‘This time five years,’ said M‘Turk.
‘Oh,’ said Beetle, ‘my leavin’s between ourselves. The Head hasn’t told any one. I know he hasn’t, because Prout grunted at me to—day that if I were more reasonable—yah!—I might be a prefect next term. I suppose he’s hard up for his prefects.’
‘Let’s finish up with a row with the Sixth,’ suggested M‘Turk.
‘Dirty little schoolboys!’ said Stalky, who already saw himself a Sandhurst cadet. ‘What’s the use?’
‘Moral effect,’ quoth M‘Turk. ‘Leave an imperishable tradition, and all the rest of it.’
‘Better go into Bideford an’ pay up our debts,’ said Stalky. ‘I’ve got three quid out of my father—ad hoc. Don’t owe more than thirty bob, either. Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say you want to correct the Swillingford Patriot. ’
‘Well,’ I do,’ said Beetle. ‘It’ll be my last issue, and I’d like it to look decent. I’ll catch him before he goes to his lunch.’
Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace released from five o’clock call-over, and all the afternoon lay before them. So also unluckily did King, who never passed without witticisms. But brigades of Kings could not have ruffled Beetle that day.
‘Aha! Enjoying the study of light literature, my friends,’ said he, rubbing his hands. ‘Common mathematics are not for such soaring minds as yours, are they?’
(‘One hundred a year,’ thought Beetle, smiling into vacancy.)
‘Our open incompetence takes refuge in the flowery paths of inaccurate fiction. But a day of reckoning approaches, Beetle mine. I myself have prepared a few trifling foolish questions in Latin prose which can hardly be evaded even by your practised arts of deception. Ye-es, Latin prose. I think, if I may say so—but we shall see when the papers are set— “Ulpian serves your need.”* “Aha! Elucescebat, quoth our friend.” We shall see! We shall see!’
Still no sign from Beetle. He was on a steamer, his passage paid into the wide and wonderful world—a thousand leagues beyond Lundy Island.
King dropped him with a snarl.
‘He doesn’t know. He’ll go on correctin’ exercises an’ jawin’ an’ showin’ off before the little boys next term—and next.’ Beetle hurried after his companions up the steep path of the furze-clad hill behind the College.
They were throwing pebbles on the top of the gasometer, and the grimy gas-man in charge bade them desist. They watched him oil a turncock sunk in the ground between two furze-bushes.
‘Cokey, what’s that for?’ said Stalky.
‘To turn the gas on to the kitchens’, said Cokey. ‘If so be I didn’t turn her on, yeou young gen’lemen ’ud be larnin’ your book by candlelight.’
‘Urn!’ said Stalky, and was silent for at least a minute …
‘Hullo! Where are you chaps going?’
A bend of the lane brought then face to face with Tulke, senior prefect of King’s House—a smallish, white-haired boy, of the type that must be promoted on account of its intellect, and ever afterwards appeals to the Head to support its authority when zeal has outrun discretion.
The three took no sort of notice. They were on lawful pass. Tulke repeated his question hotly, for he had suffered many slights from Number Five study, and fancied that he had at last caught them tripping.
‘What the devil is that to you?’ Stalky replied, with his sweetest smile.
‘Look here, I’m not goin’—I’m not goin’ to be sworn at by the Fifth!’ sputtered Tulke.
‘Then cut along and call a prefects’ meeting,’ said M‘Turk, knowing Tulke’s weakness.
The prefect became inarticulate with rage.
‘Mustn’t yell at the Fifth that way,’ said Stalky. ‘It’s vile bad form.’
‘Cough it up, ducky!’ M‘Turk said calmly.
‘I—I want to know what you chaps are doing out of bounds?’ This with an important flourish of his ground-ash.
‘Ah!’ said Stalky. ‘Now we’re gettin’ at it. Why didn’t you ask that before?’
‘Well, I ask it now. What are you doing?’
‘We’re admiring you, Tulke,’ said Stalky. ‘We think you’re no end of a fine chap, don’t we?’
‘We do! We do!’ A dog-cart with some girls in it swept round the corner, and Stalky promptly kneeled before Tulke in the attitude of prayer; so Tulke turned a colour.
‘I’ve reason to believe——’ he began.
‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ shouted Beetle, after the manner of Bideford’s town-crier, ‘Tulke has reason to believe! Three cheers for Tulke!’
They were given. ‘It’s all our giddy admiration,’ said Stalky. ‘You know how we love you, Tulke. We love you so much we think you ought to go home and die. You’re too good to live, Tulke.’
