say that everything is all right as long we aren't

"Fags bully each other horrid; but the upper forms are supposed to be swottin' for exams. They've got

"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 housemaster to see what lay under

"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 'corridorcaution' in the Coll., something's

"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."

"The genuine article don't do that in public," said Beetle. "Fairburn never touched me when any one was

"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.

Corkscrewsbrushdrillkeysheadknucklin' armtwistin'rockin'Ag Agsand all the rest of

"Yes. I do want you as an authority, or rather I want your authority to stop itall of you."

"What about Abana and Pharpar, PadreHarrison and Craye? They are Mr. Prout's pets," said McTurk a

"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

"Never mind. If the thing goes up to the prefects it may make another houserow. You've had one already.

Don't laugh. Listen to me. I ask youmy own Tenth Legionto take the thing up quietly. I want little

"Decent and selfrespecting. 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 toto dissuade him. That's all. I'll leave

"Young Clewer would give his eyes for a place to be quiet in. _I_ know that," said Beetle. "If we made him a

"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 jampots, anyhow; an' the burntporridge saucepanit'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

"Then we'll have to kick the whole of the lower school in our houseon 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

They drew the house formrooms, accounting for every junior and senior against whom they had suspicions;

investigated, at Beetle's suggestion, the lavatories and boxrooms, but without result. Everybody seemed to

"Well, I never thought it was a studychap, 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

"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 wargrin. "Sefton and Campbell! Um!

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 whiskersSefton owned a

"Shall we go in an' dissuade 'em?" McTurk asked. "I've never had much to do with 'em, but I'll bet my hat

"Noo! That's _oratio_directa_," said Stalky, shaking his head. "I like _oratio_obliqua_. 'Sides, where'd our

"Rot! What are you goin' to do?" Beetle turned into Lower Number Nine formroom, 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 doubleshufflethe

wardance of Stalky in meditation. Thrice he crossed the empty formroom, with compressed lips and

expanded nostrils, swaying to the quickstep. 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

"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 boxrope from somewhere. We'll tie him up for a kill_a'_la_

Galton. 'Member when 'Molly' Fairburn made us cockfight with our shoes off, an' tied up our knees?"

"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

cockfighting; but, in addition to the transverse stump between elbow and knee, His knees were bound with a

boxrope. 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

"Shut up, you brutes! Let me up! You've nearly cut my knees off. Oh, you _are_ beastly cads! _Do_ shut up.

"Give it to him, Turkey! Kick him! Roll him over! Kill him! Don't funk, Beetle, you brute. Kick him again,

"He's not blubbin' really. Roll up, Beetle, or I'll kick you into the fender," roared McTurk. They made a

"Hullo! What's the giddy jest?" Sefton and Campbell entered to find Beetle on his side, his head against the

"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' cockfight, you two.

Give me the stump. I'll tickle 'em. Here's a giddy jest! Come on, Campbell. Let's cook 'em."

"Have you chaps had a row?" said Campbell. "Row?" said Stalky. "Huh! I'm only educatin' them. D'you

"Do I know? Why, at Maclagan's, where I was crammin' in town, we used to cockfight in his

drawingroom, and little Maclagan daren't say anything. But we were just the same as men there, of course.

"Oh, lug 'em into our study," said Campbell. "It's nice an' quiet in there. I'll cockfight Turkey. This is an

"Right O! I move it's shoesoff for them an' shoeson for us," said Sefton joyously, and the two were flung

down on the study floor. Stalky rolled them behind an armchair. "Now I'll tie you two up an' direct the

bullfight. Golly, what wrists you have, Seffy. They're too thick for a wipe; got a boxrope?" 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 winnerssing odes in honor of the conqueror. You call yourself a

He wriggled into position by Campbell's side. Swiftly and scientifically the stumps were thrust through the

natural crooks, and the wrists tied with wellstretched boxropes to an accompaniment of insults from

McTurk, bound, betrayed, and voluble behind the chair. Stalky set away Campbell and Sefton, and strode

"What the devil?" Sefton began. Beetle's false tears had ceased; McTurk, smiling, was on his feet.

Stalky took the armchair and contemplated the scene with his blandest smile. A man trussed for

"'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

"You'll see in two shakes," said McTurk. "Don't swear like that. What we want to know is, why you two

"What did you bully Clewer for?" The question was repeated with maddening iteration by each in turn. They

"Because we jolly well chose!" was the answer at last. "Let's get up." Even then they could not realize the

"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?"

"Ah," said Beetle reflectively, "that shows you've never been properly jested with. A public lickin' ain't in it

"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 Headknuckles?"

"Did you give Clewer Headknuckles?" McTurk echoed. At the twentieth repetitionno boy can stand the

torture of one unvarying query, which is the essence of bullying came confession.

"Then you'll be knuckled;" and knuckled they were, according to ancient experience. Headknuckling is no

"Did you give Clewer Brushdrill?" This time the question was answered sooner, and Brushdrill was dealt

out for the space of five minutes by Stalky's watch. They could not even writhe in their bonds. No brush is

The torture of the Keywhich has no key at allhurts excessively. They endured several minutes of it, and

They were corkscrewed, and the torture of the Corkscrewthis has nothing to do with corkscrews is

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, Isabellacolored handkerchiefs were

"Now are those all the things you did to Clewer? Take out the gag, Turkey, and let 'em answer."

"Precisely 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 stickup collars an' patentleather boots, an'

you think you can teach us something about bullying. Do you think you can teach us anything about

It needs three beys and two boxinggloves 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

"Put him away," said Stalky. "Bring on Campbell. Now this _is_ bullyin'. Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, what

"'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' He says he don't know. Set him up, Beetle. Give me the glove an'

"I believe I'm goin' to die!" he gasped. "He says he is goin' to die. Put him away. Now, Sefton! Oh, I forgot!

The answer is unprintable; but it brought not the faintest flush to Stalky's downy cheek.

And an Ag Ag was he made, forthwith. The hardbought experience of nearly eighteen years was at his

"He says we are sweeps. Put him away! Now, Campbell! Oh, I forgot! I say, Campbell, what did you bully

Then came the tearsscalding 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 againto an accompaniment

"Or any one else. What about that lickin' you and Sefton were goin' to give us?"

"He says he won't lick us. Do you esteem yourself to know anything about bullyin'?"

"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

"'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."

"I'llI'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 nickelplated shavingcup, and settled Sefton's head between Stalky's viselike

"Hold on a shake," said Beetle, "you can't shave long hairs. You've got to cut all that mustache short first, an'

"Well, I'm not goin' to hunt about for scissors. Won't a match do? Chuck us the matchbox. 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

"That's all right." Beetle waved the brush. "I'll lather up to the middlesee? and you can burn off the rest."

