Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (450 page)

“‘Strange, how desire doth outrun performance,’” said Beetle irreverently, quoting from some Shakespeare play that they were cramming that term. They regained their study and settled down to the imposition.

“You’re quite right, Beetle.” Stalky spoke in silky and propitiating tones. “Now, if the Head had sent us up to a prefect, we’d have got something to remember!”

“Look here,” McTurk began with cold venom, “we aren’t goin’ to row you about this business, because it’s too bad for a row; but we want you to understand you’re jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. You’re a plain ass.”

“How was I to know that the Head ‘ud collar us? What was he doin’ in those ghastly clothes, too?”

“Don’t try to raise a side-issue,” Beetle grunted severely.

“Well, it was all Stettson major’s fault. If he hadn’t gone an’ got diphtheria ‘twouldn’t have happened. But don’t you think it rather rummy — the Head droppin’ on us that way?”

“Shut up! You’re dead!” said Beetle. “We’ve chopped your spurs off your beastly heels. We’ve cocked your shield upside down and — -and I don’t think you ought to be allowed to brew for a month.”

“Oh, stop jawin’ at me. I want — ”

“Stop? Why — why, we’re gated for a week.” McTurk almost howled as the agony of the situation overcame him. “A lickin’ from King, five hundred lines,
and
a gatin’. D’you expect us to kiss you, Stalky, you beast?”

“Drop rottin’ for a minute. I want to find out about the Head bein’ where he was.”

“Well, you have. You found him quite well and fit. Found him makin’ love to Stettson major’s mother. That was her in the lane — I heard her. And so we were ordered a lickin’ before a day-boy’s mother. Bony old widow, too,” said McTurk. “Anything else you’d like to find out?”

“I don’t care. I swear I’ll get even with him some day,” Stalky growled.

“Looks like it,” said McTurk. “Extra-special, week’s gatin’ and five hundred... and now you’re goin’ to row about it! Help scrag him, Beetle!” Stalky had thrown his Virgil at them.

The Head returned next day without explanation, to find the lines waiting for him and the school a little relaxed under Mr. King’s viceroyalty. Mr. King had been talking at and round and over the boys’ heads, in a lofty and promiscuous style, of public-school spirit and the traditions of ancient seats; for he always improved an occasion. Beyond waking in two hundred and fifty young hearts a lively hatred of all other foundations, he accomplished little — so little, indeed, that when, two days after the Head’s return, he chanced to come across Stalky & Co., gated but ever resourceful, playing marbles in the corridor, he said that he was not surprised — not in the least surprised. This was what he had expected from persons of their
morale
.

“But there isn’t any rule against marbles, sir. Very interestin’ game,” said Beetle, his knees white with chalk and dust. Then he received two hundred lines for insolence, besides an order to go to the nearest prefect for judgment and slaughter.

This is what happened behind the closed doors of Flint’s study, and Flint was then Head of the Games: —

“Oh, I say, Flint. King has sent me to you for playin’ marbles in the corridor an’ shoutin’ ‘alley tor’ an’ ‘knuckle down.’”

“What does he suppose I have to do with that?” was the answer.

“Dunno. Well?” Beetle grinned wickedly. “What am I to tell him? He’s rather wrathy about it.”

“If the Head chooses to put a notice in the corridor forbiddin’ marbles, I can do something; but I can’t move on a house-master’s report. He knows that as well as I do.”

The sense of this oracle Beetle conveyed, all unsweetened, to King, who hastened to interview Flint.

Now Flint had been seven and a half years at the College, counting six months with a London crammer, from whose roof he had returned, homesick, to the Head for the final Army polish. There were four or five other seniors who had gone through much the same mill, not to mention boys, rejected by other establishments on account of a certain overwhelmingness, whom the Head had wrought into very fair shape. It was not a Sixth to be handled without gloves, as King found.

“Am I to understand it is your intention to allow board-school games under your study windows, Flint? If so, I can only say — ” He said much, and Flint listened politely.

