Thanks in large part to their house-master’s experienced distrust, the three for three consecutive terms had been passed over for promotion to the rank of prefect — an office that went by merit, and carried with it the honor of the ground-ash, and liberty, under restrictions, to use it.
“But,” said Stalky, “come to think of it, we’ve done more giddy jesting with the Sixth since we’ve been passed over than any one else in the last seven years.”
He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of stick-up 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 house-masters, 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 patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous made-up ties on Sundays — no 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 demanded a great belief.
“You begin on a hundred a year?” said McTurk unsympathetically. “Rot!”
“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 knew — I never knew. One don’t begin with writing straight off, y’know. Begin by filling in telegrams and cutting things out o’ papers with scissors.”
“Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you’ll make of it,” said Stalky. “But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my dearly beloved ‘earers — though not prefects.”
“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 shall all be this time next year?” said Stalky absently.
“This time five years,” said McTurk.
“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 s’ppose he’s hard up for his prefects.”
“Let’s finish up with a row with the Sixth,” suggested McTurk.
“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 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 acts 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 change 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.”
“Um!” said Stalky, and was silent for at least a minute.
“Hullo! Where are you chaps going?” A bend of the lane brought them 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 McTurk, 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!” McTurk 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 color.
“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 McTurk. “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. “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 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 McTurk.
“But she generally kisses one back. Let’s try Mother Yeo.”
They sought a little bottle-windowed half dairy, half restaurant, a dark-brewed, two-hundred-year-old house, at the head of a narrow side street. They had patronized 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-by — and — 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 McTurk, 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-checked, entered with a bowl of cream in her bands. McTurk 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 don’t 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. There’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 McTurk 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’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 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 McTurk, 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!”
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 Devon — that county of easy kisses, the 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, like.”
“Well, we won’t. Yell couldn’t make us cry that way,” said McTurk. “Try.”
Whereupon Mary cuffed them 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 McTurk. “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 McTurk, “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.”
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 lark!”
“Think o’ the pure-souled, high-minded 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, 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 now you can make Latin prose much more cock-eye than it is, but we’ll try,” said Beetle, transposing an aliud and Asiae 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 McTurk.
“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 McTurk, 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.”
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 643