Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated), page 634
Babcock yelled loudly as he had many times before. The face of Jevons, aged eleven, a new boy that dark wet term, low in the House, low in the Lower School, and lowest of all in his home-sick little mind turned white at the horror of the sight. They could hear his working lips part stickily as Babcock wailed his way out of hearing.
‘Hullo, Jevons! What brings you here?’ said Mullins.
‘Pl-ease, sir, I went for a walk with Babcock tertius.’
‘Did you? Then I bet you went to the tuck-shop — and you paid, didn’t you?’
A nod. Jevons was too terrified to speak.
‘Of course, and I bet Babcock told you that old Pot ‘ud let you off because it was the first time.’
Another nod with a ghost of a smile in it.
‘All right.’ Mullins picked Jevons up before he could guess what was coming, laid him on the table with one hand, with the other gave him three emphatic spanks, then held him high in air.
‘Now you tell Babcock tertius that he’s got you a licking from me, and see you jolly well pay it back to him. And when you’re prefect of games don’t you let any one shirk his footer without a written excuse. Where d’you play in your game?’
‘Forward, sir.’
‘You can do better than that. I’ve seen you run like a young buck-rabbit. Ask Dickson from me to try you as three-quarter next game, will you? Cut along.’
Jevons left, warm for the first time that day, enormously set up in his own esteem, and very hot against the deceitful Babcock.
Mullins turned to Winton. ‘Your name’s on the list, Pater.’ Winton nodded.
‘I know it. The Head landed me with an impot for that mouse-business at mechanical drawing. No excuse.’
‘He meant it then?’ Mullins jerked his head delicately towards the ground-ash on the table. ‘I heard something about it.’
Winton nodded. ‘A rotten thing to do,’ he said. ‘Can’t think what I was doing ever to do it. It counts against a fellow so; and there’s some more too — ’
‘All right, Pater. Just stand clear of our photo-bracket, will you?’
The little formality over, there was a pause. Winton swung round, yawned in Pot’s astonished face and staggered towards the window-seat.
‘What’s the matter with you, Dick? Ill?’
‘No. Perfectly all right, thanks. Only — only a little sleepy.’ Winton stretched himself out, and then and there fell deeply and placidly asleep.
‘It isn’t a faint,’ said the experienced Mullins, ‘or his pulse wouldn’t act. ‘Tisn’t a fit or he’d snort and twitch. It can’t be sunstroke, this term, and he hasn’t been over-training for anything.’ He opened Winton’s collar, packed a cushion under his head, threw a rug over him and sat down to listen to the regular breathing. Before long Stalky arrived, on pretence of borrowing a book. He looked at the window-seat.
‘‘Noticed anything wrong with Winton lately?’ said Mullins.
‘‘Notice anything wrong with my beak?’ Stalky replied. ‘Pater went Berserk after call-over, and fell on a lot of us for jesting with him about his impot. You ought to see Malpass’s eye.’
‘You mean that Pater fought?’ said Mullins.
‘Like a devil. Then he nearly went to sleep in our study just now. I expect he’ll be all right when he wakes up. Rummy business! Conscientious old bargee. You ought to have heard his apologies.’
‘But Pater can’t fight one little bit,’ Mullins repeated.
‘‘Twasn’t fighting. He just tried to murder every one.’ Stalky described the affair, and when he left Mullins went off to take counsel with the Head, who, out of a cloud of blue smoke, told him that all would yet be well.
‘Winton,’ said he, ‘is a little stiff in his moral joints. He’ll get over that. If he asks you whether to-day’s doings will count against him in his — ’
‘But you know it’s important to him, sir. His people aren’t — very well off,’ said Mullins.
‘That’s why I’m taking all this trouble. You must reassure him, Pot. I have overcrowded him with new experiences. Oh, by the way, has his Cap come?’
‘It came at dinner, sir.’ Mullins laughed.
Sure enough, when he waked at tea-time, Winton proposed to take Mullins all through every one of his day’s lapses from grace, and ‘Do you think it will count against me?’ said he.