The thinhaired first mustache of youth fluffed off in flame to the latherline 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

"Now the whisker on the other side. Turn him over!" Between match and razor this, too, was removed. "Give

But there were no words. Sefton gazed at the lopsided wreck in horror and despair. Two fat tears rolled

"Leave me alone! Oh, you infernal bullies, leave me alone! Haven't I had enough?"

"He says we are bullies, an' we haven't even begun yet," said Beetle. "You're ungrateful, Seffy. Golly! You

"Well, to work, to work!" chanted McTurk, waving a stump. "Come on, my giddy Narcissus. Don't fall in

Sefton cried like a twelveyearold 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"

"What? for a little bullyin'same as you've been givin' Clewer! How long have you been jestin' with him?"

"You did when you could catch him," said Beetle, crosslegged on the floor, dropping a stump from time to

"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 gotfor bein' a beast. Just

"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 boxrooms. Shove their

heads into the ulsters an' blub. Write home three times a dayyes, you brute, I've done thataskin' 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

"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, teartracks furrowing the dried lather. Crack

"Blind, am I," said Beetle, "and a beast? Shut up, Stalky. I'm goin' to jape a bit with our friend, _a'_la_

"The point is well taken," said McTurk, watching the strap at work. "You'd better say that he sees, Seffy."

"You doyou 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.

"You don't know your mind from one minute to another. You must learnyou must learn."

"_Pax_oh, _pax_!" cried Sefton; "make it _pax_. I'll give up! Let me off! I'm broke! I can't stand it!"

From the floor Sefton made unconditional surrender, more abjectly even than Campbell He would never

"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."

"'Course you have. Now you're goin' to do what we tell yousame as Clewer would. If you hadn't

surrendered you'd ha' been really bullied. Havin' surrendereddo you follow, Seffy?you sing odes in

They dropped into chairs luxuriously. Campbell and Sefton looked at each other, and, neither taking comfort

"Vile bad," said Stalky, as the miserable wailing ended. "If you hadn't surrendered it would have been our

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

"Cacan't he shave clean before tea, please?" said Campbell. "It's ten minutes to bell."

McTurk yawned in his chair and Beetle mopped his face. They were all dripping with excitement and

"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 cockeye whiskers. Horrid

"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. "Goodby, Campbell. 'Member, if you don't talk, nobody will."

There should have been a wardance, but that all three were so utterly tired that they almost went to sleep

"A most extraordinary letter. Are all parents incurably mad? What do you make of it?" said the Head,

"'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 sickhouse; whereas he is disgustingly well.

"You haven't to answer her. It isn't often I don't know what has happened in the school; but this is beyond

"If you asked me I should say seek not to propitiate. When one is forced to take crammers' pups"

"He was perfectly well at extratuitionwith methis morning," said the Head, absently. "Unusually well

"they either educate the school, or the school, as in this case, educates them. I prefer our own methods,"

"I'm sure of it! And nothing excuses his trying to give the College a bad name."

A few days later the Reverend John called on Number Five. "Why haven't we seen you before, Padre?" said

"I've been watching times and seasons and events and menand boys," he replied. "I am pleased with my

Tenth Legion. I make them my compliments. Clewer was throwing inkballs in form this morning, instead of

"You can't blame us, sir," said Beetle. "You told us to remove theerpressure. That's the worst of a fag."

"I've known boys five years his senior throw inkballs, Beetle. To such an one have I given two hundred

linesnot so long ago. And now I come to think of it, were those lines ever shown up?"

"I have noticed the moral reform in several quarters. Didn't I tell you you had more influence than any boys

"It's a trifle exhaustin' to use frequentour kind of moral suasion. Besides, you see, it only makes Clewer

A downward puff of smoke. "Boys educate each other, they say, more than we can or dare. If I had used one

"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_!"

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 boundsthe infection had been traced to an outlying

farmhouseurged 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 schoolaverage 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 dogcart drove to the Head's door, and in the morning the Head had gone, leaving all

things in charge of Mr. King, senior housemaster. 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

"Downy old bird!" said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in the study. "He must have gone on a bend and

"Forty shillin's or a month for hackin' the chuckerout 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

"'Crass an' materialized brutality of the middleclassesreadin' solely for marks. Not a scholar in the whole

school,'" McTurk quoted, pensively boring holes in the mantelpiece 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 palaverfashion. Hand it round, eh? Let's lie up behind the old harrow on

"Out of bounds. Bounds beastly strict these days, too. Besides, we shall cat." Beetle sniffed the cheroot

They saw a group of boys by the noticeboard 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

"He was in my old regiment," said Foxy, jerking his head towards the notices, where a newspaper cutting was

"By gum!" quoth Stalky, uncovering as he read. "It's old DuncanFatSow Duncankilled 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?"

"Poor old FatSow! 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,

"Wonder how it feelsto be shot and all that," said Stalky, as they splashed down a lane. "Where did it

"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 beeastly cold. It's beeastly 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 waterlogged clods, and

sat down on a rustcoated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly,

"Good job we hadn't one apiece, ain't it?" said Stalky, shivering through set teeth. To prove his words he

"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

"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 cherootend reeking under their very cold noses. Thenthey

had heard nothingthe Head himself stood before themthe Head who should have been in town bribing

"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 extraspecial licking. You will

then do me five hundred lines. I shall be back tomorrow. Five hundred lines by five o'clock tomorrow.

You are also gated for a week. This is not exactly the time for breaking bounds. Extraspecial, please."

He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had come. There was a murmur of women's voices in the deep

"Oh, you Prooshan brute!" said McTurk as the voices died away. "Stalky, it's all your silly fault."

"I caan't. I'm going to cat again... I don't mind that, but King'll gloat over us horrid. Extraspecial, ooh!"

Stalky made no answernot 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

"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?"

"Well, it was all Stettson major's fault. If he hadn't gone an' got diphtheria 'twouldn't have happened. But

"Shut up! You're dead!" said Beetle. "We've chopped your spurs off your beastly heels. We've cocked your

shield upside down andand I don't think you ought to be allowed to brew for a month."

"Stop? Whywhy, 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 laneI heard her. And so we were ordered a lickin' before a dayboy's mother. Bony old

"Looks like it," said McTurk. "Extraspecial, week's gatin' and five hundred... and now you're goin' to row

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 publicschool 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 littleso 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

surprisednot 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

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

"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

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

"Am I to understand it is your intention to allow boardschool games under your study windows, Flint? If so,

"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

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 firstclass row. Crammers' rejections, illregulated hobbledehoys, wasn't it?

"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 extratu. 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."

