The Complete Stalky & Co

by Rudyard Kipling

  That was a brilliant evening, too. Both sides went into prayers practically re-dressing themselves. There was a smell of singed fag down the lines and a watery eye or so; but nothing to which the most fastidious could have objected. The Reverend John hinted something about roof-lifting noises.

  ‘Oh, no, Padre Sahib. We were only billin’ an’ cooin’ a bit,’ Stalky explained. ‘We haven’t really begun. There’s goin’ to be a tug-o’-war next Saturday with Miss Meadows’* bed-cord—’

  ‘ “Which in dem days would ha’ hilt a mule,” ’ the Reverend John quoted. ‘Well, I’ve got to be impartial. I wish you both good luck.’

  The week, with its three paper-chases, passed uneventfully, but for a certain amount of raiding and reprisals on new lines that might have warned them they were playing with fire. The juniors had learned to use the sacred war-chants as signals of distress; oppressed Ingles squealing for aid against oppressing Tungles, and vice versa; so that one never knew when a peaceful form-room would flare up in song and slaughter. But not a soul dreamed, for a moment, that that Saturday’s jape would develop into—what it did! They were rigidly punctilious about the ritual; exquisitely careful as to the weights on Miss Meadows’ bed-cord, kindly lent by Richards, who said he knew nothing about mules, but guaranteed it would hold a barge’s crew; and if Dick Four chose to caparison himself as Archimandrite of Joppa, black as burned cork could make him, why, Stalky, in a nightgown kilted up beneath his sweater, was equally the Pope Symmachus,* just converted from heathendom but given to alarming relapses.

  It began after tea—say 6.50 P.M. It got into its stride by 7.30 when Turkey, with pillows bound round the ends of forms, invented the Royal Battering-Ram Corps. It grew and—it grew till a quarter to nine when the prefects, most of whom had fought on one side or the other, thought it time to stop and went in with ground-ashes and the bare hand for ten minutes… .

  Honours for the action were not awarded by the Head till Monday morning when he dealt out one dozen lickings to selected seniors, eight ‘millies’ (one thousand), fourteen ‘usuals’ (five hundred lines), minor impositions past count, and a stoppage of pocket—money on a scale and for a length of time unprecedented in modern history.

  He said the College was within an ace of being burned to the ground when the gas-jet in Number Eleven form-room— where they tried to burn Tar Baby, fallen for the moment into the hands of the enemy—was wrenched off, and the lit gas spouted all over the ceiling till some one plugged the pipe with dormitory soap. He said that nothing save his consideration for their future careers kept him from expelling the wanton ruffians who had noosed all the decks in Number Twelve and swept them up in one crackling mound, barring a couple that had pitched-poled through the window. This, again, had been no man’s design but the inspiration of necessity when Tar Baby’s bodyguard, surrounded but defiant, was only rescued at the last minute by Turkey’s immortal flank-attack with the battering-rams that carried away the door of Number Nine. He said that the same remarks applied to the fireplace and mantelpiece in Number Seven which everybody had seen fall out of the wall of their own motion after Brer Terrapin had hitched Miss Meadows’ bed-cord to the bars of the grate.

  He said much more, too; but as King pointed out in Common-room that evening, his canings were inept, he had not confiscated the Idols and, above all, had not castigated, as King would have castigated, the disgusting childishness of all concerned.

  ‘Well,’ said little Hartopp, T saw the prefects choking them off as we came into prayers. You’ve reason to reckon that in the scale of suffering.’

  ‘And more than half the damage was done under your banner, King,’ the Reverend John added.

  ‘That doesn’t affect my judgment; though, as a matter of fact, I believe Brer Terrapin triumphed over Tar Baby all along the line. Didn’t he, Prout?’

  ‘I didn’t seem to me a fitting time to ask. The Tar Babies were handicapped of course, by not being able to-ah-tackle a live animal.’

  ‘I confess,’ Mr. Brownell volunteered, ‘it was the studious perversity of certain aspects of the orgy which impressed me. And yet, what can one exp——’

  ‘How do you mean?’ King demanded. ‘Dickson Quartus may be eccentric, but——’

  ‘I was alluding to the vile and calculated indecency of that black doll.’

