Part 67

“--and I’ve come to ask you chaps, and especially you, Beetle, not to let the thing be known all over the school. Of course, fellows as senior as you are can easily see why.”

“Um!” said Beetle, with the cold reluctance of one who foresees an unpleasant public duty. “I suppose I must go and talk to the Sixth again.”

“Not the least need, my dear chap, I assure you,” said Naughten hastily. “I’ll take any message you care to send.”

But the chance of supplying the missing adjective was too tempting. So Naughten returned to that still undissolved meeting, Beetle, white, icy, and aloof, at his heels.

“There seems,” he began, with laboriously crisp articulation, “there seems to be a certain amount of uneasiness among you as to the steps we may think fit to take in regard to this last revelation of the--ah--obscene. If it is any consolation to you to know that we have decided--for the honor of the school, you understand--to keep our mouths shut as to these--ah--obscenities, you--ah--have it.”

He wheeled, his head among the stars, and strode statelily back to his study, where Stalky and McTurk lay side by side upon the table wiping their tearful eyes--too weak to move.

* * * * *

The Latin prose paper was a success beyond their wildest dreams. Stalky and McTurk were, of course, out of all examinations (they did extra-tuition with the Head), but Beetle attended with zeal.

“This, I presume, is a par-ergon on your part,” said King, as he dealt out the papers. “One final exhibition ere you are translated to loftier spheres? A last attack on the classics? It seems to confound you already.”

Beetle studied the print with knit brows. “I can’t make head or tail of it,” he murmured. “What does it mean?”

“No, no!” said King, with scholastic coquetry. “We depend upon you to give us the meaning. This is an examination, Beetle mine, not a guessing-competition. You will find your associates have no difficulty in--”

Tulke left his place and laid the paper on the desk. King looked, read, and turned a ghastly green.

“Stalky’s missing a heap,” thought Beetle. “Wonder how King’ll get out of it!”

“There seems,” King began with a gulp, “a certain modicum of truth in our Beetle’s remark. I am--er--inclined to believe that the worthy Randall must have dropped this in ferule--if you know what that means. Beetle, you purport to be an editor. Perhaps you can enlighten the form as to formes.”

“What, sir! Whose form! I don’t see that there’s any verb in this sentence at all, an’--an’--the Ode is all different, somehow.”

“I was about to say, before you volunteered your criticism, that an accident must have befallen the paper in type, and that the printer reset it by the light of nature. No--” he held the thing at arm’s length--“our Randall is not an authority on Cicero or Horace.”

“Rather mean to shove it off on Randall,” whispered Beetle to his neighbor. “King must ha’ been as screwed as an owl when he wrote it out.”

“But we can amend the error by dictating it.”

“No, sir.” The answer came pat from a dozen throats at once. “That cuts the time for the exam. Only two hours allowed, sir. ’Tisn’t fair. It’s a printed-paper exam. How’re we goin’ to be marked for it! It’s all Randall’s fault. It isn’t our fault, anyhow. An exam.’s an exam.,” etc., etc.

Naturally Mr. King considered this was an attempt to undermine his authority, and, instead of beginning dictation at once, delivered a lecture on the spirit in which examinations should be approached. As the storm subsided, Beetle fanned it afresh.

“Eh? What? What was that you were saying to MacLagan?”

“I only said I thought the papers ought to have been looked at before they were given out, sir.”

“Hear, hear!” from a back bench. Mr. King wished to know whether Beetle took it upon himself personally to conduct the traditions of the school. His zeal for knowledge ate up another fifteen minutes, during which the prefects showed unmistakable signs of boredom.

“Oh, it was a giddy time,” said Beetle, afterwards, in dismantled Number Five. “He gibbered a bit, and I kept him on the gibber, and then he dictated about a half of Dolabella & Co.”

“Good old Dolabella! Friend of mine. Yes?” said Stalky, pensively.

“Then we had to ask him how every other word was spelt, of course, and he gibbered a lot more. He cursed me and MacLagan (Mac played up like a trump) and Randall, and the ‘materialized ignorance of the unscholarly middle classes,’ ‘lust for mere marks,’ and all the rest. It was what you might call a final exhibition--a last attack--a giddy par-ergon.”

“But o’ course he was blind squiffy when he wrote the paper. I hope you explained that?” said Stalky.

“Oh, yes. I told Tulke so. I said an immoral prefect an’ a drunken house-master were legitimate inferences. Tulke nearly blubbed. He’s awfully shy of us since Mary’s time.”