"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 Iforgot; 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.