"Well, seems to me that we should be interferin' with ourselves. We've got to get into the Army orget 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 afterdinner cheroot

to Flint's study; but he so often began an evening in a prefect's room that nobody suspected when he drifted in

"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 halfcouch 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 extratuition. It might also mean future success at Sandhurst; but it was present ruin for the

"Yes, I've come for my pound of flesh. I ought to have had you out before the Exeter match; but it's our

"Isn't the Old Boys' match sacred, too, sir?" said Perowne. The Old Boys' match was the event of the Easter

"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?"

"And all to be cut up by those vile Afghans, too," said Dawson. "Wouldn't think there'd be so much

"Oh, that reminds me. Crandall is coming down with the Old BoysI'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,

"No, the minor'Toffee' Crandallin a native infantry regiment. He was almost before your time,

"The papers didn't say anything about him. We read about FatSow, of course. What's Crandall done. sir?"

"I've brought over an Indian paper that his mother sent me. It was rather ahefty, I think you saypiece of

work. Shall I read it?" The Head knew how to read. When he had finished the quartercolumn of close type

"Good for the old Coll.!" said Perowne. "Pity he wasn't in time to save FatSow, though. That's nine to us,

"Yes... And I took old Duncan off all games for extratu. five years ago this term," said the Head. "By the

"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.

"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 walkover. Let's promote all the Second Fifteen and make Big Side play up. There's

The case was represented so urgently to the school that even Stalky and McTurk, who affected to despise

football, played one BigSide 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 matchteam was

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

fullblownwho had been to the ends of the earth and back again and so carried no sidecame 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 schoolsergeant, telling news of old regiments; they would burst into

formrooms sniffing the wellremembered 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

Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was fatherconfessor and agentgeneral to them all; for

what they shouted in their unthinking youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhoodto wit, that the

Prooshan Bates was "a downy bird." Young blood who had stumbled into an entanglement with a

pastrycook's daughter at Plymouth; experience who had come into a small legacy but mistrusted lawyers;

ambition halting at crossroads, anxious to take the one that would lead him farthest; extravagance pursued

by the moneylender; 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

"Don't stop smoking for a minute," said the Head. "The more you're out of training the better for us. I've

"Ah, but we're a scratch lot. Have you told 'em we shall need a substitute even if Crandall can play?" said a

"He wrote me he'd play, so he can't have been much hurt. He's coming down tomorrow 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

"I'm afraid he'll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know old boys can claim that privilege. Yes, I think

"Bates Sahib "a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head's neck"you've got something up your sleeve.

"Can't you see, you cuckoo?" a Submarine Miner interrupted. "Crandall goes up to the dormitory as an

That opened the floodgates of fresh memories, and they all told tales out of school.

When Crandall minor that wasLieutenant R. Crandall of an ordinary Indian regimentarrived 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 formroom, departing in a haze of inkpots.

"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 armshorrid purply ones. He's

"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

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 dayboys too close to the

touchline 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 manylegged 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 menthey passed a ponycarriage

near the wall, and a husky voice cried, "Well played. Oh, played indeed!" It was Stettson major,

whitechecked and holloweyed, who had fought his way to the ground under escort of an impatient

"Oh, yes. I'm all right. They wouldn't let me out before, but I had to come to the match. Your mouth looks

"Turkey trod on it accidentaldoneapurpose. Well, I'm glad you're better, because we owe you something.

"He came just the same, and he about saved my life. I was all bunged up one nightjust goin' to croak, the

doctor saidand they stuck a tube or somethin' in my throat, and the Head sucked out the stuff."

"He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the doctor said. So he stayed on at our house instead of going back.

Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up and nearly ran over the three.

"Pretty average!" McTurk's knee in the small of his back cannoned him into Stalky, who punted him back.

"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. Extraspecial,

"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, toomajors, minors, and tertiuses, after

"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

The setting of that apotheosis was a tenbed 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

"Same old bedsame 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

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 prayersa ceremony he had neglected for some years.

"Please don't bother," said the prefect of the dormitory. "Worthington does that."

A nightgowned twelveyearold, who had been waiting to show off, leaped from his bed to the bracket and

"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,

"Be quiet, you ass!... Squattezvous on the floor, then!... I swear you aren't going to sit on _my_ bed!... Mind

StaCorkran said," the prefect began, his tone showing his sense of Stalky's insolence, "that perhaps you'd

"There's nothing to tell. What on earth are you chaps hoppin' about in the cold for?"

"Well, about three months ago he was commanding a treasureguarda cart full of rupees to pay troops

withfive thousand rupees in silver. He was comin' to a place called Fort Pearson, near Kalabagh."

"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 Afridisthey're

an awfully suspicious gang thought the retreat was a trapsort of draw, you knowand 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, andfunny

thing, toohe said, 'Hullo, Toffee!' and I said, 'Hullo, FatSow! hope you aren't hurt,' or something of the

kind. But he died in a minute or twonever lifted his head off my knees... I say, you chaps out there will get

"That was when we were taking the body back to the Fort. They came on again, and there was a bit of a

The unseen crowds withdrew. His own dormitory rustled into bed and lay silent for a while.

"Suppose a chap found another chap croaking with diphtheriaall bunged up with itand they stuck a tube

"Um," said Crandall, reflectively. "I've only heard of one case, and that was a doctor. He did it for a woman."

"Wellah! 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 houseit lay, as you know, next door but one to

Prout's in the long range of buildingshad 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 socalled young men of tile world to contaminate the morals of boyhood. Very good, said the

"Well, I'm awf'ly sorry," said Crandall guiltily. "I don't think I told 'em anything they oughtn't to hear. Don't

"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

housemasters. 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 studyboys, regular prep. tonight; and the

"Prep. on the last night of the term. Whew!" said Crandall, thinking of his own wild youth. "I fancy there will

The school, frolicking among packed trunks, whooping down the corridor, and "gloating" in formrooms,

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

formrooms, and they would take their degraded holiday task with them, buthere they smiled and

speculated what manner of man the Commonroom 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 formrooms, in which all below the rank of studyboys

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 formrooms away, turned

out the gas and threw inkpots. It was a pleasant and stimulating "prep." The studyboys and prefects heard

Stalky waited, watch in hand, till halfpast eight. "If it goes on much longer the Head will come up," said he.

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 formroom

"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 ff 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

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

When the Head of a limited liability company, paying four per cent., is cheered on his saintly way to prayers,

not only by four formrooms 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 housemaster glares like an excited cat and points

out to a white and trembling mathematical master that certain methodsnot his, thank Godusually

produce certain results. Out of delicacy the Old Boys did not attend that callover; and it was to the school

"It is not often that I do not understand you; but I confess I do not tonight. 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."

Crashcrashcrashcame 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

"For your behavior towards Mr. Mason I intend to lick the whole of the Upper School tomorrow when I

give you your journeymoney. This will include the three studyboys I found dancing on the formroom

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

"Um, I see. Then that noise was not meant forah, 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,

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

"It's all right, Head Sahib. _We_ know," said Crandall, as the Head slipped off his gown with a grunt in his

smokingroom. "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.