“Well, sir, if the Head sees fit to call a prefects’ meeting we are bound to take the matter up. But the tradition of the school is that the prefects can’t move in any matter affecting the whole school without the Head’s direct order.”

Much more was then delivered, both sides a little losing their temper.

After tea, at an informal gathering of prefects in his study, Flint related the adventure.

“He’s been playin’ for this for a week, and now he’s got it. You know as well as I do that if he hadn’t been gassing at us the way he has, that young devil Beetle wouldn’t have dreamed of marbles.”

“We know that,” said Perowne, “but that isn’t the question. On Flint’s showin’ King has called the prefects names enough to justify a first-class row. Crammers’ rejections, ill-regulated hobble-de-hoys, wasn’t it? Now it’s impossible for prefects — ”

“Rot,” said Flint. “King’s the best classical cram we’ve got; and ‘tisn’t fair to bother the Head with a row. He’s up to his eyes with extra-tu and Army work as it is. Besides, as I told King, we
aren’t
a public school. We’re a limited liability company payin’ four per cent. My father’s a shareholder, too.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” said Venner, a red-headed boy of nineteen.

“Well, seems to me that we should be interferin’ with ourselves. We’ve got to get into the Army or — get out, haven’t we? King’s hired by the Council to teach us. All the rest’s gumdiddle. Can’t you see?”

It might have been because he felt the air was a little thunderous that the Head took his after-dinner cheroot to Flint’s study; but he so often began an evening in a prefect’s room that nobody suspected when he drifted in pensively, after the knocks that etiquette demanded.

“Prefects’ meeting?” A cock of one wise eye-brow.

“Not exactly, sir; we’re just talking things over. Won’t you take the easy chair?”

“Thanks. Luxurious infants, you are.” He dropped into Flint’s big half-couch and puffed for a while in silence. “Well, since you’re all here, I may confess that I’m the mute with the bowstring.”

The young faces grew serious. The phrase meant that certain of their number would be withdrawn from all further games for extra-tuition. It might also mean future success at Sandhurst; but it was present ruin for the First Fifteen.

“Yes, I’ve come for my pound of flesh. I ought to have had you out before the Exeter match; but it’s our sacred duty to beat Exeter.”

“Isn’t the Old Boys’ match sacred, too, sir?” said Perowne. The Old Boys’ match was the event of the Easter term.

“We’ll hope they aren’t in training. Now for the list. First I want Flint. It’s the Euclid that does it. You must work deductions with me. Perowne, extra mechanical drawing. Dawson goes to Mr. King for extra Latin, and Venner to me for German. Have I damaged the First Fifteen much?” He smiled sweetly.

“Ruined it, I’m afraid, sir,” said Flint. “Can’t you let us off till the end of the term?”

“Impossible. It will be a tight squeeze for Sandhurst this year.”

“And all to be cut up by those vile Afghans, too,” said Dawson. “Wouldn’t think there’d be so much competition, would you?”

“Oh, that reminds me. Crandall is coming down with the Old Boys — I’ve asked twenty of them, but we shan’t get more than a weak team. I don’t know whether he’ll be much use, though. He was rather knocked about, recovering poor old Duncan’s body.”

“Crandall major — the Gunner?” Perowne asked.

“No, the minor — ’Toffee’ Crandall — in a native infantry regiment. He was almost before your time, Perowne.”

“The papers didn’t say anything about him. We read about Fat-Sow, of course. What’s Crandall done, sir?”

“I’ve brought over an Indian paper that his mother sent me. It was rather a — hefty, I think you say — piece of work. Shall I read it?” The Head knew how to read. When he had finished the quarter-column of close type everybody thanked him politely.

“Good for the old Coll.!” said Perowne. “Pity he wasn’t in time to save Fat-Sow, though. That’s nine to us, isn’t it, in the last three years?”

“Yes... And I took old Duncan off all games for extra-tu five years ago this term,” said the Head. “By the way, who do you hand over the Games to, Flint?”

“Haven’t thought yet. Who’d you recommend, sir?”

