"And, besides," said McTurk, "he's a Philistine, a basket-hanger. He wears a tartan tie. Ruskin says that any man who wears a tartan tie will, without doubt, be damned everlastingly.""Bravo, McTurk," said Tertius; "I thought he was only a beast.""He's that, too, of course, but he's worse. Ho has a china basket with blue ribbons and a pink kitten on it, hung up in his window to grow musk in. You know when I got all that old oak carvin' out of Bideford Church, when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who'll restore a church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know whether we'd done it with a fret-saw! Yah! He is the King of basket-hangers!"Down went McTurk's inky thumb over an imaginary arena full of bleeding Kings.
"_Placete_, child of a generous race!" he cried to Beetle.
"Well," began Beetle, doubtfully, "he comes from Balliol, but I'm going to give the beast a chance. You see I can always make him hop with some more poetry. He can't report me to the Head, because it makes him ridiculous. (Stalky's quite right.) But he shall have his chance."Beetle opened the book on the table, ran his finger down a page, and began at random:
"Or who in Moscow toward the Czar With the demurest of footfalls, Over the Kremlin's pavement white With serpentine and syenite, Steps with five other generals--""That's no good. Try another," said Stalky.
"Hold on a shake; I know what's coming." McTurk was reading over Beetle's shoulder.
"That simultaneously take snuff, For each to have pretext enough And kerchiefwise unfold his sash, Which--softness' self--is yet the stuff (Gummy! What a sentence! )To hold fast where a steel chain snaps And leave the grand white neck no gash.
(Full stop.)"
"'Don't understand a word of it," said Stalky.
"More fool you! Construe," said McTurk. "Those six bargees scragged the Czar, and left no evidence. _Actum_est_ with King.""He gave me that book, too," said Beetle, licking his lips:
"There's a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it entails Twenty-nine distinct damnations, One sure if another fails."Then irrelevantly:
"Setebos! Setebos! and Setebos!
Thinketh he liveth in the cold of the moon."
"He's just come in from dinner," said Dick Four, looking through the window.
"Manders minor is with him."
"'Safest place for Manders minor just now," said Beetle.
"Then you chaps had better clear out," said Stalky politely to the visitors.
"'Tisn't fair to mix you up in a study row. Besides, we can't afford to have evidence.""Are you going to begin at once?' said Aladdin.
"Immediately, if not sooner," said Stalky, and turned out the gas.
"Strong, perseverin' man--King. Make him cry 'Capivi.' G'way, Binjimin."The company retreated to their own neat and spacious study with expectant souls.
"When Stalky blows out his nostrils like a horse," said Aladdin to the Emperor of China, "he's on the war-path. 'Wonder what King will get.""Beans," said the Emperor. "Number Five generally pays in full.""Wonder if I ought to take any notice of it officially," said Abanazar, who had just remembered he was a prefect.
"It's none of your business, Pussy. Besides, if you did, we'd have them hostile to us; and we shouldn't be able to do any work," said Aladdin. "They've begun already."Now that West-African war-drum had been made to signal across estuaries and deltas.
Number Five was forbidden to wake the engine within earshot of the school. But a deep, devastating drone filled the passages as McTurk and Beetle scientifically rubbed its top. Anon it changed to the blare of trumpets--of savage pursuing trumpets. Then, as McTurk slapped one side, smooth with the blood of ancient sacrifice, the roar broke into short coughing howls such as the wounded gorilla throws in his native forest. These were followed by the wrath of King--three steps at a time, up the staircase, with a dry whir of the gown. Aladdin and company, listening, squeaked with excitement as the door crashed open. King stumbled into the darkness, and cursed those performers by the gods of Balliol and quiet repose.
"Turned out for a week," said Aladdin, holding the study door on the crack. "Key to be brought down to his study in five minutes. 'Brutes! Barbarians! Savages!
Children!' He's rather agitated. 'Arrah, Patsy, mind the baby,'" he sang in a whisper as he clung to the door-knob, dancing a noiseless war-dance.
King went down-stairs again, and Beetle and McTurk lit the gas to confer with Stalky. But Stalky had vanished.
"Looks like no end of a mess," said Beetle, collecting his books and mathematical instrument case. "A week in the form-rooms isn't any advantage to us.""Yes, but don't you see that Stalky isn't here, you owl!" said McTurk. "Take down the key, and look sorrowful. King'll only jaw you for half an hour. I'm going to read in the lower form-room.""But it's always me," mourned Beetle.
"Wait till we see," said McTurk, hopefully. "I don't know any more than you do what Stalky means, but it's something. Go down and draw King's fire. You're used to it."No sooner had the key turned in the door than the lid of the coal-box, which was also the window-seat, lifted cautiously. It had been a tight fit, even for the lithe Stalky, his head between his knees, and his stomach under his right ear. 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."Stalky smiled a tight-lipped smile, and at extreme range opened fire: the old horse half wheeled in the shafts.