"Oh, I know _him_, thank you," said the Head, and reflectively. "Yees, I should have included them even if

"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,

"I always knew you were worth twenty of us any day. Now I'm sure of it," said the Squadron Commander,

"He isn't fit to manage a school, though. Promise you'll never do it again, Bates Sahib. Wewe can't go

"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 golfclub heard them singing 'Aaron and Moses.' I shall have

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 journeymoney on the table. The Head began with Stalky,

They shook hands. "Desire don't outrun performancemuchthis mornin'. We got the cream of it," said

"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

"Didn't I say I'd get even with him?" said Stalky on the boxseat, as they swung into the narrow Northam

street. "Now all togethertakin' 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!"

It was winter and bitter cold of mornings. Consequently Stalky and BeetleMcTurk being of the offensive

type that makes ornate toilet under all circumstancesdrowsed till the last moment before turning out to

callover in the gaslit 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

paradeground. "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 quartersbut I see we 'ave the Old Brigade on our 'ands this afternoon. If I

"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, halfturn! Slowmarch." Twentyfive

sluggards, all old offenders, filed into the gymnasium. "Quietly provide yourselves with the requisite

dumbbells; 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 dumbbells rose and fell, clashed and were returned as one. The boys were experts at the weary game.

"Very good. I shall be sorry when any of you resume your 'abits of punctuality. Quietly return dumbbells.

"It would he 'ighly to your discredit if you did not, Muster Corkran. _At_ the same time, it is not so easy as it

"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.

They were formed into fours, marched, wheeled, and countermarched, the spell of ordered motion strong on

The Sergeant, leading a wheel, did not see. "Not so bad," he murmured. "Not 'arf so bad. The pivotman 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

"Excellentexcellent. I only wish there were more of it," he chirruped. "Don't let me interrupt. You were

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, K.C.B.He commanded the Pompadoursmy father's old regiment," hissed Swayne major.

"Take your time," said the visitor. "_I_ know how it feels. Your first drilleh?"

"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 StalkyStalky in

"He does you credit, Sergeant," was the visitor's comment. "A good drilland good material to drill. Now,

it's an extraordinary thing: I've been lunching with your headmaster and he never told me you had a

"But aren't they keen on it?" said McTurk, speaking for the first time, with a twinkle in his deepset eyes.

"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. "II ought to have told you, sir, that"

"But you should have a cadetcorps." The General pursued his own line of thought. "You _shall_ have a

cadetcorps, too, if my recommendation in Council is any use. I don't know when I've been so pleased. Boys

"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

"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

"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

"Ah," said Stalky, annexing it, for he was treasurer. "We'll have a hefty brew. You'd pretty average cool

"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

"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

SergeantMajor in a cavalry regiment, and now, warworn veteran, was local postmaster and confectioner.

"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' businessbounds an' smokin', an' such likeI 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

"But he'll have to be late three times a week," said Beetle. "You can't expect a chap to do thatjust to please

"Ah, that's true. Still, if you could manage itand you, Muster Beetleit would give you a big start when

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

"Nono. I'd take your word any day, Muster Corkran.In the Pompadours, was he, Sergeant? We lay with

"Say one an' fourpence, Muster Corkran... Of course, Sergeant, if it was any use to give my time, I'd be

"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! TerroopSergeantMajor Keyte,

"Yesyes, of course. Seven an' six." He stared abstractedly, pushed the silver over, and melted away into the

"Old Keyte was at Sobraon," said Stalky. "Hear him talk about that sometimes! Beats Foxy hollow."

"I have my doubts about itthat'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. Itit isn't the temper of

"My businessin _this_ matteris to carry out the wishes of the Council. They demand a volunteer

cadetcorps. A volunteer cadetcorps 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

"Yes, that is necessary in a school that uses loaded saloonpistols to the extent we do." The Reverend John

"Kindly keep your 'ands off the new armrack." 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! After all you've learned? Come on! Don't be a scab! They'll make you corporal in a week," cried

"Herein the gymtill you are fit an' capable to be taken out on the road." The Sergeant threw a chest.

"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 cadetcorps?"

"It will save you a lot o' time at Sandburst," the Sergeant replied promptly. "You'll be dismissed your drills

"Hm! 'Don't mind learnin' my drill, but I'm not goin' to ass about the country with a toy Snider. Perowne,

"Don't know whether I've the time," said Perowne. "I've got no end of extratu as it is."

"Well, call this extratu," 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

"Afraid the uniform won't suit your creamy complexion?" McTurk asked with a villainous sneer.

"No, but I'm goin' to send a substitute. Hi! Morrell an' Wake! You two fags by the armrack, you've got to

Blushing deeplythey had been too shy to apply beforethe youngsters sidled towards the Sergeant.

"But I don't want the little chapsnot at first," said the Sergeant disgustedly. "I wantI'd like some of the

"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 vaultinghorse, 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 fagseach no taller than a carbine. "Here you are, Foxy. Here's

food for powder. Strike for your hearths an' homes, you young brutesan' be jolly quick about it."

Here Beetle joined in. They had found the poem in an old volume of "Punch," and it seemed to cover the

"You be quiet, young gentlemen. If you can't 'elpdon'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,

Half a dozen of the earnestminded rushed at them, and they had just time to escape into the corridor.

"What's the good? We aren't goin' up for the Army. Besides, I know the drillall except the manual, of

"Makin' a treaty with Foxy. Didn't you hear Stalky say: 'That's what we'll doan' 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

"Well, I don't know. I thought of doin' a poem about itrottin' 'em, you know'The Ballad of the

"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 noticeboard now. Let's lure him." They strolled up carelessly towards the

"How's this?" said King with a start of feigned surprise. "Methought you would be learning to fight for your

"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 Societyone must not say Bughunters."

"Oh, I suppose so, sir," said McTurk, cheerily. "The Head hasn't said anything about it yet, but he will, of

"It is just possible, my Beetle," King wheeled on the last speaker, "that the housemastersa necessary but

somewhat neglected factor in our humble scheme of existencemay 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 procadetcorps 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

"Hullo, my ramrodbunger!" 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!"

"Well, listen to your Uncle Stalkywho 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

"I knew you'd make a sort of extratu of it, you coldblooded brute," said McTurk. "Don't you want to die

"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."

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.

"My orders are, I am to give the name of anybody who interfered with me on my post, to the corps, an' they'd

"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

"My ordcrs are, not to talk except to explain my ordersthey'll lick me if I do."

