Stalky & Co.

“Well, Foxy’s a good little chap when he does not esteem himself so as to be clever.”

“‘Take not out your ‘ounds on a werry windy day,’” Stalky struck in. “I don’t care if you let him off.”

“Nor me,” said Beetle. “Heffy is my only joy – Heffy and King.”

“I ‘ad to do it,” said the Sergeant, plaintively.

“Right, O! Led away by bad companions in the execution of his duty or – or words to that effect. You’re dismissed with a reprimand, Foxy. We won’t tell about you. I swear we won’t,” McTurk concluded. “Bad for the discipline of the school. Horrid bad.”

“Well,” said the Sergeant, gathering up the tea-things, “knowin’ what I know o’ the young dev – gentlemen of the College, I’m very glad to ‘ear it. But what am I to tell the ‘Ead?”

“Anything you jolly well please, Foxy. We aren’t the criminals.”

To say that the Head was annoyed when the Sergeant appeared after dinner with the day’s crime-sheet would be putting it mildly.

“Corkran, McTurk, and Co., I see. Bounds as usual. Hullo! What the deuce is this? Suspicion of drinking. Whose charge??”

“Mr. King’s, sir. I caught ‘em out of bounds, sir: at least that was ‘ow it looked. But there’s a lot be’ind, sir.” The Sergeant was evidently troubled.

“Go on,” said the Head. “Let us have your version.” He and the Sergeant had dealt with one another for some seven years; and the Head knew that Mr. King’s statements depended very largely on Mr. King’s temper.

“I thought they were out of bounds along the cliffs. But it come out they wasn’t, sir. I saw them go into Colonel Dabney’s woods, and – Mr. King and Mr. Prout come along – and the fact was, sir, we was mistook for poachers by Colonel Dabney’s people – Mr. King and Mr. Prout and me. There were some words, sir, on both sides. The young gentlemen slipped ‘ome somehow, and they seemed ‘ighly humorous, sir. Mr. King was mistook by Colonel Dabney himself – Colonel Dabney bein’ strict. Then they preferred to come straight to you, sir, on account of what – what Mr. King may ‘ave said about their ‘abits afterwards in Mr. Prout’s study. I only said they was ‘ighly humorous, laughin’ an’ gigglin’, an’ a bit above ‘emselves. They’ve since told me, sir, in a humorous way, that they was invited by Colonel Dabney to go into ‘is woods.”

“I see. They didn’t tell their house-master that, of course?”

“They took up Mr. King on appeal just as soon as he spoke about their – ‘abits. Put in the appeal at once, sir, an’ asked to be sent to the dormitory waitin’ for you. I’ve since gathered, sir, in their humorous way, sir, that some’ow or other they’ve ‘eard about every word Colonel Dabney said to Mr. King and Mr. Prout when he mistook ‘em for poachers. I – I might ha’ known when they led me on so that they ‘eld the inner line of communications. It’s – it’s a plain do, sir, if you ask me; an’ they’re gloatin’ over it in the dormitory.”

The Head saw – saw even to the uttermost farthing – and his mouth twitched a little under his mustache.

“Send them to me at once, Sergeant. This case needn’t wait over.”

“Good evening,” said he when the three appeared under escort. “I want your undivided attention for a few minutes. You’ve known me for five years, and I’ve known you for – twenty-five. I think we understand one another perfectly. I am now going to pay you a tremendous compliment (the brown one, please, Sergeant. Thanks. You needn’t wait). I’m going to execute you without rhyme, Beetle, or reason. I know you went to Colonel Dabney’s covers because you were invited. I’m not even going to send the Sergeant with a note to ask if your statement is true; because I am convinced that on this occasion you have adhered strictly to the truth. I know, too, that you were not drinking. (You can take off that virtuous expression, McTurk, or I shall begin to fear you don’t understand me.) There is not a flaw in any of your characters. And that is why I am going to perpetrate a howling injustice. Your reputations have been injured, haven’t they? You have been disgraced before the house, haven’t you? You have a peculiarly keen regard for the honor of your house, haven’t you? Well, now I am going to lick you.”