‘Yes,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Do oblige us by dyin’. Think how lovely you’d look stuffed!’
Tulke swept up the road with an unpleasant glare in his eye.
‘That means a prefects’ meeting—sure pop,’ said Stalky. ‘Honour 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 M‘Turk. ‘He’s King’s pet, and it’s scalps to both of ’em if we’re caught out. We must be virtuous.’
‘Then I move we go to Mother Yeo’s for a last gorge. We owe her about ten bob, and Mary ’ll weep sore when she knows we’re leaving,’ said Beetle.
‘She gave me an awful wipe on the head last time—Mary,’ said Stalky.
‘She does if you don’t duck,’ said M‘Turk. ‘But she generally kisses one back. Let’s try Mother Yeo.’
They sought a little bottle-windowed half-dairy, half-restaurant, a dark-browed, two-hundred-year-old house, at the head of a narrow side street. They had patronised it from the days of their fagdom, and were very much friends at home.
‘We’ve come to pay our debts, mother,’ said Stalky, sliding his arm round the fifty-six-inch waist of the mistress of the establishment. ‘To pay our debts and say good-bye—sand—and we’re awf’ly hungry.’
‘Aie!’ said Mother Yeo, ‘makkin’ love to me! I’m shaamed of ’ee.’
‘’Rackon us wouldn’t du no such thing if Mary was here,’ said M‘Turk, lapsing into the broad North Devon that the boys used on their campaigns.
‘Who’m takin’ my name in vain?’ The inner door opened, and Mary, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and apple-cheeked, entered with a bowl of cream in her hands. M‘Turk kissed her. Beetle followed suit, with exemplary calm. Both boys were promptly cuffed.
‘Niver kiss the maid when ’e can kiss the mistress,’ said Stalky, shamelessly winking at Mother Yeo, as he investigated a shelf of jams.
‘’Glad to see one of ’ee dont want his head slapped no more,’ said Mary invitingly, in that direction.
‘Neu! ’Reckon I can get ’em give me,’ said Stalky, his back turned.
‘Not by me—yeou little masterpiece!’
‘’Niver asked ’ee. That’s maids to Northam. Yiss—an’Appledore.’ An unreproducible sniff, half contempt, half reminiscence, rounded the retort.
‘Aie! Yeou won’t niver come to no good end. Whutt be ’baout, smellin’ the cream?’
‘’Tees bad,’ said Stalky. ‘Zmell ’un.’
Incautiously Mary did as she was bid.
‘Bidevoor kiss.’
‘Niver amiss,’ said Stalky, taking it without injury.
‘Yeou—yeou—yeou— ’ Mary began, bubbling with mirth.
‘They’m better to Northam—more rich, laike—an’ us gets them give back again,’ he said, while M‘Turk solemnly waltzed Mother Yeo out of breath, and Beetle told Mary the sad news, as they sat down to clotted cream, jam, and hot bread.
‘Yiss. Yeou’ll niver zee us no more, Mary. We’m goin’ to be passons an’ missioners.’
‘Steady the Buffs?’ said M‘Turk, looking through the blind. ‘Tulke h
as followed us. He’s comin’ up the street now.’
‘They’ve niver put us out o’ bounds,’ said Mother Yeo. ‘Bide yeou still, my little dearrs.’ She rolled into the inner room to make the score.
‘Mary,’ said Stalky suddenly, with tragic intensity. ‘Do ’ee lov’ me, Mary?’
‘Iss-fai! ’Talled ’ee zo since yeou was zo high!’ the damsel replied.
‘’Zee ’un comin’ up street, then?’ Stalky pointed to the unconscious Tulke. ‘He’ve niver been kissed by no sort or manner o’ maid in hees borned laife, Mary. Oh, ’tees shaamful!’
‘Whutt’s to do with me? ’Twill come to ’un in the way o’ nature, I rackon.’ She nodded her head sagaciously. ‘You niver want me to kiss un—sure-ly?’
‘’Give ’ee half-a-crown if ’ee will,’ said Stalky, exhibiting the coin.
Half-a-crown was much to Mary Yeo, and a jest was more; but——
‘Yeu’m afraid,’ said M‘Turk, at the psychological moment.
‘Aie!’ Beetle echoed, knowing her weak point. ‘There’s not a maid to Northam ’ud think twice. An’ yeou such a fine maid, tu!’