‘Don’t you fuss so much about yourself and your silly career,’ said Mullins. ‘You’re all right. And oh — here’s your First Cap at last. Shove it up on the bracket and come on to tea.’
They met King on their way, stepping statelily and rubbing his hands. ‘I have applied,’ said he, ‘for the services of an additional sub-prefect in Carton’s unlamented absence. Your name, Winton, seems to have found favour with the powers that be, and — and all things considered — I am disposed to give my support to the nomination. You are therefore a quasi-lictor.’
‘Then it didn’t count against me,’ Winton gasped as soon as they were out of hearing.
A Captain of Games can jest with a sub-prefect publicly.
‘You utter ass!’ said Mullins, and caught him by the back of his stiff neck and ran him down to the hall where the sub-prefects, who sit below the salt, made him welcome with the economical bloater-paste of mid-term.
King and little Hartopp were sparring in the Reverend John Gillett’s study at 10 P.M. — classical versus modern as usual.
‘Character — proportion — background,’ snarled King. ‘That is the essence of the Humanities.’
‘Analects of Confucius,’ little Hartopp answered.
‘Time,’ said the Reverend John behind the soda-water. ‘You men oppress me. Hartopp, what did you say to Paddy in your dormitories to-night? Even you couldn’t have overlooked his face.’
‘But I did,’ said Hartopp calmly. ‘I wasn’t even humorous about it as some clerics might have been. I went straight through and said naught.’
‘Poor Paddy! Now, for my part,’ said King, ‘and you know I am not lavish in my praises, I consider Winton a first-class type; absolutely first-class.’
‘Ha-ardly,’ said the Reverend John. ‘First-class of the second class, I admit. The very best type of second class but’ — he shook his head — ’it should have been a rat. Pater’ll never be anything more than a Colonel of Engineers.’
‘What do you base that verdict on?’ said King stiffly.
‘He came to me after prayers — with all his conscience.’
‘Poor old Pater. Was it the mouse?’ said little Hartopp.
‘That, and what he called his uncontrollable temper, and his responsibilities as sub-prefect.’
‘And you?’
‘If we had had what is vulgarly called a pi-jaw he’d have had hysterics. So I recommended a dose of Epsom salts. He’ll take it, too — conscientiously. Don’t eat me, King. Perhaps, he’ll be a K.C.B.’
Ten o’clock struck and the Army class boys in the further studies coming to their houses after an hour’s extra work passed along the gravel path below. Some one was chanting, to the tune of ‘White sand and grey sand,’ Dis te minorem quod geris imperas. He stopped outside Mullins’ study. They heard Mullins’ window slide up and then Stalky’s voice:
‘Ah! Good-evening, Mullins, my barbarus tortor. We’re the waits. We have come to inquire after the local Berserk. Is he doin’ as well as can be expected in his new caree-ah?’
‘Better than you will, in a sec, Stalky,’ Mullins grunted.
‘Glad of that. We thought he’d like to know that Paddy has been carried to the sick-house in ravin’ delirium. They think it’s concussion of the brain.’
‘Why, he was all right at prayers,’ Winton began earnestly, and they heard a laugh in the background as Mullins slammed down the window.
‘‘Night, Regulus,’ Stalky sang out, and the light footsteps went on.
‘You see. It sticks. A little of it sticks among the barbarians,’ said King.
‘Amen,’ said the Reverend John. ‘Go to bed.’
A TRANSLATION
HORACE, Bk. V. Ode 3
There are whose study is of smells,
And to attentive schools rehearse
How something mixed with something else
Makes something worse.
Some cultivate in broths impure
The clients of our body — these,
Increasing without Venus, cure,
Or cause, disease.
Others the heated wheel extol,
And all its offspring, whose concern
Is how to make it farthest roll
And fastest turn.
Me, much incurious if the hour
Present, or to be paid for, brings
Me to Brundusium by the power
Of wheels or wings;
Me, in whose breast no flame hath burned
Life-long, save that by Pindar lit,
Such lore leaves cold: I am not turned
Aside to it
More than when, sunk in thought profound
Of what the unaltering Gods require,
My steward (friend but slave) brings round
Logs for my fire.