"I swear Stalky _is_ a great man," said Beetle after a long pause. "One consolation is that this sort of

It troubled many more than King, but the members of the corps were muter than oysters. Foxy, being bound

"I never come across such nonsense in my life. They've tiled the lodge, inner and outer guard, all complete,

"To learn their drill. You never saw anything like it. They begin after I've dismissed 'empractisin' tricks;

but out into the open they will _not_ comenot for ever so. The 'ole thing is preposterous. If you're a

"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 Volunteersergeant, thank Godbut I've always had

"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 frecklefaced young Corkran. He's their generalissimo."

One does not refuse a warrior of Sobraon, or deny the only pastrycook within bounds. So Keyte came, by

invitation, leaning upon a stick, tremulous with old age, to sit in a corner and watch.

At the "breakoff" the ranks stood fast. Perowne fell out, faced them, and, refreshing his memory by

glimpses at a redbound, metalclasped 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

"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 bleareyed, herrin'gutted guttersnipes. It's no pleasure to me to

comb you out. That ought to have been done before you came here, youyou militia broomstealers."

"The old touchthe old touch. _We_ know it," said Keyte, wiping his rheumy eyes. "But where did he pick

"From his fatheror 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 backtalk since this volunteerin' nonsense

"There's a rearrank man lookin' as though his belly were in the pawnshop. Yes, you, Private Ansell," and

"Hullo!" He returned to his normal tone. "First blood to me. You flushed, Ansell. You wriggled."

"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 drawlhis style was more reflective than Stalky'sdescended the

"Blood to me!" he shouted triumphantly. "You couldn't stand it, either." Stalky was a rich red, and his Snider

"I didn't think I would," he said, struggling for composure, "but after a bit I got in no end of a bait. Curious,

"Good for the temper," said the slowmoving Hogan, as they returned arms to the rack.

"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 wellextremely well

"If I could get 'em out into the open, there's nothing I couldn't do with 'em, Major. Perhaps when the uniforms

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 cadetcorps 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

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

Parliamenta 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 cadetcorps for his text, spoke

a few words"Just talked to the boys a littleeh? 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."

"Ah! but times changewith the spread of education and so on. The boys of today are the men of

tomorrow. An impression in youth is likely to be permanent. And in these times, you know, with the

"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 today made the men of tomorrow. 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

"And I don't think I am very far wrong in that last," he confided to the Reverend John. "Do you happen to

"I was at College with a man of that name," the chaplain replied. "He was without form and void, so far as I

"If there is one thing our boys detest more than another it is having their Saturday evenings broken into.

"Nor art either. D'you remember our 'Evening with Shakespeare'?" The Head's eyes twinkled. "Or the

"An' who the dooce is this Raymond Martin, M.P.?" demanded Beetle, when he read the notice of the lecture

"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

"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 RomeoRomeo 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.

There was no nervousness, but a brisk and cheery affability about Mr. Raymond Martin, M.P., as he drove

"Looks a bit of a bargee," was McTurk's comment. "Shouldn't be surprised if he was a Radical. He rowed the

"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 gasjet 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 jobthe Commonroom hate this as much as we do. Watch King wrigglin' to get out of the

"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

throatya tall, generously designed, pinkandwhite 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

Philistinea Boppera Jebusitean' 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 schoolits tradition or heritage. He did not know that the last census

showed that eighty per cent. of the boys had been born abroadin camp, cantonment, or upon the high seas;

or that seventyfive per cent. were sons of officers in one or other of the servicesWilloughbys, Paulets, De

Castros, Maynes, Randalls, after their kindlooking to follow their fathers' profession. The Head might have

told him this, and much more; but, after an hourlong dinner in his company, the Head decided to say

He plunged into his speech with a longdrawn, 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

personssome people thought them rather funny personsas they had been in his youth.

But they must remember that they would not always be boys. They would grow up into men, because the

boys of today made the men of tomorrow, and upon the men of tomorrow the fair fame of their glorious

"If this goes on, my beloved 'earers, it will be my painful duty to rot this bargee." Stalky drew a long breath

And so they ought to think of the duties and responsibilities of the life that was opening before them. Life

was not allhe enumerated a few games, and, that nothing might be lacking to the sweep and impact of his

There was one tense gaspamong the juniors almost a shriekof quivering horror, he was a heathenan

outcastbeyond the extremest pale of tolerationselfdamned 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

doubtsome of them anxiously looked forward to leading their men against the bullets of England's foes; to

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 wellintentioned 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 themthe rending voice cut a frozen stillnessmight 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 breakfastroom 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

And so he worked towards his perorationwhich, by the way, he used later with overwhelming success at a

meeting of electorswhile they sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many, many words, he

reached for the clothwrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. Thisthis was the concrete symbol of

their landworthy 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 thema large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colors,

They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing beforedown at the coastguard station, or through

a telescope, halfmast high when a brig went ashore on Braunton Sands; above the roof of the Golfclub, 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

"And I am sure," he concluded, the gaslight full on his face, "that you will all join me in a very hearty vote of

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 prayerbell 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 Commonroom, standing back on the dais, could not see the glaring offence, but a prefect left the line,

Then, as though he had touched a spring, broke out the low murmur of content, changing to quickvolleyed

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 boardschool, where they played marbles. He was

further (I give the barest handful from great store) a Flopshus Cad, an Outrageous Stinker, a Jellybellied

Flagflapper (this was Stalky's contribution), and several other things which it is not seemly to put down.

The volunteer cadetcorps fell in next Monday, depressedly, with a face of shame. Even then, judicious

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

Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead silence, and fell out. His example was followed by Hogan and

"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."

The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as boy after boy fell out.

"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

JellyBellied FlagFlapper, 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?"

"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

"I knew you were blubbin'," Beetle replied, composedly. "Why aren't you at drill?"

putridcorruptstinkin'. An' if you look at me like that, Beetle, I'll slay you too... Oh, yes, an' I'm goin'

It was within a few days of the holidays, the termend 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 Spongeand 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 brownbound, tobaccoscented library; prohibiting nothing, recommending nothing. There

Beetle found a fat armchair, 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

songsPeacock 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 verseCrashaw; Dryden; Alexander Smith; L. E. L.; Lydia Sigourney;

Fletcher and a purple island; Donne; Marlowe's "Faust "; andthis made McTurk (to whom Beetle conveyed

it) sheer drunk for three daysOssian; "The Earthly Paradise"; "Atalanta in Calydon"; and Rossettito

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 halfshut 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 newlit 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 longridged

Thanks in large part to their housemaster's experienced distrust, the three for three consecutive terms had

been passed over for promotion to the rank of prefectan office that went by merit, and carried with it the

"_But_," said Stalky, "come to think of it, we've done more giddy jesting with the Sixth since we've been

He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of stickup 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 housemasters, 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 patentleather boots on weekdays,

and marvellous madeup ties on Sundaysno 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