  Mr. Brownell had passed Tar Baby going down to battle, all round and ripe, before Turkey had began to use it as Bishop Odo’s* holy—water sprinkler.

  ‘It is possible you didn’t——’

  ‘I never noticed anything,’ said Prout.‘If there had been, I should have been the first——’

  Here little Hartopp sniggered, which did not cool the air.

  ‘Peradventure,’ King began with due intake of the breath. ‘Peradventure even I might have taken cognizance of the matter both for my own House’s sake and for my colleague’s … No! Folly I concede. Utter childishness and complete absence of discipline in all quarters, as the natural corollary to dabbling in so-called transatlantic humour, I frankly admit. But that there was anything esoterically obscene in the outbreak I absolutely deny.’

  ‘They’ve been fighting for weeks over those things,’ said Mr. Prout. ‘’Silly, of course, but I don’t see how it can be dangerous.’

  ‘Quite true. Any House-master of experience knows that, Brownell,’ the Reverend John put in reprovingly.

  ‘Given a normal basis of tradition and conduct—certainly,’ Mr. Brownell answered. ‘But with such amazing traditions as exist here, no man with any experience of the Animal Boy can draw your deceptive inferences. That’s all I mean.’

  Once again, and not for the first time, but with greater heat he testified what smoking led to—what, indeed, he was morally certain existed in full blast under their noses …

  Gloves were off in three minutes. Pessimists, no more than poets, love each other and, even when they work together, it is one thing to pessimise congenially with an ancient and tried associate who is also a butt, and another to be pessimised over by an inexperienced junior, even though the latter’s college career may have included more exhibitions—nay, even pot-huntings*—than one’s own. The Reverend John did his best to pour water on the flames. Little Hartopp, perceiving that it was pure oil, threw in canfuls of his own, from the wings. In the end, words passed which would have made the Common-room uninhabitable for the future, but that Macrea had written (the Reverend John had seen the letter) saying that his knee was fairly re-knit and he was prepared to take on again at half-term. This happened to be the only date since the Creation beyond which Mr. Brownell’s self-respect would not permit him to stay one hour. It solved the situation, amid puffings and blowings and bitter epigrams, and a most distinguished stateliness of bearing all round, till Mr. Brownell’s departure.

  ‘My dear fellow!’ said the Reverend John to Macrea, on the first night of the latter’s return. ‘I do hope there was nothing in my letters to you—you asked me to keep you posted—that gave you any idea King wasn’t doing his best with your House according to his lights?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ said Macrea. ‘I’ve the greatest respect for King, but after all, one’s House is one’s House. One can’t stand it being tinkered with by well-meaning outsiders.’

  To Mr. Brownell on Bideford station-platform, the Reverend John’s last words were:

  ‘Well, well. You mustn’t judge us too harshly. I dare say there’s a great deal in what you say. Oh, Yes! King’s conduct was inexcusable, absolutely inexcusable! About the smoking? Lamentable, but we must all bow down, more or less, in the House of Rimmon.* We have to compete with the Crammers’ Shops.’

  To the Head, in the silence of his study, next day: ‘He didn’t seem to me the kind of animal who’d keep to advantage in our atmosphere. Luckily he lost his temper (King and he are own brothers) and he couldn’t withdraw his resignation.’

  ‘Excellent. After all, it’s only a few pounds to make up. I’ll slip it in under our recent—er—barrack
damages. And what do We think of it all, Gillett?’

  ‘ We do not think at all—any of us,’ said the Reverend John. ‘Youth is its own prophylactic, thank Heaven.’

  And the Head, not usually devout,* echoed, ‘Thank Heaven!’

  ‘It was worth it,’ Dick Four pronounced on review of the profit-and-loss account with Number Five in his study.

  ‘Heap-plenty-bong-assez,’ Stalky assented.

  ‘But why didn’t King ra’ar up an’ cuss Tar Baby?’ Beetle asked.

  ‘You preter-pluperfect,* fat-ended fool!’ Stalky began—

  ‘Keep your hair on! We all know the Idolaters wasn’t our Uncle Stalky’s idea. But why didn’t King——’

  ‘Because Dick took care to paint Brer Terrapin King’s House-colours. You can always conciliate King by soothin’ his putrid esprit-de-maisong* Ain’t that true, Dick?’