A LITTLE PREP.
Easter term was but a month old when Stettson major, a day-boy, contracted diphtheria, and the Head was very angry. He decreed a new and narrower set of bounds — the infection had been traced to an out-lying farmhouse — urged the prefects severely to lick all trespassers, and promised extra attentions from his own hand. There were no words bad enough for Stettson major, quarantined at his mother’s house, who had lowered the school-average of health. This he said in the gymnasium after prayers. Then he wrote some two hundred letters to as many anxious parents and guardians, and bade the school carry on. The trouble did not spread, but, one night, a dog-cart drove to the Head’s door, and in the morning the Head had gone, leaving all things in charge of Mr. King, senior house-master. The Head often ran up to town, where the school devoutly believed he bribed officials for early proofs of the Army Examination papers; but this absence was unusually prolonged.
“Downy old bird!” said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in the study. “He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under a false name.”
“What for?” Beetle entered joyously into the libel.
“Forty shillin’s or a month for hackin’ the chucker-out of the Pavvy on the shins. Bates always has a spree when he goes to town. Wish he was back, though. I’m about sick o’ King’s ‘whips an’ scorpions’ an’ lectures on public-school spirit — yah! — and scholarship!”
“‘Crass an’ materialized brutality of the middle-classes — readin’ solely for marks. Not a scholar in the whole school,’” McTurk quoted, pensively boring holes in the mantel-piece with a hot poker.
“That’s rather a sickly way of spending an afternoon. Stinks too. Let’s come out an’ smoke. Here’s a treat.” Stalky held up a long Indian cheroot. “‘Bagged it from my pater last holidays. I’m a bit shy of it though; it’s heftier than a pipe. We’ll smoke it palaver-fashion. Hand it round, eh? Let’s lie up behind the old harrow on the Monkey-farm Road.”
“Out of bounds. Bounds beastly strict these days, too. Besides, we shall cat.” Beetle sniffed the cheroot critically. “It’s a regular Pomposo Stinkadore.”
“You can; I shan’t. What d’you say, Turkey?”
“Oh, may’s well, I s’pose.”
“Chuck on your cap, then. It’s two to one. Beetle, out you come!”
They saw a group of boys by the notice-board in the corridor; little Foxy, the school sergeant, among them.
“More bounds, I expect,” said Stalky. “Hullo, Foxibus, who are you in mournin’ for?” There was a broad band of crape round Foxy’s arm.
“He was in my old regiment,” said Foxy, jerking his head towards the notices, where a newspaper cutting was thumb-tacked between call-over lists.
“By gum!” quoth Stalky, uncovering as he read. “It’s old Duncan — Fat-Sow Duncan — killed on duty at something or other Kotal. ‘Rallyin’ his men with conspicuous gallantry.’ He would, of course. ‘The body was recovered.’ That’s all right. They cut ‘em up sometimes, don’t they, Foxy?”
“Horrid,” said the sergeant briefly.
“Poor old Fat-Sow! I was a fag when he left. How many does that make to us, Foxy?”
“Mr. Duncan, he is the ninth. He come here when he was no bigger than little Grey tertius. My old regiment, too. Yiss, nine to us, Mr. Corkran, up to date.”
The boys went out into the wet, walking swiftly.
“Wonder how it feels — to be shot and all that,” said Stalky, as they splashed down a lane. “Where did it happen, Beetle?”
“Oh, out in India somewhere. We’re always rowin’ there. But look here, Stalky, what is the good o’ sittin’ under a hedge an’ cattin’? It’s be-eastly cold. It’s be-eastly wet, and we’ll be collared as sure as a gun.”
“Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess yet?” Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats. They pushed through a dripping hedge, landed among water-logged clods, and sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between dosed forefinger and thumb.
“Good job we hadn’t one apiece, ain’t it?” said Stalky, shivering through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before them, and they followed his example...
“I told you,” moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. “Oh, Stalky, you are a fool!”
“Je cat, tu cat, il cat. Nous cattons!” McTurk handed up his contribution and lay hopelessly on the cold iron.