"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 knewI never knew. One don't begin with writing straight off, y'know. Begin by filling in telegrams

"Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you'll make of it," said Stalky. "But, anyhow, this will be your last

"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

"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 today that if I were more reasonable yah!I might be a prefect next term. I s'ppose

"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

"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

Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace released from five o'clock callover, and all the

afternoon lay before them. So also unluckily did King, who never passed without witticisms. But brigades of

"Aha! Enjoying the study of light literature, my friends," said he, rubbing his hands. "Common mathematics

"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. Yees, Latin prose. I think, if I may say sobut

we shall see when the papers are set'Ulpian serves your need.' Aha! '_Elucescebat_, quoth our friend.' We

Still no sign from Beetle. He was on a steamer, his passage paid into the wide and wonderful worlda

"He doesn't know. He'll go on correctin' exercises an' jawin' an' showin' off before the little boys next

termand next." Beetle hurried after his companions up the steep path of the furzeclad hill behind the

They were throwing pebbles on the top of the gasometer, and the grimy gasman in change bade them desist.

"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

"Hullo! Where are you chaps going?" A bend of the lane brought them face to face with Tulke, senior prefect

of King's housea smallish, whitehaired 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.

"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.

"II want to know what you chaps are doing out of bounds?" This with an important flourish of his

"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 dogcart with some girls in it swept round the corner, and Stalky promptly kneeled

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" shouted Beetle, after the manner of Bideford's town crier, "Tulke has reason to believe!

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!"

"That means a prefects' meetingsure 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

"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 does if you don't duck," said McTurk. "But she generally kisses one back. Let's try Mother Yeo."

They sought a little bottlewindowed half dairy, half restaurant, a darkbrewed, twohundredyearold

house, at the head of a narrow side street. They had patronized it from the days of their fagdom, and were

"We've come to pay our debts, mother," said Stalky, sliding his arm round the fiftysixinch waist of the

mistress of the establishment. "To pay our debts and say goodbyandand we're awf'ly hungry."

"'Rackon us wouldn't du no such thing if Mary was here," said McTurk, lapsing into the broad North Devon

"Who'm takin' my name in vain?" The inner door opened, and Mary, fairhaired, blueeyed, and

applechecked, entered with a bowl of cream in her bands. McTurk kissed her. Beetle followed suit, with

"Niver kiss the maid when 'e can kiss the mistress," said Stalky, shamelessly winking at Mother Yeo, as he

"Glad to see one of 'ee don't want his head slapped no more?" said Mary invitingly, in that direction.

"Niver asked 'ee. There's maids to Northam. Yissan' Appledore." An unreproducible sniff, half contempt,

"Aie! Yeou won't niver come to no good end. Whutt be 'baout, smellin' the cream?"

"They'm better to Northammore rich, laike an' us gets them give back again," he said, while McMcTurk

solemnly waltzed Mother Yeo out of breath, and Beetle told Mary the sad news, as they sat down to clotted

"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

"They've niver put us out o' bounds," said Mother Yeo. "Bide yeou still, my little dearrs." She rolled into the

"Zee 'un comin' up street, then?" Stalky pointed to the unconscious Tulke. "He've niver been kissed by no sort

"Whutt's to do with me? 'Twill come to 'un in the way o' nature, I rackon." She nodded her head sagaciously.

"Aie!" Beetle echoed, knowing her weak point. "There's not a maid to Northam 'ud think twice. An' yeou

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 Devonthat county

of easy kisses, the pleasantest under the sun. He dodged aside politely. She reflected a moment, and laid a

Over the handkerchief he had crammed into his mouth Stalky could see the boy turn scarlet.

Tulke gasped and wheeled. Solemnly and conscientiously Mary kissed him twice, and the luckless prefect

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 tuminded to cry, like."

As they went out with tingling cars, said Stalky generally, "Don't think there'll be much of a prefects'

"Won't there, just!" said Beetle. "Look here. If he kissed herwhich is our tackhe is a cynically immoral

hog, and his conduct is blatant indecency. _Confer_orationes_Regis_furiosissimi_, when he collared me

"'Course he kissed her," said McTurk. "In the middle of the street. With his housecap on!"

"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

"Don't play the giddy gardengoat, 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

The school paper in its locked formes lay on a stonetopped 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

"You won't show off like that," said McTurk, "when you've got to do it for your living. Upside down and

"Get out!" said Beetle. "Go and read those formes in the rack there, if you think you know so much."

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

"Think o' the puresouled, highminded 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,

"Can't read the beastly stuff, anyhow," was the reply. "Besides, we're leavin' at the end o' the term, so it

"'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

"Don't see now you can make Latin prose much more cockeye than it is, but we'll try," said Beetle,

transposing an _aliud_ and _Asiae_ from two sentences. "Let's see! We'll put that fullstop 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

"Good old Dolabella," murmured Stalky. "Don't break him. Vile prose Cicero wrote, didn't he? He ought to

"Hullo!" said McTurk, over another forme. "What price a giddy ode? _Qui__quis_ oh, it's

"Bring it along. We've sugared the milk here," said Stalky, after a few minutes' zealous toil. "Never thrash

"_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

"'Aha! Elucescebat, quoth our friend.' Ulpian serves my need, does it? If King can make anything out of

_that_, I'm a blueeyed squatteroo," said Beetle, as they slid out of the loft window into a back alley of old

acquaintance and started on a threemile 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

"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."

"'Bishops' boots Mr. Radcliffe also condemned, an' spoke 'ighly in favor of tops cleaned with champagne an'

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 Golfclub 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 diningrooms

chorused, "Gas! gas! gas!" till they came to the edge of the sunk path that divided them from their study.

Dropping that haha 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

"'Hellish dark and smells of cheese.'" Stalky elbowed his way into the press, howling lustily for gas. "Cokey

Prout, as the nearest housemaster, was trying to restore order, for rude boys were flicking butterpats across

chaos, and McTurk had turned on the fags' teaurn, 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 knifehandles; and the junior forms shrilled batlike shrieks and raided one

another's victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high condition, seeking for more light, are truly earnest

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

It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, straightminded 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

"How are we goin' to jest with 'em?" said Stalky, turning halfface 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

McTurk's lank frame stiffened in every muscle and his eyelids dropped half over his eyes. That last was a

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'vewe've sent for you to tell you you're a good

deal too cheeky to the Sixthhave been for some timeandand 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'

"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

housemaster. 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

"Hold on," said Beetle. "A prefects' meetin' has to be reported to the Head. I want to know if the Head backs

"Wellwell, it isn't exactly a prefects' meeting," said Carson. "We only called you in to warn you."