M‘Turk planted one foot firmly against the inner door lest Mother Yeo should return inopportunely, for Mary’s face was set. It was then that Tulke found his way blocked by a tall daughter of Devon—that county of easy kisses, and pleasantest under the sun. He dodged aside politely. She reflected a moment, and laid a vast hand upon his shoulder.
‘Where be ’ee gwaine tu, my dearr?’ said she.
Over the handkerchief he had crammed into his mouth Stalky could see the boy turn scarlet.
‘Gie I a kiss! Don’t they larn ’ee manners to College?’
Tulke gasped and wheeled. Solemnly and conscientiously Mary kissed him twice, and the luckless prefect fled.
She stepped into the shop, her eyes full of simple wonder.
‘’Kissed ’un?’ said Stalky, handing over the money.
‘Iss, fai! But, oh, my little body, he’m no Colleger. ’Zeemed tu-minded to cry, laike.’
‘Well, we won’t. You couldn’t make us cry that way,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Try.’
Whereupon Mary cuffed then all round.
As they went out with tingling ears, said Stalky generally, ‘’Don’t think there’ll be much of a prefects’ meeting.’
‘Won’t there, just!’ said Beetle. ‘Look here. If he kissed her—which is our tack—he is a cynically immoral hog, and his conduct is blatant indecency. Confer orationes Regis furiosissimi* when he collared me readin’ “Don Juan.” ’
‘’Course he kissed her,’ said M‘Turk. ‘In the middle of the street. With his House-cap on!’
‘Time, 3.57 p.m. Make a note o’ that. What d’you mean, Beetle?’ said Stalky.
‘Well! He’s a truthful little beast. He may say he was kissed.’
‘And then?’
‘Why, then!’ Beetle capered at the mere thought of it. ‘Don’t you see? The corollary to the giddy proposition is that the Sixth can’t protect ’emselves from outrages an’ ravishin’s. ’Want nursemaids to look after ’em! We’ve only got to whisper that to the Coll. Jam for the Sixth! Jam for us! Either way it’s jammy!’
‘By Gum!’ said Stalky. ‘Our last term’s endin’ well. Now you cut along an’ finish up your old rag, and Turkey and me will help. We’ll go in the back way. No need to bother Randall.’
‘Don’t play the giddy garden-goat, then?’ Beetle knew what help meant, though he was by no means averse to showing his importance before his allies. The little loft behind Randall’s printing-office was his own territory, where he saw himself already controlling the Times. Here, under the guidance of the inky apprentice, he had learned to find his way more or less circuitously about the case, and considered himself an expert compositor.
The school paper in its locked formes* lay on a stone-topped table, a proof by the side; but not for worlds would Beetle have corrected from the mere proof. With a mallet and a pair of tweezers, he knocked out mysterious wedges of wood that released the forme, picked a letter here and inserted a letter there, reading as he went along and stopping much to chuckle over his own contributions.
‘You won’t show off like that,’ said M‘Turk, ‘when you’ve got to do it for your living. Upside down and backwards, isn’t it? Let’s see if I can read it.’
‘Get out!’ said Beetle. ‘Go and read those formes in the rack there, if you think you know so much.’
‘Formes in a rack! What’s that? Don’t be so beastly professional.’
M‘Turk drew off with Stalky to prowl about the office. They left little unturned.
‘Come here a shake, Beetle. What’s this thing?’ said Stalky, in a few minutes. ‘’Looks familiar.’
Said Beetle, after a glance: ‘It’s King’s Latin prose exam, paper. In—In Verrem: actio prima* What a lark!’
‘Think o’ the pure-souled, high-minded boys who’d give their eyes for a squint at it!’ said M‘Turk.
‘No, Willie dear,’ said Stalky; ‘that would be wrong and painful to our kind teachers. You wouldn’t crib, Willie, would you?’
‘’Can’t read the beastly stuff, anyhow,’ was the reply. ‘Besides, we’re leavin’ at the end o’ the term, so it makes no difference to us.’
‘’Member what the Considerate Bloomer did to Spraggon’s account of the Puffin’ton Hounds?* We must sugar Mr. King’s milk for him,’ said Stalky, all lighted from within by a devilish joy. ‘Let’s see what Beetle can do with those forceps he’s so proud of.’
‘’Don’t see how you can make Latin prose much more cock-eye than it is, but we’ll try,’ said Beetle, transposing an aliud and Asiœ from two sentences. ‘Let’s see! We’ll put that full-stop a little further on, and begin the sentence with the next capital. Hurrah! Here’s three lines that can move up all in a lump.’