“Something’s wrong with the beastly thing. I say, Beetle, have you been droppin’ ink on it?”
But Beetle was in no case to answer. Limp and empty, they sprawled across the harrow, the rust marking their ulsters in red squares and the abandoned cheroot-end reeking under their very cold noses. Then — they had heard nothing — the Head himself stood before them — the Head who should have been in town bribing examiners — the Head fantastically attired in old tweeds and a deer-stalker!
“Ah,” he said, fingering his mustache. “Very good. I might have guessed who it was. You will go back to the College and give my compliments to Mr. King and ask him to give you an extra-special licking. You will then do me five hundred lines. I shall be back to-morrow. Five hundred lines by five o’clock to-morrow. You are also gated for a week. This is not exactly the time for breaking bounds. Extra-special, please.”
He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had come. There was a murmur of women’s voices in the deep lane.
“Oh, you Prooshan brute!” said McTurk as the voices died away. “Stalky, it’s all your silly fault.”
“Kill him! Kill him!” gasped Beetle.
“I ca-an’t. I’m going to cat again... I don’t mind that, but King’ll gloat over us horrid. Extra-special, ooh!”
Stalky made no answer — not even a soft one. They went to College and received that for which they had been sent. King enjoyed himself most thoroughly, for by virtue of their seniority the boys were exempt from his hand, save under special order. Luckily, he was no expert in the gentle art.
“‘Strange, how desire doth outrun performance,’” said Beetle irreverently, quoting from some Shakespeare play that they were cramming that term. They regained their study and settled down to the imposition.
“You’re quite right, Beetle.” Stalky spoke in silky and propitiating tones. “Now, if the Head had sent us up to a prefect, we’d have got something to remember!”
“Look here,” McTurk began with cold venom, “we aren’t goin’ to row you about this business, because it’s too bad for a row; but we want you to understand you’re jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. You’re a plain ass.”
“How was I to know that the Head ‘ud collar us? What was he doin’ in those ghastly clothes, too?”
“Don’t try to raise a side-issue,” Beetle grunted severely.
“Well, it was all Stettson major’s fault. If he hadn’t gone an’ got diphtheria ‘twouldn’t have happened. But don’t you think it rather rummy — the Head droppin’ on us that way?”
“Shut up! You’re dead!” said Beetle. “We’ve chopped your spurs off your beastly heels. We’ve cocked your shield upside down and — -and I don’t think you ought to be allowed to brew for a month.”
“Oh, stop jawin’ at me. I want — ”
“Stop? Why — why, we’re gated for a week.” McTurk almost howled as the agony of the situation overcame him. “A lickin’ from King, five hundred lines, and a gatin’. D’you expect us to kiss you, Stalky, you beast?”
“Drop rottin’ for a minute. I want to find out about the Head bein’ where he was.”
“Well, you have. You found him quite well and fit. Found him makin’ love to Stettson major’s mother. That was her in the lane — I heard her. And so we were ordered a lickin’ before a day-boy’s mother. Bony old widow, too,” said McTurk. “Anything else you’d like to find out?”
“I don’t care. I swear I’ll get even with him some day,” Stalky growled.
“Looks like it,” said McTurk. “Extra-special, week’s gatin’ and five hundred... and now you’re goin’ to row about it! Help scrag him, Beetle!” Stalky had thrown his Virgil at them.
The Head returned next day without explanation, to find the lines waiting for him and the school a little relaxed under Mr. King’s viceroyalty. Mr. King had been talking at and round and over the boys’ heads, in a lofty and promiscuous style, of public-school spirit and the traditions of ancient seats; for he always improved an occasion. Beyond waking in two hundred and fifty young hearts a lively hatred of all other foundations, he accomplished little — so little, indeed, that when, two days after the Head’s return, he chanced to come across Stalky & Co., gated but ever resourceful, playing marbles in the corridor, he said that he was not surprised — not in the least surprised. This was what he had expected from persons of their morale.