Six apiece was their portion upon that word.

“And this I think” – the Head replaced the cane, and flung the written charge into the waste-paper basket – “covers the situation. When you find a variation from the normal – this will be useful to you in later life – always meet him in an abnormal way. And that reminds me. There are a pile of paper-backs on that shelf. You can borrow them if you put them back. I don’t think they’ll take any harm from being read in the open. They smell of tobacco rather. You will go to prep. this evening as usual. Good-night,” said that amazing man.

“Good-night, and thank you, sir.”

“I swear I’ll pray for the Head to-night,” said Beetle. “Those last two cuts were just flicks on my collar. There’s a ‘Monte Cristo’ in that lower shelf. I saw it. Bags I, next time we go to Aves!”

“Dearr man!” said McTurk. “No gating. No impots. No beastly questions. All settled. Hullo! what’s King goin’ in to him for – King and Prout?”

Whatever the nature of that interview, it did not improve either King’s or Prout’s ruffled plumes, for, when they came out of the Head’s house, eyes noted that the one was red and blue with emotion as to his nose, and that the other was sweating profusely. That sight compensated them amply for the Imperial Jaw with which they were favored by the two. It seems – and who so astonished as they? – that they had held back material facts; were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi (well-known gods against whom they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful.

They were careful, as only boys can be when there is a hurt to be inflicted. They waited through one suffocating week till Prout and King were their royal selves again; waited till there was a house-match – their own house, too – in which Prout was taking part; waited, further, till he had his pads in the pavilion and stood ready to go forth. King was scoring at the window, and the three sat on a bench without.

Said Stalky to Beetle: “I say, Beetle, quis custodet ipsos custodes?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Beetle. “I’ll have nothin’ private with you. Ye can be as private as ye please the other end of the bench; and I wish ye a very good afternoon.”

McTurk yawned.

“Well, ye should ha’ come up to the lodge like Christians instead o’ chasin’ your – a-hem – boys through the length an’ breadth of my covers. I think these house-matches are all rot. Let’s go over to Colonel Dabney’s an’ see if he’s collared any more poachers.”

That afternoon there was joy in Aves.

SLAVES OF THE LAMP

The music-room on the top floor of Number Five was filled with the “Aladdin” company at rehearsal. Dickson Quartus, commonly known as Dick Four, was Aladdin, stage-manager, ballet-master, half the orchestra, and largely librettist, for the “book” had been rewritten and filled with local allusions. The pantomime was to be given next week, in the down-stairs study occupied by Aladdin, Abanazar, and the Emperor of China. The Slave of the Lamp, with the Princess Badroulbadour and the Widow Twankay, owned Number Five study across the same landing, so that the company could be easily assembled. The floor shook to the stamp-and-go of the ballet, while Aladdin, in pink cotton tights, a blue and tinsel jacket, and a plumed hat, banged alternately on the piano and his banjo. He was the moving spirit of the game, as befitted a senior who had passed his Army Preliminary and hoped to enter Sandhurst next spring.

Aladdin came to his own at last, Abanazar lay poisoned on the floor, the Widow Twankay danced her dance, and the company decided it would “come all right on the night.”

“What about the last song, though?” said the Emperor, a tallish, fair-headed boy with a ghost of a mustache, at which he pulled manfully. “We need a rousing old tune.”

“‘John Peel’? ‘Drink, Puppy, Drink’?” suggested Abanazar, smoothing his baggy lilac pajamas. “Pussy” Abanazar never looked more than one-half awake, but he owned a soft, slow smile which well suited the part of the Wicked Uncle.

“Stale,” said Aladdin. “Might as well have ‘Grandfather’s Clock.’ What’s that thing you were humming at prep. last night, Stalky?”