  Dick Four, with the smile of modest worth unmasked, said it was so.

  ‘An’ now,’ Turkey yawned. ‘King an’ Macrea’ll jaw for the rest of the term how he ran his House when Macrea was tryin’ to marry fat widows in Switzerland. Mountaineerin’! ’Bet Macrea never went near a mountain.’

  ‘’One good job, though. I go back to Macrea for Maths. He does know something,’ said Stalky.

  ‘Why? Didn’t “Mister” know anythin’?’ Beetle asked.

  ‘’Bout as much as you,’ was Stalky’s reply.

  ‘I don’t go about pretending to. What was he like?’

  ‘ “Mister”? Oh, rather like King—King and water.’

  Only water was not precisely the fluid that Stalky thought fit to mention.

  The Centaurs

  Up came the young Centaur-colts from the plains they were fathered in—

  Curious, awkward, afraid.

  Burrs in their hocks and their tails, they were gathered in

  Mobs and run up to the yard to be made.

  Starting and shying at straws, with sidlings and plungings,

  Buckings and whirlings and bolts;

  Greener than grass, but full-ripe for their bridlings and lungings,

  Up to the yards and to Chiron* they bustled the colts …

  First the light web and the cavesson; then the linked keys

  To jingle and turn on the tongue. Then, with cocked ears,

  The hour of watching and envy, while comrades at ease

  Passaged and backed, making naught of these terrible gears.

  Next, over-pride and its price at the low-seeming fence,

  Too oft and too easily taken—the world-beheld fall!

  And none in the yard except Chiron to doubt the immense,

  Irretrievable shame of it all! …

  Last, the trained squadron, full-charge—the sound of a going

  Through dust and spun clods, and strong kicks, pelted home as they went,

  And repaid at top-speed; till the order to halt without slowing

  Brought every colt on his haunches—and Chiron content!

  Regulus

  Rudyard Kipling

  Regulus, a Roman general, defeated the Carthaginians 256 B.C., but was next year defeated and taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, who sent him to Rome with an embassy to ask for peace or an exchange of prisoners. Regulus strongly advised the Roman Senate to make no terms with the enemy. He then returned to Carthage and was put to death.

  The Fifth Form had been dragged several times in its collective life, from one end of the school Horace to the other. Those were the years when Army examiners gave thousands of marks for Latin, and it was Mr. King’s hated business to defeat them.

  Hear him, then, on a raw November morning at second lesson.

  ‘Aha!’ he began, rubbing his hands. ‘Cras ingens iterabimus aequor.* Our portion to—day is the Fifth Ode of the Third Book, I believe—concerning one Regulus, a gentleman. And how often have we been through it?’

  ‘Twice, sir,’ said Malpass, head of the Form.

  Mr. King shuddered. ‘Yes, twice, quite literally,’ he said. ‘To—day, with an eye to your Army viva-voce examinations—ugh!—I shall exact somewhat freer and more florid renditions. With feeling and comprehension if that be possible. I except’—here his eye swept the back benches—‘our friend and companion Beetle, from whom, now as always, I demand an absolutely literal translation.’ The form laughed subserviently.

  ‘Spare his blushes! Beetle charms us first.’

  Beetle stood up, confident in the possession of a guaranteed construe, left behind by M‘Turk, who had that day gone into the sick-house with a cold. Yet he was too wary a hand to show confidence.

  ‘Credidimus, we—believe—we have believed,’ he opened in hesitating slow time, ‘tonantem Jovem, thundering Jove—regnare, to reign—caelo, in heaven. Augustus, Augustus—habebitur, will be held or considered—praesens divus, a present God—adjectis Britannis, the Britons being added—imperio, to the Empire—gravibusque Persis, with the heavy—er, stern Persians.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The grave or stern Persians.’ Beetle pulled up with the ‘Thank-God-I-have-done-my-duty’* air of Nelson in the cockpit.