“But there isn’t any rule against marbles, sir. Very interestin’ game,” said Beetle, his knees white with chalk and dust. Then he received two hundred lines for insolence, besides an order to go to the nearest prefect for judgment and slaughter.
‘Hullo, Jevons! What brings you here?’ said Mullins.
‘Pl-ease, sir, I went for a walk with Babcock tertius.’
‘Did you? Then I bet you went to the tuck-shop — and you paid, didn’t you?’
A nod. Jevons was too terrified to speak.
‘Of course, and I bet Babcock told you that old Pot ‘ud let you off because it was the first time.’
Another nod with a ghost of a smile in it.
‘All right.’ Mullins picked Jevons up before he could guess what was coming, laid him on the table with one hand, with the other gave him three emphatic spanks, then held him high in air.
‘Now you tell Babcock tertius that he’s got you a licking from me, and see you jolly well pay it back to him. And when you’re prefect of games don’t you let any one shirk his footer without a written excuse. Where d’you play in your game?’
‘Forward, sir.’
‘You can do better than that. I’ve seen you run like a young buck-rabbit. Ask Dickson from me to try you as three-quarter next game, will you? Cut along.’
Jevons left, warm for the first time that day, enormously set up in his own esteem, and very hot against the deceitful Babcock.
Mullins turned to Winton. ‘Your name’s on the list, Pater.’ Winton nodded.
‘I know it. The Head landed me with an impot for that mouse-business at mechanical drawing. No excuse.’
‘He meant it then?’ Mullins jerked his head delicately towards the ground-ash on the table. ‘I heard something about it.’
Winton nodded. ‘A rotten thing to do,’ he said. ‘Can’t think what I was doing ever to do it. It counts against a fellow so; and there’s some more too — ’
‘All right, Pater. Just stand clear of our photo-bracket, will you?’
The little formality over, there was a pause. Winton swung round, yawned in Pot’s astonished face and staggered towards the window-seat.
‘What’s the matter with you, Dick? Ill?’
‘No. Perfectly all right, thanks. Only — only a little sleepy.’ Winton stretched himself out, and then and there fell deeply and placidly asleep.
‘It isn’t a faint,’ said the experienced Mullins, ‘or his pulse wouldn’t act. ‘Tisn’t a fit or he’d snort and twitch. It can’t be sunstroke, this term, and he hasn’t been over-training for anything.’ He opened Winton’s collar, packed a cushion under his head, threw a rug over him and sat down to listen to the regular breathing. Before long Stalky arrived, on pretence of borrowing a book. He looked at the window-seat.
‘‘Noticed anything wrong with Winton lately?’ said Mullins.
‘‘Notice anything wrong with my beak?’ Stalky replied. ‘Pater went Berserk after call-over, and fell on a lot of us for jesting with him about his impot. You ought to see Malpass’s eye.’
‘You mean that Pater fought?’ said Mullins.
‘Like a devil. Then he nearly went to sleep in our study just now. I expect he’ll be all right when he wakes up. Rummy business! Conscientious old bargee. You ought to have heard his apologies.’
‘But Pater can’t fight one little bit,’ Mullins repeated.
‘‘Twasn’t fighting. He just tried to murder every one.’ Stalky described the affair, and when he left Mullins went off to take counsel with the Head, who, out of a cloud of blue smoke, told him that all would yet be well.
‘Winton,’ said he, ‘is a little stiff in his moral joints. He’ll get over that. If he asks you whether to-day’s doings will count against him in his — ’
‘But you know it’s important to him, sir. His people aren’t — very well off,’ said Mullins.
‘That’s why I’m taking all this trouble. You must reassure him, Pot. I have overcrowded him with new experiences. Oh, by the way, has his Cap come?’
‘It came at dinner, sir.’ Mullins laughed.
Sure enough, when he waked at tea-time, Winton proposed to take Mullins all through every one of his day’s lapses from grace, and ‘Do you think it will count against me?’ said he.
‘Don’t you fuss so much about yourself and your silly career,’ said Mullins. ‘You’re all right. And oh — here’s your First Cap at last. Shove it up on the bracket and come on to tea.’