‘ “One of those scientific rests for which this eminent huntsman is so justly celebrated.”*’ Stalky knew the Puffington run by heart.
‘Hold on! Here’s a vol—voluntate quidnam all by itself,’ said M‘Turk.
‘I’ll attend to her in a shake. Quidnam goes after Dolabella’
‘Good old Dolabella,’ murmured Stalky. ‘Don’t break him. Vile prose Cicero wrote, didn’t he? He ought to be grateful for——’
‘Hullo!’ said M‘Turk, over another forme. ‘What price a giddy ode! Qui—quis—oh, it’s Quis multa gracilis,* o’ course.’
‘Bring it along. We’ve sugared the milk here,’ said Stalky, after a few minutes’ zealous toil. ‘Never thrash your hounds unnecessarily.’
‘Quis munditiis? I swear that’s not bad,’ began Beetle, plying the tweezers. ‘Don’t that interrogation look pretty? Heu quoties fidem! That sounds as if the chap were anxious an’ excited. Cui flavam religas in rosa—Whose flavour is relegated to a rose. Mutatosque Deos flebit in antro.’
‘Mute gods weepin’ in a cave,’ suggested Stalky. ‘Pon my Sam, Horace needs as much lookin’ after as—Tulke.’
They edited him faithfully till it was too dark to see.
* * * * *
‘ “Aha! Elucescebat, quoth our friend.” Ulpian serves my need, does it? If King can make anything out of that, I’m a blue-eyed squatteroo,’ said Beetle, as they slid out of the loft window into a back alley of old acquaintance and started on a three-mile trot to the College. But the revision of the classics had detained them over long. They halted, blown and breathless, in the furze at the back of the gasometer, the College lights twinkling below, ten minutes at least late for tea and lock-up.
‘It’s no good,’ puffed M‘Turk. ‘Bet a bob Foxy is waiting for defaulters under the lamp by the Fives Court. It’s a nuisance, too, because the Head gave us long leave, and one doesn’t like to break it.’
‘ “Let me now from the bonded ware’ouse of my knowledge,”*’ began Stalky.
‘Oh, rot! Don’t Jorrock. Can we make a run for it?’ snapped M‘Turk.
‘ “Bishops’ boots Mr. Radcliffe also
condemned, an’ spoke ’ighly in favour of tops cleaned with champagne an’ abricot jam.” Where’s that thing Cokey was twiddlin’ this afternoon?’
They heard him groping in the wet, and presently beheld a great miracle. The lights of the Coastguard cottages near the sea went out; the brilliantly illuminated windows of the Golf Club disappeared, and were followed by the frontages of the two hotels. Scattered villas dulled, twinkled, and vanished. Last of all, the Coll, lights died also. They were left in the pitchy darkness of a windy winter’s night.
‘ “Blister my kidneys. It is a frost. The dahlias are dead!” said Stalky. ‘Bunk!’
They squattered through the dripping gorse as the College hummed like an angry hive and the dining-rooms chorussed, ‘Gas! gas! gas!’ till they came to the edge of the sunk path that divided them from their study. Dropping that ha-ha like bullets, and rebounding like boys, they dashed to the study, in less than two minutes had changed into dry trousers and coat, and, ostentatiously slippered, joined the mob in the dining-hall, which resembled the storm-centre of a South American revolution.
‘ “Hellish dark and smells of cheese.” ’* Stalky elbowed his way into the press, howling lustily for gas. ‘Cokey must have gone for a walk. Foxy’ll have to find him.’
Prout, as the nearest House-master, was trying to restore order, for rude boys were flicking butter-pats across chaos, and M‘Turk had turned on the fags’ tea-urn, so that many were parboiled and wept with an unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke into the school song, the ‘Vive la Compagnie,’ to the accompaniment of drumming knife-handles; and the junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks and raided one another’s victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high condition, seeking for more light, are truly earnest inquirers.
When a most vile smell of gas told them that supplies had been renewed, Stalky, waistcoat unbuttoned, sat gorgedly over what might have been his fourth cup of tea. ‘And that’s all right,’ he said. ‘Hullo! ’Ere’s Pomponius Ego!’*
It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, straight-minded soul, and a pillar of the First Fifteen, who crossed over from the prefects’ table and in a husky, official voice invited the three to attend in his study in half an hour.
The Complete Stalky & Co Page 32