Stalky, The Slave of the Lamp, in black tights and doublet, a black silk half-mask on his forehead, whistled lazily where he lay on the top of the piano. It was a catchy music-hall tune.

Dick Four cocked his head critically, and squinted down a large red nose.

“Once more, and I can pick it up,” he said, strumming. “Sing the words.”

“Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child! Wrap him in an overcoat, he’s surely going wild! Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby! just you mind the child awhile! He’ll kick and bite and cry all night! Arrah, Patsy, mind the child!”

“Rippin’! Oh, rippin’!” said Dick Four. “Only we shan’t have any piano on the night. We must work it with the banjoes – play an’ dance at the same time. You try, Tertius.”

The Emperor pushed aside his pea-green sleeves of state, and followed Dick Four on a heavy nickel plated banjo.

“Yes, but I’m dead all this time. Bung in the middle of the stage, too,” said Abanazar.

“Oh, that’s Beetle’s biznai,” said Dick Four. “Vamp it up, Beetle. Don’t keep us waiting all night. You’ve got to get Pussy out of the light somehow, and bring us all in dancin’ at the end.”

“All right. You two play it again,” said Beetle, who, in a gray skirt and a wig of chestnut sausage-curls, set slantwise above a pair of spectacles mended with an old boot-lace, represented the Widow Twankay. He waved one leg in time to the hammered refrain, and the banjoes grew louder.

“Um! Ah! Er – ‘Aladdin now has won his wife,’” he sang, and Dick Four repeated it.

“‘Your Emperor is appeased.’” Tertius flung out his chest as he delivered his line.

“Now jump up, Pussy! Say, ‘I think I’d better come to life! Then we all take hands and come forward: ‘We hope you’ve all been pleased.’ Twiggez-vous?”

“Nous twiggons. Good enough. What’s the chorus for the final ballet? It’s four kicks and a turn,” said Dick Four.

“Oh! Er!

   John Short will ring the curtain down.   And ring the prompter’s bell;   We hope you know before you go   That we all wish you well.”

“Rippin’! Rippin’! Now for the Widow’s scene with the Princess. Hurry up, Turkey.”

McTurk, in a violet silk skirt and a coquettish blue turban, slouched forward as one thoroughly ashamed of himself. The Slave of the Lamp climbed down from the piano, and dispassionately kicked him. “Play up, Turkey,” he said; “this is serious.” But there fell on the door the knock of authority. It happened to be King, in gown and mortar-board, enjoying a Saturday evening prowl before dinner.

“Locked doors! Locked doors!” he snapped with a scowl. “What’s the meaning of this; and what, may I ask, is the intention of this – this epicene attire?”

“Pantomime, sir. The Head gave us leave,” said Abanazar, as the only member of the Sixth concerned. Dick Four stood firm in the confidence born of well-fitting tights, but Beetle strove to efface himself behind the piano. A gray princess-skirt borrowed from a day-boy’s mother and a spotted cotton bodice unsystematically padded with imposition-paper make one ridiculous. 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. “Come forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument of music! You supply, I presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. Esteem yourself to be, as it were, a poet?”

“He’s found one of ‘em,” thought Beetle, noting the flush on King’s cheek-bone.

“I have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my address, I believe – an effusion intended to rhyme. So – so you despise me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite aware – you need not explain – that it was ostensibly not intended for my edification. I read it with laughter – yes, with laughter. These paper pellets of inky boys – still a boy we are, Master Gigadibs – do not disturb my equanimity.”

“Wonder which it was,” thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons on an appreciative public ever since he discovered that it was possible to convey reproof in rhyme.

In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he held him up to the derision of his associates – with the usual result. His wild flowers of speech – King had an unpleasant tongue – restored him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle’s latter end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he must come up for judgment when called upon, went to Common-room, where he triumphed anew over his victims.

“And the worst of it,” he explained in a loud voice over his soup, “is that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. It’s miles above them, I’m certain.”

“We-ell,” said the school chaplain slowly, “I don’t know what Corkran’s appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin for his amusement.”