They met King on their way, stepping statelily and rubbing his hands. ‘I have applied,’ said he, ‘for the services of an additional sub-prefect in Carton’s unlamented absence. Your name, Winton, seems to have found favour with the powers that be, and — and all things considered — I am disposed to give my support to the nomination. You are therefore a quasi-lictor.’
‘Then it didn’t count against me,’ Winton gasped as soon as they were out of hearing.
A Captain of Games can jest with a sub-prefect publicly.
‘You utter ass!’ said Mullins, and caught him by the back of his stiff neck and ran him down to the hall where the sub-prefects, who sit below the salt, made him welcome with the economical bloater-paste of mid-term.
King and little Hartopp were sparring in the Reverend John Gillett’s study at 10 P.M. — classical versus modern as usual.
‘Character — proportion — background,’ snarled King. ‘That is the essence of the Humanities.’
‘Analects of Confucius,’ little Hartopp answered.
‘Time,’ said the Reverend John behind the soda-water. ‘You men oppress me. Hartopp, what did you say to Paddy in your dormitories to-night? Even you couldn’t have overlooked his face.’
‘But I did,’ said Hartopp calmly. ‘I wasn’t even humorous about it as some clerics might have been. I went straight through and said naught.’
‘Poor Paddy! Now, for my part,’ said King, ‘and you know I am not lavish in my praises, I consider Winton a first-class type; absolutely first-class.’
‘Ha-ardly,’ said the Reverend John. ‘First-class of the second class, I admit. The very best type of second class but’ — he shook his head — ’it should have been a rat. Pater’ll never be anything more than a Colonel of Engineers.’
‘What do you base that verdict on?’ said King stiffly.
‘He came to me after prayers — with all his conscience.’
‘Poor old Pater. Was it the mouse?’ said little Hartopp.
‘That, and what he called his uncontrollable temper, and his responsibilities as sub-prefect.’
‘And you?’
‘If we had had what is vulgarly called a pi-jaw he’d have had hysterics. So I recommended a dose of Epsom salts. He’ll take it, too — conscientiously. Don’t eat me, King. Perhaps, he’ll be a K.C.B.’
Ten o’clock struck and the Army class boys in the further studies coming to their houses after an hour’s extra work passed along the gravel path below. Some one was chanting, to the tune of ‘White sand and grey sand,’ Dis te minorem quod geris imperas. He stopped outside Mullins’ study. They heard Mullins’ window slide up and then Stalky’s voice:
‘Ah! Good-evening, Mullins, my barbarus tortor. We’re the waits. We have come to inquire after the local Berserk. Is he doin’ as well as can be expected in his new caree-ah?’
‘Better than you will, in a sec, Stalky,’ Mullins grunted.
‘Glad of that. We thought he’d like to know that Paddy has been carried to the sick-house in ravin’ delirium. They think it’s concussion of the brain.’
‘Why, he was all right at prayers,’ Winton began earnestly, and they heard a laugh in the background as Mullins slammed down the window.
‘‘Night, Regulus,’ Stalky sang out, and the light footsteps went on.
‘You see. It sticks. A little of it sticks among the barbarians,’ said King.
‘Amen,’ said the Reverend John. ‘Go to bed.’
A TRANSLATION
HORACE, Bk. V. Ode 3
There are whose study is of smells,
And to attentive schools rehearse
How something mixed with something else
Makes something worse.
Some cultivate in broths impure
The clients of our body — these,
Increasing without Venus, cure,
Or cause, disease.
Others the heated wheel extol,
And all its offspring, whose concern
Is how to make it farthest roll
And fastest turn.
Me, much incurious if the hour
Present, or to be paid for, brings
Me to Brundusium by the power
Of wheels or wings;
Me, in whose breast no flame hath burned
Life-long, save that by Pindar lit,
Such lore leaves cold: I am not turned
Aside to it
More than when, sunk in thought profound
Of what the unaltering Gods require,
My steward (friend but slave) brings round
Logs for my fire.
A LITTLE PREP.
