Rudyard Kipling

“ Again, a man who has sincerely devoted himself to gaining the esteem of his charges does not like to hear himself described, even at a distance, as “Popularity Prout” by a dark and scowling Celt with a fluent tongue. A rumor that stories—unusual stories—are told in the form-rooms, between the lights, by a boy who does not command his confidence, agitates such a man; and even elaborate and tender politeness—for the courtesy wise-grown men offer to a bewildered child was the courtesy that Stalky wrapped round Prout—restores not his peace of mind. ”

“ No one was actually carried off the field, but both sides felt happier when time was called, and Beetle helped Stalky and McTurk into their overcoats. The two had met in the many-legged heart of things, and, as Stalky said, had “done each other proud.” As they swaggered woodenly behind the teams—substitutes do not rank as equals of hairy men—they passed a pony-carriage near the wall, and a husky voice cried, “Well played. Oh, played indeed!” It was Stettson major, white-checked and hollow-eyed, who had fought his way to the ground under escort of an impatient coachman. ”

“ Ugh!”
“’Thing I don’t understand,” said Tertius, “was the way we chaps used to go down into the lavatories, boil ourselves pink, and then come up with all our pores open into a young snow-storm or a black frost. Yet none of our chaps died, that I can remember.”
“Talkin’ of baths,” said McTurk, with a chuckle, “’member our bath in Number Five, Beetle, the night Rabbits-Eggs rocked King? What wouldn’t I give to see old Stalky now! He is the only one of the two Studies not here.”
“Stalky is the great man of his Century,” said Dick Four. ”

“ Mason was the mathematical master who had testified in Common-room.
“Warbling?—O Lord!” said Abanazar. “We couldn’t hear ourselves speak in our study when you played the infernal thing. What’s the good of getting turned out of your study, anyhow?”
“We lived in the form-rooms for a week, too,” said Beetle, tragically. “And it was beastly cold.”
“Ye-es, but Mason’s rooms were filled with rats every day we were out. It took him a week to draw the inference,” said McTurk. “He loathes rats. ’Minute he let us go back the rats stopped. Mason’s a little shy of us now, but there was no evidence.” ”

“ Doubtless they will be accorded special privileges, like the Choir and the Natural History Society—one must not say Bug-hunters.”
“Oh, I suppose so, sir,” said McTurk, cheerily. “The Head hasn’t said anything about it yet, but he will, of course.”
“Oh, sure to.”
“It is just possible, my Beetle,” King wheeled on the last speaker, “that the house-masters—a necessary but somewhat neglected factor in our humble scheme of existence—may have a word to say on the matter. Life, for the young at least, is not all weapons and munitions of war. Education is incidentally one of our aims.” ”

“ When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its conscience, it breaks into knots and coteries—small gatherings in the twilight, box-room committees, and groups in the corridor. And when from group to group, with an immense affectation of secrecy, three wicked boys steal, crying “Cavé” when there is no need of caution, and whispering “Don’t tell!” on the heels of trumpery confidences that instant invented, a very fine air of plot and intrigue can be woven round such a house. ”

“ The long, light, blindless dormitories, devoid of inner doors, were crossed at all hours of the night by masters visiting one another; for bachelors sit up later than married folk. Beetle had never dreamed that there might be a purpose in this steady policing.
“Talking about bullying,” the Reverend John resumed, “you all caught it pretty hot when you were fags, didn’t you?”
“Well, we must have been rather awful little beasts,” said Beetle, looking serenely over the gulf between eleven and sixteen. “My Hat, what bullies they were then—Fairburn, ‘Gobby’ Maunsell, and all that gang!” ”

“ Prout’s imagination leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys that he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for at any moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricket—even house-matches; Beetle’s views on the honor of the house he knew were incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. Consequently—since human nature is what it is—those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. ”

“ On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their inexpressible joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few square feet of dry turf walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse.
“By gum! There isn’t a single thing to do except lie down,” said Stalky, returning a knife to his pocket. “Look here!” ”

