The Complete Stalky & Co

by Rudyard Kipling

  ‘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, Ode 3, Bk. V.

  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.

  1 ‘This side will not always be patient of rain and waiting on the threshold.’

  A Little Prep.

  Rudyard Kipling

  “Qui procul hinc—the legend’s writ,

  The frontier grave is far away;

  Qui ante diem periit,

  Sed miles, sed pro patriâ.”*

  Newbolt.

  The 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 to lick all trespassers severely, 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 an’ 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’ materialised brutality of the middle-classes—readin’ solely for marks. Not a scholar in the whole school,” ’ M‘Turk 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 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. Hout 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 thumbtacked 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 came here when he was no bigger than little Grey tertius. My old Regiment, too. Yiss, nine to us, Mr. Corkran, up to date.’

  The boys went out into the wet, walking swiftly.

  ‘’Wonder how it feels—to be shot and all that,’ said Stalky, as they splashed down a lane. ‘Where did it happen, Beetle?’

  ‘Oh, out in India somewhere. We’re always rowin’ there. But look here, Stalky, what is the good o’ sittin’ under a hedge an’ cattin’? It’s be-eastly cold. It’s be-eastly wet, and we’ll be collared as sure as a gun.’

  ‘Shut up! Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky get you into a mess yet?’ Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats.

  They pushed through a dripping hedge, landed among water-logged clods, and sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between closed forefinger and thumb.

  ‘Good job we hadn’t one apiece, ain’t it?’ said Stalky, shivering through set teeth. To prove his words he immediately laid all before them, and they
followed his example… .

  T told you,’ moaned Beetle, sweating clammy drops. ‘Oh, Stalky, you are a fool!’

  ‘Je cat, tu cat, il cat. Nous cattons!’ M‘Turk 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 moustache. ‘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 Prooshian brute!’* said M‘Turk 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,’ M‘Turk began with cold venom, ‘we aren’t going 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.’ M‘Turk almost howled as the agony of the situation overcame him. ‘A lickin’ from King, five hundred lines, and a gating. 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 making love to Stettson major’s mother. That was her in the lane—I heard her. And so we were ordered a licking before a day-boy’s mother. Bony old widow, too,’ said M‘Turk. ‘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 M‘Turk. ‘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 & Go., gated but ever resourceful, playing marbles in the corridor, he said that he was not surprised—not in the least surprised. This was what he had expected from persons of their morale.

  ‘But there isn’t any rule against marbles, sir. Very interestin’ game,’ said Beetle, his knees white with chalk and dust. Then he received two hundred lines for insolence, besides an order to go to the nearest prefect for judgment and slaughter.

  This is what happened behind the closed doors of Flint’s study, and Flint was then Head of the Games:—

  ‘Oh, I say, Flint. King has sent me to you for playin’ marbles in the corridor an’ shoutin’ “alley tor” an’ “knuckle down.” ’

  ‘What does he suppose I have to do with that?’ was the answer.

  ‘Dunno. Well?’ Beetle grinned wickedly. ‘What am I to tell him? He’s rather wrathy about it.’

  ‘If the Head chooses to put a notice in the corridor forbiddin’ marbles, I can do something; but I can’t move on a House-master’s report. He knows that as well as I do.’

  The sense of this oracle Beetle conveyed, all unsweetened, to King, who hastened to interview Flint.

  Now Flint had been seven and a half years at the College, counting six months with a London crammer, from whose roof he had returned, homesick, to the Head for the final Army polish. There were four or five other seniors who had gone through much the same mill, not to mention boys, rejected by other establishments on account of a certain overwhelmingness, whom the Head had wrought into very fair shape. It was not a Sixth to be handled without gloves, as King found.

  ‘Am I to understand it is you intention to allow Boardschool games* under your study windows, Flint? If so, I can only say——’ He said much, and Flint listened politely.

  ‘Well, sir, if the Head sees fit to call a prefects’ meeting we are bound to take the matter up. But the tradition of the school is that the prefects can’t move in any matter affecting the whole school without the Head’s direct order.’

  Much more was then delivered; both sides a little losing their temper.

  After tea, at an informal gathering of prefects in his study, Flint related the adventure.

  ‘He’s been playin’ for this for a week, and now he’s got it. You know as well as I do that if he hadn’t been gassing at us the way he has, that young devil Beetle wouldn’t have dreamed of marbles.’

  ‘We know that,’ said Perowne, ‘but that isn’t the question. On Flint’s showin’ King has called the prefects names enough to justify a first—class row. Crammers’ rejections, ill-regulated hobble-de-hoys, wasn’t it? Now it’s impossible for prefects——’

  ‘Rot,’ said Flint. ‘King’s the best classical cram we’ve got; and ’tisn’t fair to bother the Head with a row. He’s up to his eyes with extra-tu. and Army work as it is. Besides, as I told King, we aren’t a public school. We’re a limited liability company payin’ four per cent. My father’s a shareholder, too.’*

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ said Venner, a red-headed boy of nineteen.

  ‘Well, seems to me that we should be interferin’ with ourselves. We’ve got to get into the Army or—get out, haven’t we? King’s hired by the Council to teach us. All the rest’s flumdiddle. Can’t you see?’

  It might have been because he felt the air was a little thunderous that the Head took his after-dinner cheroot to Flint’s study; but he so often began an evening in a prefect’s room that nobody suspected when he drifted in politely, after the knocks that etiquette demanded.

  ‘Prefects�
�� meeting?’ A cock of one wise eye-brow.

  ‘Not exactly, sir; we’re just talking things over. Won’t you take the easy chair?’

  ‘Thanks. Luxurious infants, you are.’ He dropped into Flint’s big half-couch and puffed for a while in silence. ‘Well, since you’re all here, I may confess that I’m the mute with the bow-string.’*

  The young faces grew serious. The phrase meant that certain of their number would be withdrawn from all further games for extra-tuition. It might also mean future success at Sandhurst; but it was present ruin for the First Fifteen.

  ‘Yes, I’ve come for my, pound of flesh.* I ought to have had you out before the Exeter match; but it’s our sacred duty to beat Exeter.’

  ‘Isn’t the Old Boys’ match sacred, too, sir?’ said Perowne. The Old Boys’ match was the event of the Easter term.

  ‘We’ll hope they aren’t in training. Now for the list. First I want Flint. It’s the Euclid that does it. You must work deductions with me. Perowne, extra mechanical drawing. Dawson goes to Mr. King for extra Latin, and Venner to me for German. Have I damaged the First Fifteen much?’ He smiled sweetly.

  ‘Ruined it, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Flint. ‘Can’t you let us off till the end of the term?’

  ‘Impossible. It will be a tight squeeze for Sandhurst this year.’

  ‘And all to be cut up by those vile Afghans, too,’ said Dawson. ‘’Wouldn’t think there’d be so much competition, would you?’

  ‘Oh, that reminds me. Crandall is coming down with the Old Boys—I’ve asked twenty of them, but we shan’t get more than a weak team. I don’t know whether he’ll be much use, though. He was rather knocked about, recovering poor old Duncan’s body.’

  ‘Crandall major—the Gunner?’ Perowne asked.

  ‘No, the minor—“Toffee” Crandall—in a Native Infantry regiment. He was almost before your time, Perowne.’