Easter term was but a month old when Stettson major, a day-boy, contracted diphtheria, and the Head was very angry. He decreed a new and narrower set of bounds — the infection had been traced to an out-lying farmhouse — urged the prefects severely to lick all trespassers, and promised extra attentions from his own hand. There were no words bad enough for Stettson major, quarantined at his mother’s house, who had lowered the school-average of health. This he said in the gymnasium after prayers. Then he wrote some two hundred letters to as many anxious parents and guardians, and bade the school carry on. The trouble did not spread, but, one night, a dog-cart drove to the Head’s door, and in the morning the Head had gone, leaving all things in charge of Mr. King, senior house-master. The Head often ran up to town, where the school devoutly believed he bribed officials for early proofs of the Army Examination papers; but this absence was unusually prolonged.
“Downy old bird!” said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in the study. “He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under a false name.”
“What for?” Beetle entered joyously into the libel.
“Forty shillin’s or a month for hackin’ the chucker-out of the Pavvy on the shins. Bates always has a spree when he goes to town. Wish he was back, though. I’m about sick o’ King’s ‘whips an’ scorpions’ an’ lectures on public-school spirit — yah! — and scholarship!”
“‘Crass an’ materialized brutality of the middle-classes — readin’ solely for marks. Not a scholar in the whole school,’” McTurk quoted, pensively boring holes in the mantel-piece with a hot poker.
“That’s rather a sickly way of spending an afternoon. Stinks too. Let’s come out an’ smoke. Here’s a treat.” Stalky held up a long Indian cheroot. “‘Bagged it from my pater last holidays. I’m a bit shy of it though; it’s heftier than a pipe. We’ll smoke it palaver-fashion. Hand it round, eh? Let’s lie up behind the old harrow on the Monkey-farm Road.”
“Out of bounds. Bounds beastly strict these days, too. Besides, we shall cat.” Beetle sniffed the cheroot critically. “It’s a regular Pomposo Stinkadore.”
“You can; I shan’t. What d’you say, Turkey?”
“Oh, may’s well, I s’pose.”
“Chuck on your cap, then. It’s two to one. Beetle, out you come!”
They saw a group of boys by the notice-board in the corridor; little Foxy, the school sergeant, among them.
“More bounds, I expect,” said Stalky. “Hullo, Foxibus, who are you in mournin’ for?” There was a broad band of crape round Foxy’s arm.
“He was in my old regiment,” said Foxy, jerking his head towards the notices, where a newspaper cutting was thumb-tacked between call-over lists.
“By gum!” quoth Stalky, uncovering as he read. “It’s old Duncan — Fat-Sow Duncan — killed on duty at something or other Kotal. ‘Rallyin’ his men with conspicuous gallantry.’ He would, of course. ‘The body was recovered.’ That’s all right. They cut ‘em up sometimes, don’t they, Foxy?”
“Horrid,” said the sergeant briefly.
“Poor old Fat-Sow! I was a fag when he left. How many does that make to us, Foxy?”
“Mr. Duncan, he is the ninth. He come here when he was no bigger than little Grey tertius. My old regiment, too. Yiss, nine to us, Mr. Corkran, up to date.”
The boys went out into the wet, walking swiftly.
“Wonder how it feels — to be shot and all that,” said Stalky, as they splashed down a lane. “Where did it happen, Beetle?”
“Oh, out in India somewhere. We’re always rowin’ there. But look here, Stalky, what is the good o’ sittin’ under a hedge an’ cattin’? It’s be-eastly cold. It’s be-eastly wet, and we’ll be collared as sure as a gun.”
“Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess yet?” Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats. They pushed through a dripping hedge, landed among water-logged clods, and sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between dosed forefinger and thumb.
“Good job we hadn’t one apiece, ain’t it?” said Stalky, shivering through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before them, and they followed his example...
“I told you,” moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. “Oh, Stalky, you are a fool!”
“Je cat, tu cat, il cat. Nous cattons!” McTurk handed up his contribution and lay hopelessly on the cold iron.
“Something’s wrong with the beastly thing. I say, Beetle, have you been droppin’ ink on it?”