“No, thank you. I’ve heard it casually hinted behind my back that the Prooshan Bates is a downy bird, but he isn’t going to make himself responsible for a new Head of the Games. Settle it among yourselves. Good-night.”

“And that’s the man,” said Flint, when the door shut, “that you want to bother with a dame’s school row.”

“I was only pullin’ your fat leg,” Perowne returned, hastily. “You’re so easy to draw, Flint.”

“Well, never mind that. The Head’s knocked the First Fifteen to bits, and we’ve got to pick up the pieces, or the Old Boys will have a walk-over. Let’s promote all the Second Fifteen and make Big Side play up. There’s heaps of talent somewhere that we can polish up between now and the match.”

The case was represented so urgently to the school that even Stalky and McTurk, who affected to despise football, played one Big-Side game seriously. They were forthwith promoted ere their ardor had time to cool, and the dignity of their Caps demanded that they should keep some show of virtue. The match-team was worked at least four days out of seven, and the school saw hope ahead.

With the last week of the term the Old Boys began to arrive, and their welcome was nicely proportioned to their worth. Gentlemen cadets from Sandhurst and Woolwich, who had only left a year ago, but who carried enormous side, were greeted with a cheerful “Hullo! What’s the Shop like?” from those who had shared their studies. Militia subalterns had more consideration, but it was understood they were not precisely of the true metal. Recreants who, failing for the Army, had gone into business or banks were received for old sake’s sake, but in no way made too much of. But when the real subalterns, officers and gentlemen full-blown — who had been to the ends of the earth and back again and so carried no side — came on the scene strolling about with the Head, the school divided right and left in admiring silence. And when one laid hands on Flint, even upon the Head of the Games crying, “Good Heavens! What do you mean by growing in this way? You were a beastly little fag when I left,” visible haloes encircled Flint. They would walk to and fro in the corridor with the little red school-sergeant, telling news of old regiments; they would burst into form-rooms sniffing the well-remembered smells of ink and whitewash; they would find nephews and cousins in the lower forms and present them with enormous wealth; or they would invade the gymnasium and make Foxy show off the new stock on the bars.

Chiefly, though, they talked with the Head, who was father-confessor and agent-general to them all; for what they shouted in their unthinking youth, they proved in their thoughtless manhood — to wit, that the Prooshan Bates was “a downy bird.” Young blood who had stumbled into an entanglement with a pastry-cook’s daughter at Plymouth; experience who had come into a small legacy but mistrusted lawyers; ambition halting at cross-roads, anxious to take the one that would lead him farthest; extravagance pursued by the money-lender; arrogance in the thick of a regimental row — each carried his trouble to the Head; and Chiron showed him, in language quite unfit for little boys, a quiet and safe way round, out, or under. So they overflowed his house, smoked his cigars, and drank his health as they had drunk it all the earth over when two or three of the old school had foregathered.

“Don’t stop smoking for a minute,” said the Head. “The more you’re out of training the better for us. I’ve demoralized the First Fifteen with extra-tu.”

“Ah, but we’re a scratch lot. Have you told ‘em we shall need a substitute even if Crandall can play?” said a Lieutenant of Engineers with a D.S.O. to his credit.

“He wrote me he’d play, so he can’t have been much hurt. He’s coming down to-morrow morning.”

“Crandall minor that was, and brought off poor Duncan’s body?” The Head nodded. “Where are you going to put him? We’ve turned you out of house and home already, Head Sahib.” This was a Squadron Commander of Bengal Lancers, home on leave.

“I’m afraid he’ll have to go up to his old dormitory. You know old boys can claim that privilege. Yes, I think little Crandall minor must bed down there once more.”

“Bates Sahib “ — a Gunner flung a heavy arm round the Head’s neck — ”you’ve got something up your sleeve. Confess! I know that twinkle.”

“Can’t you see, you cuckoo?” a Submarine Miner interrupted. “Crandall goes up to the dormitory as an object-lesson, for moral effect and so forth. Isn’t that true, Head Sahib?”

“It is. You know too much, Purvis. I licked you for that in ‘79.”