“ There isn’t a shadow of evidence,” said Stalky. They were all chanting together.
“And he turned us out himself—himself—himself!” This from McTurk. “He can’t begin to suspect us. Oh, Stalky, it’s the loveliest thing we’ve ever done.”
“Gum! Gum! Dollops of gum!” shouted Beetle, his spectacles gleaming through a sea of lather. “Ink and blood all mixed. I held the little beast’s head all over the Latin proses for Monday. Golly, how the oil stunk! And Rabbits-Eggs told King to poultice his nose! Did you hit Rabbits-Eggs, Stalky?” ”

“ From a drawer in the table he took a well-worn catapult, a handful of buckshot, and a duplicate key of the study; noiselessly he raised the window and kneeled by it, his face turned to the road, the wind-sloped trees, the dark levels of the Burrows, and the white line of breakers falling nine-deep along the Pebbleridge. Far down the steep-banked Devonshire lane he heard the husky hoot of the carrier’s horn. There was a ghost of melody in it, as it might have been the wind in a gin-bottle essaying to sing, “It’s a way we have in the Army.” ”

“ We held a council of war up there over Everett’s body. Stalky said the Malôts and Khye-Kheens were up together; havin’ sunk their blood feuds to settle us. The chaps we’d seen across the gorge were Khye-Kheens. It was about half a mile from them to us as a bullet flies, and they’d made a line of sungars under the brow of the hill to sleep in and starve us out. The Malôts, he said, were in front of us promiscuous. There wasn’t good cover behind the fort, or they’d have been there, too. Stalky didn’t mind the Malôts half as much as he did the Khye-Kheens. ”

“ Stalky waited, watch in hand, till half-past eight. “If it goes on much longer the Head will come up,” said he. “We’ll tell the studies first, and then the dorm-rooms. Look sharp!”
He allowed no time for Beetle to be dramatic or McTurk to drawl. They poured into study after study, told their tale, and went again so soon as they saw they were understood, waiting for no comment; while the noise of that unholy “prep.” grew and deepened. By the door of Flint’s study they met Mason flying towards the corridor.—“He’s gone to fetch the Head. Hurry up! Come on!” ”

“ Stop blubbin’, you brute, Beetle. We’re goin’ to have a giddy campaign. Losers have to sing for the winners—sing odes in honor of the conqueror. You call yourself a beastly poet, don’t you, Beetle? I’ll poet you.”
He wriggled into position by Campbell’s side. Swiftly and scientifically the stumps were thrust through the natural crooks, and the wrists tied with well-stretched box-ropes to an accompaniment of insults from McTurk, bound, betrayed, and voluble behind the chair. Stalky set away Campbell and Sefton, and strode over to his allies, locking the door on the way. ”

“ I loathe prevarication. ’Pon my soul, Rattray—”
“Hold on. The Hartoffles never said ’Pon my soul’ in all his little life,” said Beetle critically.
(“Ah!” said Prout to little Hartopp.)
“Upon my word, sir, upon my word, sir, I expected better things of you, Rattray. Why can you not own up to your misdeeds like a man? Have I ever shown any lack of confidence in you?”
(“It’s not brutality,” murmured little Hartopp, as though answering a question no one had asked. “It’s boy; only boy.”)
“And this was the house,” Stalky changed from a pecking, fluttering voice to tragic earnestness. ”

“ In five minutes they emerged, brushed themselves all over, washed their hands, combed their hair, and descended.
“Are you sure you shoved her far enough under?” said McTurk suddenly.
“Hang it, man, I shoved her the full length of my arm and Beetle’s brolly. That must be about six feet. She’s bung in the middle of King’s big upper ten-bedder. Eligible central situation, I call it. She’ll stink out his chaps, and Hartopp’s and Macrea’s, when she really begins to fume. I swear your Uncle Stalky is a great man. Do you realize what a great man he is, Beetle?” ”

“ Sefton began. Beetle’s false tears had ceased; McTurk, smiling, was on his feet. Together they bound the knees and ankles of the enemy even more straitly.
Stalky took the arm-chair and contemplated the scene with his blandest smile. A man trussed for cock-fighting is, perhaps, the most helpless thing in the world.
“‘The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger.’ Oh, you frabjous asses!” He lay back and laughed till he could no more. The victims took in the situation but slowly. “We’ll give you the finest lickin’ you ever had in your young lives when we get up!” ”

