Part 64

“’Member what the Considerate Bloomer did to Spraggon’s account of the Puffin’ton Hounds? We must sugar Mr. King’s milk for him,” said Stalky, all lighted from within by a devilish joy. “Let’s see what Beetle can do with those forceps he’s so proud of.”

“Don’t see now you can make Latin prose much more cock-eye than it is, but we’ll try,” said Beetle, transposing an aliud and Asiae from two sentences. “Let’s see! We’ll put that full-stop a little further on, and begin the sentence with the next capital. Hurrah! Here’s three lines that can move up all in a lump.”

“‘One of those scientific rests for which this eminent huntsman is so justly celebrated.’” Stalky knew the Puffington run by heart.

“Hold on! Here’s a vol--voluntate quidnam all by itself,” said McTurk.

“I’ll attend to her in a shake. Quidnam goes after Dolabella.”

“Good old Dolabella,” murmured Stalky. “Don’t break him. Vile prose Cicero wrote, didn’t he? He ought to be grateful for--”

“Hullo!” said McTurk, over another forme. “What price a giddy ode? Qui--quis--oh, it’s Quis multa gracilis, o’ course.”

“Bring it along. We’ve sugared the milk here,” said Stalky, after a few minutes’ zealous toil. “Never thrash your hounds unnecessarily.”

“Quis munditiis? I swear that’s not bad,” began Beetle, plying the tweezers. “Don’t that interrogation look pretty? Heu quoties fidem! That sounds as if the chap were anxious an’ excited. Cui flavam religas in rosa--Whose flavor is relegated to a rose. Mutatosque Deos flebit in antro.”

“Mute gods weepin’ in a cave,” suggested Stalky. “’Pon my Sam, Horace needs as much lookin’ after as--Tulke.”

They edited him faithfully till it was too dark to see.

* * * * *

“‘Aha! Elucescebat, quoth our friend.’ Ulpian serves my need, does it? If King can make anything out of that, I’m a blue-eyed squatteroo,” said Beetle, as they slid out of the loft window into a back alley of old acquaintance and started on a three-mile trot to the College. But the revision of the classics had detained them too long. They halted, blown and breathless, in the furze at the back of the gasometer, the College lights twinkling below, ten minutes at least late for tea and lock-up.

“It’s no good,” puffed McTurk. “Bet a bob Foxy is waiting for defaulters under the lamp by the Fives Court. It’s a nuisance, too, because the Head gave us long leave, and one doesn’t like to break it.”

“‘Let me now from the bonded ware’ouse of my knowledge,’” began Stalky.

“Oh, rot! Don’t Jorrock. Can we make a run for it?” snapped McTurk.

“‘Bishops’ boots Mr. Radcliffe also condemned, an’ spoke ’ighly in favor of tops cleaned with champagne an’ abricot jam.’ Where’s that thing Cokey was twiddlin’ this afternoon?”

They heard him groping in the wet, and presently beheld a great miracle. The lights of the Coastguard cottages near the sea went out; the brilliantly illuminated windows of the Golf-club disappeared, and were followed by the frontages of the two hotels. Scattered villas dulled, twinkled, and vanished. Last of all, the College lights died also. They were left in the pitchy darkness of a windy winter’s night.

“‘Blister my kidneys. It is a frost. The dahlias are dead!’” said Stalky. “Bunk!”

They squattered through the dripping gorse as the College hummed like an angry hive and the dining-rooms chorused, “Gas! gas! gas!” till they came to the edge of the sunk path that divided them from their study. Dropping that ha-ha like bullets, and rebounding like boys, they dashed to their study, in less than two minutes had changed into dry trousers and coat, and, ostentatiously slippered, joined the mob in the dining-hall, which resembled the storm-centre of a South American revolution.

“‘Hellish dark and smells of cheese.’” Stalky elbowed his way into the press, howling lustily for gas. “Cokey must have gone for a walk. Foxy’ll have to find him.”

Prout, as the nearest house-master, was trying to restore order, for rude boys were flicking butter-pats across chaos, and McTurk had turned on the fags’ tea-urn, so that many were parboiled and wept with an unfeigned dolor. The Fourth and Upper Third broke into the school song, the “Vive la Compagnie,” to the accompaniment of drumming knife-handles; and the junior forms shrilled bat-like shrieks and raided one another’s victuals. Two hundred and fifty boys in high condition, seeking for more light, are truly earnest inquirers.

When a most vile smell of gas told them that supplies had been renewed, Stalky, waistcoat unbuttoned, sat gorgedly over what might have been his fourth cup of tea. “And that’s all right,” he said. “Hullo! ’Ere’s Pomponius Ego!”

It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, straight-minded soul, and a pillar of the First Fifteen, who crossed over from the prefects’ table and in a husky, official voice invited the three to attend in his study in half an hour. “Prefects’ meetin’! Prefects’ meetin’!” hissed the tables, and they imitated barbarically the actions and effects of the ground-ash.

“How are we goin’ to jest with ’em?” said Stalky, turning half-face to Beetle. “It’s your play this time!”

“Look here,” was the answer, “all I want you to do is not to laugh. I’m goin’ to take charge o’ young Tulke’s immorality--à la King, and it’s goin’ to be serious. If you can’t help laughin’ don’t look at me, or I’ll go pop.”

“I see. All right,” said Stalky.

McTurk’s lank frame stiffened in every muscle and his eyelids dropped half over his eyes. That last was a war-signal.