Part 37

“Maybe a lot of fags have made a dead set at Clewer. They do that sometimes.”

“Then we’ll have to kick the whole of the lower school in our house--on spec. Come on,” said McTurk.

“Keep your hair on! We mustn’t make a fuss about the biznai. Whoever it is he’s kept quiet or we’d have seen him,” said Stalky. “We’ll walk round and sniff about till we’re sure.”

They drew the house form-rooms, accounting for every junior and senior against whom they had suspicions; investigated, at Beetle’s suggestion, the lavatories and box-rooms, but without result. Everybody seemed to be present save Clewer.

“Rum!” said Stalky, pausing outside a study door. “Golly!”

A thin piping mixed with tears came muffled through the panels.

“‘As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping--’”

“Louder, you young devil, or I’ll buzz a book at you!”

“With a pitcher of milk-- Oh, Campbell, please don’t! To the fair of--”

A book crashed on something soft, and squeals arose.

“Well, I never thought it was a study-chap, anyhow. That accounts for our not spotting him,” said Beetle. “Sefton and Campbell are rather hefty chaps to tackle. Besides, one can’t go into their study like a form-room.”

“What swine!” McTurk listened. “Where’s the fun of it? I suppose Clewer’s faggin’ for them.”

“They aren’t prefects. That’s one good job,” said Stalky, with his war-grin. “Sefton and Campbell! Um! Campbell and Sefton! Ah! One of ’em’s a crammer’s pup.”

The two were precocious hairy youths between seventeen and eighteen, sent to the school in despair by parents who hoped that six months’ steady cram might, perhaps, jockey them into Sandhurst. Nominally they were in Mr. Prout’s house; actually they were under the Head’s eye; and since he was very careful never to promote strange new boys to prefectships, they considered they had a grievance against the school. Sefton had spent three months with a London crammer, and the tale of his adventures there lost nothing in the telling. Campbell, who had a fine taste in clothes and a fluent vocabulary, followed his lead in looking down loftily on the rest of the world. This was only their second term, and the school, used to what it profanely called “crammers’ pups,” had treated them with rather galling reserve. But their whiskers--Sefton owned a real razor--and their mustaches were beyond question impressive.

“Shall we go in an’ dissuade ’em?” McTurk asked. “I’ve never had much to do with ’em, but I’ll bet my hat Campbell’s a funk.”

“No--o! That’s oratio directa,” said Stalky, shaking his head. “I like oratio obliqua. ’Sides, where’d our moral influence be then? Think o’ that!”

“Rot! What are you goin’ to do?” Beetle turned into Lower Number Nine form-room, next door to the study.

“Me?” The lights of war flickered over Stalky’s face. “Oh, I want to jape with ’em. Shut up a bit!”

He drove his hands into his pockets and stared out of window at the sea, whistling between his teeth. Then a foot tapped the floor; one shoulder lifted; he wheeled, and began the short quick double-shuffle--the war-dance of Stalky in meditation. Thrice he crossed the empty form-room, with compressed lips and expanded nostrils, swaying to the quick-step. Then he halted before the dumb Beetle and softly knuckled his head, Beetle bowing to the strokes. McTurk nursed one knee and rocked to and fro. They could hear Clewer howling as though his heart would break.

“Beetle is the sacrifice,” Stalky said at last, “I’m sorry for you, Beetle. ’Member Galton’s ‘Art of Travel’ [one of the forms had been studying that pleasant work] an’ the kid whose bleatin’ excited the tiger?”

“Oh, curse!” said Beetle uneasily. It was not his first season as a sacrifice. “Can’t you get on without me?”

“’Fraid not, Beetle, dear. You’ve got to be bullied by Turkey an’ me. The more you howl, o’ course, the better it’ll be. Turkey, go an’ covet a stump and a box-rope from somewhere. We’ll tie him up for a kill--à la Galton. ’Member when ‘Molly’ Fairburn made us cock-fight with our shoes off, an’ tied up our knees?”

“But that hurt like sin.”

“Course it did. What a clever chap you are, Beetle! Turkey’ll knock you all over the place. ’Member we’ve had a big row all round, an’ I’ve trapped you into doin’ this. Lend us your wipe.” Beetle was trussed for cock-fighting; but, in addition to the transverse stump between elbow and knee, his knees were bound with a box-rope. In this posture, at a push from Stalky he rolled over sideways, covering himself with dust.

“Ruffle his hair, Turkey. Now you get down, too. ‘The bleatin’ of the kid excites the tiger.’ You two are in such a sweatin’ wax with me that you only curse. ’Member that. I’ll tickle you up with a stump. You’ll have to blub, Beetle.”

“Right O! I’ll work up to it in half a shake,” said Beetle.

“Now begin--and remember the bleatin’ o’ the kid.”

“Shut up, you brutes! Let me up! You’ve nearly cut my knees off. Oh, you are beastly cads! Do shut up. ’Tisn’t a joke!” Beetle’s protest was, in tone, a work of art.