“ When a little chap is whimpering in a corner and wears his clothes like rags, and never does any work, and is notoriously the dirtiest little ‘corridor-caution’ in the Coll., something’s wrong somewhere.”
“That’s Clewer,” said McTurk under his breath.
“Yes, Clewer. He comes to me for his French. It’s his first term, and he’s almost as complete a wreck as you were, Beetle. He’s not naturally clever, but he has been hammered till he’s nearly an idiot.”
“Oh, no. They sham silly to get off more tickings,” said Beetle. “I know that.” ”

“ I don’t know what happened after that.”
“I was too truthful,” said Beetle. “I always am. You see, he was under an impression, Padre, and I suppose I ought to have corrected that impression; but of course I couldn’t be quite certain that his house wasn’t given over to money-lendin’, could I? I thought the house-prefects might know more about it than I did. They ought to. They’re giddy palladiums of public schools.”
“They did, too—by the time they’d finished,” said McTurk. “As nice a pair of conscientious, well-meanin’, upright, pure-souled boys as you’d ever want to meet, Padre. ”

“ 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. ”

“ said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. “Beetle reads an ass called Brownin’, and McTurk reads an ass called Ruskin; and—”
“Ruskin isn’t an ass,” said McTurk. “He’s almost as good as the Opium Eater. He says ‘we’re children of noble races trained by surrounding art.’ That means me, and the way I decorated the study when you two badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading, or I’ll shove a pilchard down your neck!” ”

“ They reached the sun-blistered pavilion over against the gray Pebbleridge just before roll-call, and, asking no questions, gathered from King’s voice and manner that his house was on the road to victory.
“Ah, ha!” said he, turning to show the light of his countenance. “Here we have the ornaments of the Casual House at last. You consider cricket beneath you, I believe”—the crowd, flannelled, sniggered “and from what I have seen this afternoon, I fancy many others of your house hold the same view. And may I ask what you purpose to do with your noble selves till tea-time?” ”

“ And in other regards Beetle had a bad conscience.
“As usual!” sneered King. “Futile foolery just when your careers, such as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see! The old gang of criminals—allied forces of disorder—Corkran”—the Slave of the Lamp smiled politely—“McTurk”—the Irishman scowled—“and, of course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs.” Abanazar, the Emperor, and Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed them over. ”

“ The fags rather liked the tune; the words were Beetle’s.
“That’s a thing no sensible man objects to,” said Prout with a lop-sided smile; “but you know straws show which way the wind blows. Can you trace it to any direct influence? I am speaking to you now as heads of the house.”
“There isn’t the least doubt of it,” said Harrison angrily. “I know what you mean, sir. It all began when Number Five study came to the form-rooms. There’s no use blinkin’ it, Craye. You know that, too.”
“They make things rather difficult for us, sometimes,” said Craye. ”

“ Why can’t you three take any interest in the honor of your house?”
They had heard that phrase till they were wearied. The “honor of the house” was Prout’s weak point, and they knew well how to flick him on the raw.
“If you order us to go down, sir, of course we’ll go,” said Stalky, with maddening politeness. But Prout knew better than that. He had tried the experiment once at a big match, when the three, self-isolated, stood to attention for half an hour in full view of all the visitors, to whom fags, subsidized for that end, pointed them out as victims of Prout’s tyranny. ”

“ Rutton Singh said that Koran Sahib jolly well knew every Pathan was a born deserter, and every Sikh was a gentleman, even if he couldn’t crawl on his belly. Stalky struck in with some woman’s proverb or other, that had the effect of doublin’ both men up with a grin. He said the Sikhs and the Pathans could settle their claims on the Khye-Kheens and Malôts later on, but he was going to take his Sikhs along for this mountain-climbing job, because Sikhs could shoot. They can, too. ”

“ Hogan, Swayne, Stalky, Perowne, and Ansell were deep in consultation by the vaulting-horse, Stalky as usual laying down the law. The Sergeant watched them uneasily, knowing that many waited on their lead.
“Foxy don’t like my recruits,” said McTurk, in a pained tone, to Beetle. “You get him some.”
Nothing loath, Beetle pinioned two more fags—each no taller than a carbine. “Here you are, Foxy. Here’s food for powder. Strike for your hearths an’ homes, you young brutes—an’ be jolly quick about it.” ”