  ‘I am quite aware,’ said King, ‘that the first stanza is about the extent of your knowledge, but continue, sweet one, continue. Gravibus, by the way, is usually translated as “troublesome.” ’

  Beetle drew a long and tortured breath. The second stanza (which carried over to the third) of that Ode is what is technically called a ‘stinker.’ But M‘Turk had done him handsomely.

  ‘Milesne Crassi, had—has the soldier of Crassus—vixit, lived—turpis maritus, a disgraceful husband——’

  ‘You slurred the quantity of the word after turpis,’ said King. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  Beetle guessed again, and for a wonder hit the correct quantity. ‘Er—a disgraceful husband—conjuge barbara, with a barbarous spouse.’

  ‘Why do you select that disgustful equivalent out of all the dictionary?’ King snapped. ‘Isn’t “wife” good enough for you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But what do I do about this bracket, sir? Shall I take it now?’

  ‘Confine yourself at present to the soldier of Crassus.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Et, and—consenuit, has he grown old—in armis, in the—er—arms—hostium socerorum, of his father—in—law’s enemies.’

  ‘Who? How? Which?’

  ‘Arms of his enemies’ fathers—in—law, sir.’

  ‘Tha—anks. By the way, what meaning might you attach to in armis?’

  ‘Oh, weapons—weapons of war, sir.’ There was a virginal note in Beetle’s voice as though he had been falsely accused of uttering indecencies. ‘Shall I take the bracket now, sir?’

  ‘Since it seems to be troubling you.’

  ’Pro Curia, O for the Senate House—inversique mores, and manners upset—upside down.’

  ‘Ve—ry like your translation. Meantime, the soldier of Crassus?’

  ’Sub rege Medo, under a Median King—Marsus et Apulus, he being a Marsian and an Apulian.’

  ‘Who? The Median King?’

  ‘No, sir. The soldier of Crassus. Oblittus agrees with milesne Crassi, sir,’ volunteered too hasty Beetle.

  ‘Does it? It doesn’t with me.’

  ’Oh—blight—us,’* Beetle corrected hastily, ‘forgetful—anciliorum, of the shields, or trophies—nominis, and the—his name—et togae, and the toga—eternaeque Vestae, and eternal Vesta—incolumi Jove, Jove being safe—et urbe Roma, and the Roman city.’ With an air of hardly restrained zeal—‘Shall I go on, sir?’

  Mr. King winced. ‘No, thank you. You have indeed given us a translation! May I ask if it conveys any meaning whatever to your so—called mind?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, sir.’ This with gentle toleration for Horace and all his works.

  ‘We envy you. Sit down.’

  Beetle sat down relieved, well knowing that a reef of uncharted genitives stretched ahead of him, on which in spite of M‘Turk’s sailing—directions he would infallibly have bee
n wrecked.

  Rattray, who took up the task, steered neatly through them and came unscathed to port.

  ‘Here we require drama,’ said King. ‘Regulus himself is speaking now. Who shall represent the provident—minded Regulus? Winton, will you kindly oblige?’

  Winton of King’s House, a long, heavy, tow—headed Second Fifteen forward, overdue for his First Fifteen colours, and in aspect like an earnest, elderly horse, rose up, and announced, among other things, that he had seen ‘signs affixed to Punic deluges.’* Half the Form shouted for joy, and the other half for joy that there was something to shout about.

  Mr. King opened and shut his eyes with great swiftness. ’Signa adfixa delubris,’ he gasped. ‘So delubris is “deluges” is it? Winton, in all our dealings, have I ever suspected you of a jest?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said the rigid and angular Winton, while the Form rocked about him.

  ‘And yet you assert delubris means “deluges.” Whether I am a fit subject for such a jape is, of course, a matter of opinion, but… . Winton, you are normally conscientious. May we assume you looked out delubris?

  ‘No, sir.’ Winton was privileged to speak that truth dangerous to all who stand before Kings.

  ‘’Made a shot at it then?’

  Every line of Winton’s body showed he had done nothing of the sort. Indeed, the very idea that ‘Pater’ Winton (and a boy is not called ‘Pater’ by companions for his frivolity) would make a shot at anything was beyond belief. But he replied, ‘Yes,’ and all the while worked with his right heel as though he were heeling a ball at punt-about.