"My Gum!" said Stalky. "Do you mean to say you've just called us in for a jawafter 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

"Holean'corner businessholean'corner business," said McTurk, wagging his head. "Beastly

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 rightminded 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

"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

"Decently? I will. Now look here. When we went into Bideford we met this ornament of the Sixthis 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 housecap on, kissin' an' huggin' a woman on the pavement. Is that decent enough for

"We saw you!" said Beetle. "And nowI'll be decent, Carsonyou 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 heavencleft 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

"We meant to come to you about it quietly, Carson, but you would have the meeting," said Stalky

The Sixth were too taken aback to reply. So, carefully modelling his rhetoric on King, Beetle followed up the

attack, surpassing and surprising himself, "Itit 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 thingsbut 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 decencyyou're authorities on decency,

I believeto wait till dark. But he didn't. You didn't! Oh, Tulke. Youyou incontinent little animal!"

"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.

"II was goin' along the streetI swear I was," cried Tulke, "andand I'm awfully sorry about ita

There was a pause, filled by Stalky's long, liquid whistle of contempt, amazement, and derision.

"Very good," McTurk interjected. "We are compelled, of course, to accept your statement."

"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, II wonder what you'd have said. However, it seems on Tulke's

"And Tulkusbeg pardon_kiss_, of courseTulkiss 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

"Can't help itwhen you chaps shove it under our noses." Beetle dropped into a drawling parody of King's

most biting colloquial stylethe gentle rain after the thunderstorm. "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

"Hang it! I only wanted to give you a word of warning," said Carson, thereby handing himself bound to the

"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?

"Oh, Beetle! Beetle! Beetle! Golden Beetle!" sobbed Stalky, hurling himself on Beetle's panting bosom as

"Dearr man" said McTurk, embracing Beetle's head with both arms, while he swayed it to and fro on the

"Pretty lipssweeter thancherry or plum. Always lookjolly andnever look glum; Seem to

"Look out. You'll smash my giglamps," 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 useobscene. 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

"Immoral young rips," Stalky snorted. "What an example to puresouled 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

"Whywhy 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 andand all that. And when

they've hung us up to dry, they go out and slam the door like a housemaster. All your fault, Tulke."

"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 schooland Beetle'll make up a lot of beastly rhymes and

"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.

"and I've come to ask you chaps, and especially you, Beetle, not to let the thing be known all over the

"Um!" said Beetle, with the cold reluctance of one who foresees an unpleasant public duty. "I suppose I must

"Not the least need, my dear chap, I assure you," said Naughten hastily. "I'll take any message you care to

But the chance of supplying the missing adjective was too tempting. So Naughten returned to that still

"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

theahobscene. If it is any consolation to you to know that we have decidedfor the honor of the

school, you understandto keep our mouths shut as to theseahobscenities, youahhave it."

He wheeled, his head among the stars, and strode statelily back to his study, where Stalky and McTurk lay

The Latin prose paper was a success beyond their wildest dreams. Stalky and McTurk were, of course, out of

all examinations (they did extratuition with the Head), but Beetle attended with zeal.

"This, I presume, is a parergon 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 guessingcompetition. 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.

"There seems," King began with a gulp, "a certain modicum of truth in our Beetle's remark. I

amerinclined to believe that the worthy Randall must have dropped this in feruleif 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

"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

"Rather mean to shove it off on Randall," whispered Beetle to his neighbor. "King must ha' been as screwed

"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 printedpaper exam. How're we goin' to be marked for it! It's all Randall's

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

"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

"Oh, it was a giddy time," said Beetle, afterwards, in dismantled Number Five. "He gibbered a bit, and I kept

"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

"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 housemaster were legitimate inferences.

Tulke preserved that modesty till the last momenttill the journeymoney 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?"

"Stalky? Curse your impudence, you young cub," shouted Stalky, magnificent in tophat, stiff collar, spats,

and highwaisted, snuffcolored ulster. "I want you to understand that _I'm_ Mister Corkran, an' you're a

"Besides bein' frabjously immoral," said McTurk. "Wonder you aren't ashamed to foist your company on

"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 goodby we're going to tell you a little

story. Go on, Dickie" (this to the driver); "we're quite ready. Kick that hatbox under the seat, an' don't crowd

"As nice a lot of highminded youngsters as you'd wish to see," said McTurk, gazing round with bland

patronage. "A trifle immoral, but thenboys will be boys. It's no good tryin' to look stuffy, Carson. _Mister_

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 fullsized magazinerifle

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 bicycleriding maidens of

the surrounding families were allowed to look from afar. I knew when a troopship 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

"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

It was an unusually good haul, arranged with a single eye to my benefit. There was a baldish, brokendown

captain of Native Infantry, shivering with ague behind an indomitable red noseand 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 wellkept man, who had evidently not campaigned for years, cleanshaved, softvoiced, and catlike,

but still Abanazar for all that he adorned the Indian Political Service; and there was a lean Irishman, his face

tanned blueblack 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,

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 sceneshifting of Indiaa dinner, camp, or a racemeeting here; a dakbungalow

or railway station up country somewhere elsewe 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 callover 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 schooldays 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 princessskirt for

That was a dinner from the "Arabian Nights," served in an eightyfoot 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 goodnight now")we gathered about an

applewood 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

"Oh, bliss!" grunted Dick Four from a sofa, where he had been packed with a rug over him. "First time I've

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 morningthermometer

"'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 snowstorm or a black frost. Yet none

"Talkin' of baths," said McTurk, with a chuckle, "'member our bath in Number Five, Beetle, the night

RabbitsEggs rocked King? What wouldn't I give to see old Stalky now! He is the only one of the two

"How do I know?" said Dick Four, scornfully. "If you've ever been in a tight place with Stalky you wouldn't

"I haven't seen him since the camp at Pindi in '87," I said. "He was goin' strong thenabout seven feet high

"Adequate chap. Infernally adequate," said Tertius, pulling his mustache and staring into the fire.

"Got dam' near courtmartialed and broke in Egypt in '84," the Infant volunteered. "I went out in the same

"What was the trouble?" said McTurk, reaching forward absently to twitch my dresstie 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

"Oh, yes," he replied in his softest tones. "I was at the tail of thatthat epic. Don't you chaps know?"

"'Twasn't anything," said Tertius. "We got into a mess up in the KhyeKheen Hills a couple o' years ago, and

McTurk gazed at Tertius with all an Irishman's contempt for the tonguetied 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

"I knew you wouldn't," said Dick Four. "Give me a whiskey and soda. I've been drinking lemonsquash 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

KhyeKheenMalo'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 uscame 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

"Never mind, you're tarred with the same brush. On the strength of those tuppennyha'penny treaties, your

asses of Politicals reported the country as pacified, and the Government, being a fool, as usual, began

roadmakin'dependin' on local supply for labor. 'Member _that_, Pussy? 'Rest of our chaps who'd had no

lookin 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 roadpatrolno 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 basecamp while the roadparties went to work, as per Political survey."