But Beetle was in no case to answer. Limp and empty, they sprawled across the harrow, the rust marking their ulsters in red squares and the abandoned cheroot-end reeking under their very cold noses. Then — they had heard nothing — the Head himself stood before them — the Head who should have been in town bribing examiners — the Head fantastically attired in old tweeds and a deer-stalker!
“Ah,” he said, fingering his mustache. “Very good. I might have guessed who it was. You will go back to the College and give my compliments to Mr. King and ask him to give you an extra-special licking. You will then do me five hundred lines. I shall be back to-morrow. Five hundred lines by five o’clock to-morrow. You are also gated for a week. This is not exactly the time for breaking bounds. Extra-special, please.”
He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had come. There was a murmur of women’s voices in the deep lane.
“Oh, you Prooshan brute!” said McTurk as the voices died away. “Stalky, it’s all your silly fault.”
“Kill him! Kill him!” gasped Beetle.
“I ca-an’t. I’m going to cat again... I don’t mind that, but King’ll gloat over us horrid. Extra-special, ooh!”
Stalky made no answer — not even a soft one. They went to College and received that for which they had been sent. King enjoyed himself most thoroughly, for by virtue of their seniority the boys were exempt from his hand, save under special order. Luckily, he was no expert in the gentle art.
“‘Strange, how desire doth outrun performance,’” said Beetle irreverently, quoting from some Shakespeare play that they were cramming that term. They regained their study and settled down to the imposition.
“You’re quite right, Beetle.” Stalky spoke in silky and propitiating tones. “Now, if the Head had sent us up to a prefect, we’d have got something to remember!”
“Look here,” McTurk began with cold venom, “we aren’t goin’ to row you about this business, because it’s too bad for a row; but we want you to understand you’re jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. You’re a plain ass.”
“How was I to know that the Head ‘ud collar us? What was he doin’ in those ghastly clothes, too?”
“Don’t try to raise a side-issue,” Beetle grunted severely.
“Well, it was all Stettson major’s fault. If he hadn’t gone an’ got diphtheria ‘twouldn’t have happened. But don’t you think it rather rummy — the Head droppin’ on us that way?”
“Shut up! You’re dead!” said Beetle. “We’ve chopped your spurs off your beastly heels. We’ve cocked your shield upside down and — -and I don’t think you ought to be allowed to brew for a month.”
“Oh, stop jawin’ at me. I want — ”
“Stop? Why — why, we’re gated for a week.” McTurk almost howled as the agony of the situation overcame him. “A lickin’ from King, five hundred lines, and a gatin’. D’you expect us to kiss you, Stalky, you beast?”
“Drop rottin’ for a minute. I want to find out about the Head bein’ where he was.”
“Well, you have. You found him quite well and fit. Found him makin’ love to Stettson major’s mother. That was her in the lane — I heard her. And so we were ordered a lickin’ before a day-boy’s mother. Bony old widow, too,” said McTurk. “Anything else you’d like to find out?”
“I don’t care. I swear I’ll get even with him some day,” Stalky growled.
“Looks like it,” said McTurk. “Extra-special, week’s gatin’ and five hundred... and now you’re goin’ to row about it! Help scrag him, Beetle!” Stalky had thrown his Virgil at them.
The Head returned next day without explanation, to find the lines waiting for him and the school a little relaxed under Mr. King’s viceroyalty. Mr. King had been talking at and round and over the boys’ heads, in a lofty and promiscuous style, of public-school spirit and the traditions of ancient seats; for he always improved an occasion. Beyond waking in two hundred and fifty young hearts a lively hatred of all other foundations, he accomplished little — so little, indeed, that when, two days after the Head’s return, he chanced to come across Stalky & Co., gated but ever resourceful, playing marbles in the corridor, he said that he was not surprised — not in the least surprised. This was what he had expected from persons of their morale.
“But there isn’t any rule against marbles, sir. Very interestin’ game,” said Beetle, his knees white with chalk and dust. Then he received two hundred lines for insolence, besides an order to go to the nearest prefect for judgment and slaughter.