“Nonsense! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt.”

“He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers of ‘Fors Clavigera.’”

“I don’t know anything about their private lives,” said a mathematical master hotly, “but I’ve learned by bitter experience that Number Five study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils.”

He blushed as the others laughed.

But in the music-room there were wrath and bad language. Only Stalky, Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano unmoved.

“That little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. He’s always suckin’ up to King. Go and kill him,” he drawled. “Which one was it, Beetle?”

“Dunno,” said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. “There was one about his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other one was one about him in hell, tellin’ the Devil he was a Balliol man. I swear both of ‘em rhymed all right. By gum! P’raps Manders minor showed him both! I’ll correct his caesuras for him.”

He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and white boy in a form-room next door to King’s study, which, again, was immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a form-room sacred to the revels of the Lower Third. Thence he came back, greatly disordered, to find McTurk, Stalky, and the others of the company, in his study enjoying an unlimited “brew” – coffee, cocoa, buns, new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, ham-and-tongue paste, pilchards, three jams, and at least as many pounds of Devonshire cream.

“My hat!” said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. “Who stumped up for this, Stalky?” It was within a month of term end, and blank starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks.

“You,” said Stalky, serenely.

“Confound you! You haven’t been popping my Sunday bags, then?”

“Keep your hair on. It’s only your watch.”

“Watch! I lost it – weeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to shoot the old ram – the day our pistol burst.”

“It dropped out of your pocket (you’re so beastly careless, Beetle), and McTurk and I kept it for you. I’ve been wearing it for a week, and you never noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. Got thirteen and sevenpence. Here’s the ticket.”

“Well, that’s pretty average cool,” said Abanazar behind a slab of cream and jam, as Beetle, reassured upon the safety of his Sunday trousers, showed not even surprise, much less resentment. Indeed, it was McTurk who grew angry, saying:

“You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated beast! Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! ‘Never got a sniff of any ticket.”

“Ah, that was because you locked your trunk, and we wasted half the afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if you’d behaved like a Christian, Turkey.”

“My Aunt!” said Abanazar, “you chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to Beetle, though.”

“That’s beastly unfair,” said Stalky, “when I took all the trouble to pawn it. Beetle never knew he had a watch. Oh, I say, Rabbits-Eggs gave me a lift into Bideford this afternoon.”

Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrier – an outcrop of the early Devonian formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. “He was pretty average drunk, or he wouldn’t have done it. Rabbits-Eggs is a little shy of me, somehow. But I swore it was pax between us, and gave him a bob. He stopped at two pubs on the way in, so he’ll be howling drunk to-night. Oh, don’t begin reading, Beetle; there’s a council of war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?”

“‘Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third box-room. ‘Had all his beastly little friends on top of me,” said Beetle from behind a jar of pilchards and a book.

“You ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to,” said McTurk.

“I didn’t think,” said Beetle, meekly, scooping out pilchards with a spoon.

“Course you didn’t. You never do.” McTurk adjusted Beetle’s collar with a savage tug. “Don’t drop oil all over my ‘Fors’ or I’ll scrag you!”

“Shut up, you – you Irish Biddy! ‘Tisn’t your beastly ‘Fors.’ It’s one of mine.”

The book was a fat, brown-backed volume of the later Sixties, which King had once thrown at Beetle’s head that Beetle might see whence the name Gigadibs came. Beetle had quietly annexed the book, and had seen – several things. The quarter-comprehended verses lived and ate with him, as the bedropped pages showed. He removed himself from all that world, drifting at large with wondrous Men and Women, till McTurk hammered the pilchard spoon on his head and he snarled.

“Beetle! You’re oppressed and insulted and bullied by King. Don’t you feel it?”

“Let me alone! I can write some more poetry about him if I am, I suppose.”

“Mad! Quite mad!” 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!”

“It’s two to one,” said Stalky, warningly, and Beetle closed the book, in obedience to the law under which he and his companions had lived for six checkered years.