"My pup"thus did Dick Four refer to his subaltern"was a pious little beast. He didn't like the

singsongs, 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

basecamp (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 wentforty Pathans, Tertius, and me, looking up the roadparties.

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

"Stalky _is_ a Sikh," said Tertius. "He takes his men to pray at the Durbar Sahib at Amritzar, regularly as

"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 wordpainter,

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 welldisposed inhabitants, who were to supply labor for the roadmaking (don't

forget that, Pussy dear), sat behind rocks and took potshots 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 roadparty, as

snug as a bug in a rug, in an old Malo't stone fort, with a watchtower 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

"'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.

"'Hereall there is of it,' said Stalky. 'If you want young Everett, he's dead, and his body's in the

watchtower. They rushed our roadparty 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 firstclass 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 watchtower to see poor Everett's body, lyin' in a foot o'

drifted snow. It looked like a girl of fifteennot 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 usa

rummy sickleshaped cut on the chest. 'Member the snow all white on his eyebrows, Tertius? 'Member when

"Yees," 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 KhyeKheens were up

together; havin' sunk their blood feuds to settle us. The chaps we'd seen across the gorge were KhyeKheens.

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

KhyeKheens. 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 blastingcharges 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 offto 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' came. No Stalky. Not a sign of him. I took counsel with his senior native officera grand,

whitewhiskered old chapRutton Singh, from Jullunderway. 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

"About noon there was no end of a snowstorm, 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 watchtower, rather

"'No trustin' these snowstorms,' he said. 'Nip out quick and snaffle what you can get. There's a certain

"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' muttonkababs off a

cleanin' rod. 'There's no sense riskin' men. They're holding a powwow between the KhyeKheens and the

Malo'ts at the head of the gorge. I don't think these socalled 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 cellarroom below the watchtower, 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 watchtower. 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 snowstorm, 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 KhyeKheens. He had thenlisten 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 KhyeKheen camps. That was about two in the morning, and,

as it turned out, a man spotted hima KhyeKheen. So Stalky abolished him quietly, and left him_with_

"'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

"'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 KhyeKheens to draw inferences. So I went out again the next night and did. The KhyeKheens 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

"My God!" said the Infant, explosively, as the full depth of the strategy dawned on him.

"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

"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 KhyeKheen 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

"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 alike a

concertina. Stalky saidand the other two backed up his knowledge of Oriental naturethat the

KhyeKheens 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 goattrack that he'd found, to the back of the KhyeKheen 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

"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

"_We_ weren't," Tertius broke in, "but there was another row between Gul Sher Khan and Rutton Singh. Our

Jemadar saidhe was quite rightthat 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 KhyeKheens and Malo'ts later

on, but he was going to take his Sikhs along for this mountainclimbing job, because Sikhs could shoot. They

can, too. Give 'em a muleload 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;

KhyeKheens 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

"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

KhyeKheensregular 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 mixedup

affair. The KhyeKheens had streamed out of their sungars above the gorge to chastise the Malo'ts, and

StalkyI was watching him through my glasseshad slipped in behind 'em. Very good. The KhyeKheens

had to leg it along the hillside up to where the gorge got shallow and they could cross over to the Malo'ts,

"Then it occurred to me to comfort the KhyeKheens. 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 KhyeKheens 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 KhyeKheens 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

"Finally," said Dick Four, "we drove both mobs into each other's arms on a bit of level ground at the head of

tbe valley, and saw the whole crew whirl off, fightin' and stabbin' and swearin' in a blindin' snowstorm.

"Stalky had captured one prisoneran old pensioned Sepoy of twentyfive years' service, who produced his

dischargean awf'ly sportin' old card. He had been tryin' to make his men rush us early in the day. He was

sulkyangry with his own side for their cowardice, and Rutton Singh wanted to bayonet himSikhs don't

understand fightin' against the Government after you've served it honestlybut Stalky rescued him, and

froze on to him tightwith ulterior motives, I believe. When we got back to the fort, we buried young

EverettStalky wouldn't hear of blowin' up the placeand bunked. We'd only lost ten men, all told."

"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 grambags. I remember wakin' up and seeing Stalky asleep with his

head on old Rutton Singh's chest. _He_ slept twentyfour hours. I only slept seventeen, but then I was

"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 courtmartial

every time you saw him. The only thing that soothed you was putting you under arrest every half hour. You

"Don't remember a word of it," said Tertius, placidly. "I remember my orderly giving me milk, though."

"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 frostbite, 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 hangerson that he and the prisoner had seduced into service. He had sixty men of

sortsand 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

"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'

"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 handoverfist. 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."

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 bloodfeud

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 hishis disgustful amours till our

"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 rappareeincharge 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 likewho's the man?Bancroft, ain't it?feeling for his eyeglass in a farce, and played 'Arrah, Patsy,

That, also, was as far as Dick Four could get, because we had to sing the old song through twice, again and

"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 wellknown unformed handwriting.) "I'll

"'Fort Everett, February 19. "'Dear Dick, or Tertius: The bearer of this is in charge of seventyfive 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 fortyfoot 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 prisonerwho also sends his salaamslocal 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 KhyeKheen 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,

"Oh, it wasn't much. I was at Simla in the spring, when our Stalky, out of his snows, began corresponding

"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."

"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 informationwhich he couldn't, of course."

"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

"Yesme," 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:

"Funny how that old song came up in my head. That was fairly noncommittal 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."

"His Excellency had an idea that if he blew up one single junior captainsame as King used to blow us

uphe was holdin' the reins of empire, and, of course, as long as he had that idea, Von Lennaert encouraged

"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 hourStalky 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

"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 alike 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 baskethanger'"

"'That twoanna baskethanger governed India, I swear I'd become a naturalized Muscovite tomorrow. I'm

a _femme_incomprise_. This thing's broken my heart. It'll take six months' shootin'leave in India to mend it.

"He got it in about three minutes and a half, and seventeen days later he was back in the arms of Rutton

Singhhorrid disgracedwith 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.

"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."

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

"Ah! That must have been one of Rutton Singh's villages," said Dick Four; and we smoked for some time in

"I say," said McTurk, casting back through the years, "did Stalky ever tell you _how_ RabbitsEggs came to

"No," said Dick Four. Then McTurk told. "I see," said Dick Four, nodding. "Practically he duplicated that

"That's just where you make the mistake," I said. "India's full of Stalkies Cheltenham and Haileybury and

Marlborough chapsthat we don't know anything about, and the surprises will begin when there is really a

"The other side. The gentlemen who go to the front in firstclass 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