The visitors looked on delighted. Number Five study had a reputation for more variegated insanity than the rest of the school put together; and so far as its code allowed friendship with outsiders it was polite and open-hearted to its neighbors on the same landing.

“What rot do you want now?” said Beetle.

“King! War!” said McTurk, jerking his head toward the wall, where hung a small wooden West-African war-drum, a gift to McTurk from a naval uncle.

“Then we shall be turned out of the study again,” said Beetle, who loved his flesh-pots. “Mason turned us out for – just warbling on it.” 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.”

“Jolly well there wasn’t,” said Stalky, “when I got out on the roof and dropped the beastly things down his chimney. But, look here – question is, are our characters good enough just now to stand a study row?”

“Never mind mine,” said Beetle. “King swears I haven’t any.”

“I’m not thinking of you,” Stalky returned scornfully. “You aren’t going up for the Army, you old bat. I don’t want to be expelled – and the Head’s getting rather shy of us, too.”

“Rot!” said McTurk. “The Head never expels except for beastliness or stealing. But I forgot; you and Stalky are thieves – regular burglars.”

The visitors gasped, but Stalky interpreted the parable with large grins.

“Well, you know, that little beast Manders minor saw Beetle and me hammerin’ McTurk’s trunk open in the dormitory when we took his watch last month. Of course Manders sneaked to Mason, and Mason solemnly took it up as a case of theft, to get even with us about the rats.”

“That just put Mason into our giddy hands,” said McTurk, blandly. “We were nice to him, because he was a new master and wanted to win the confidence of the boys. ‘Pity he draws inferences, though. Stalky went to his study and pretended to blub, and told Mason he’d lead a new life if Mason would let him off this time, but Mason wouldn’t. ‘Said it was his duty to report him to the Head.”

“Vindictive swine!” said Beetle. “It was all those rats! Then I blubbed, too, and Stalky confessed that he’d been a thief in regular practice for six years, ever since he came to the school; and that I’d taught him —a la Fagin. Mason turned white with joy. He thought he had us on toast.”

“Gorgeous! Gorgeous!” said Dick Four. “We never heard of this.”

“‘Course not. Mason kept it jolly quiet. He wrote down all our statements on impot-paper. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t believe,” said Stalky.

“And handed it all up to the Head, with an extempore prayer. It took about forty pages,” said Beetle. “I helped him a lot.”

“And then, you crazy idiots?” said Abanazar.

“Oh, we were sent for; and Stalky asked to have the ‘depositions’ read out, and the Head knocked him spinning into a waste-paper basket. Then he gave us eight cuts apiece – welters – for – for – takin’ unheard-of liberties with a new master. I saw his shoulders shaking when we went out. Do you know,” said Beetle, pensively, “that Mason can’t look at us now in second lesson without blushing? We three stare at him sometimes till he regularly trickles. He’s an awfully sensitive beast.”

“He read ‘Eric, or Little by Little,’” said McTurk; “so we gave him ‘St. Winifred’s, or the World of School.’ They spent all their spare time stealing at St. Winifred’s, when they weren’t praying or getting drunk at pubs. Well, that was only a week ago, and the Head’s a little bit shy of us. He called it constructive deviltry. Stalky invented it all.”

“Not the least good having a row with a master unless you can make an ass of him,” said Stalky, extended at ease on the hearth-rug. “If Mason didn’t know Number Five – well, he’s learnt, that’s all. Now, my dearly beloved ‘earers” – Stalky curled his legs under him and addressed the company – “we’ve got that strong’, perseverin’ man King on our hands. He went miles out of his way to provoke a conflict.” (Here Stalky snapped down the black silk domino and assumed the air of a judge.) “He has oppressed Beetle, McTurk, and me, privatim et seriatim, one by one, as he could catch us. But now, he has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of these – these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry ‘Capivi!’”

Stalky’s reading did not include Browning or Ruskin.