Part 13 (1/2)

”With one shout and with one cry” Prout's juniors hurled themselves into the war, and through the interval between first and second lesson some fifty twelve-year-olds were embroiled on the gravel outside King's windows to a tune whose _leit-motif_ was the word ”stinker.”

”Hark to the minute-gun at sea!” said Stalky. They were in their study collecting books for second lesson--Latin, with King. ”I thought his azure brow was a bit cloudy at prayers. 'She is comin', sister Mary. She is--'”

”If they make such a row now, what will they do when she really begins to look up an' take notice?”

”Well, no vulgar repartee, Beetle. All we want is to keep out of this row like gentlemen.”

”'Tis but a little faded flower.' Where's my Horace? Look here, I don't understand what she means by stinkin' out Rattray's dormitory first. We holed in under White's, didn't we?” asked McTurk, with a wrinkled brow.

”Skittish little thing. She's rompin' about all over the place, I suppose.”

”My Aunt! King'll be a cheerful customer at second lesson. I haven't prepared my Horace one little bit, either,” said Beetle. ”Come on!”

They were outside the form-room door now. It was within five minutes of the bell, and King might arrive at any moment.

Turkey elbowed into a cohort of scuffling f.a.gs, cut out Thornton tertius (he that had been Harland's bosom friend), and bade him tell his tale.

It was a simple one, interrupted by tears. Many of King's house trod already battered him for libel.

”Oh, it's nothing,” McTurk cried. ”He says that King's house stinks.

That's all.”

”Stale!” Stalky shouted. ”We knew that years ago, only we didn't choose to run about shoutin' 'stinker.' We've got some manners, ir they haven't. Catch a f.a.g, Turkey, and make sure of it.”

Turkey's long arm closed on a hurried and anxious ornament of the Lower Second.

”Oh, McTurk, please let me go. I don't stink--I swear I don't!”

”Guilty conscience!” cried Beetle. ”Who said you did?”

”What d'you make of it?” Stalky punted the small boy into Beetle's arms.

”Snf! Snf! He does, though. I think it's leprosy--or thrush. P'raps it's both. Take it away.”

”Indeed, Master Beetle”--King generally came to the house-door for a minute or two as the bell rang--”we are vastly indebted to you for your diagnosis, which seems to reflect almost as much credit on the natural unwholesomeness of your mind as it does upon your pitiful ignorance of the diseases of which you discourse so glibly. We will, however, test your knowledge in other directions.”

That was a merry lesson, but, in his haste to scarify Beetle, King clean neglected to give him an imposition, and since at the same time he supplied him with many priceless adjectives for later use, Beetle was well content, and applied himself most seriously throughout third lesson (algebra with little Hartopp) to composing a poem ent.i.tled ”The Lazar-house.”

After dinner King took his house to bathe in the sea off the Pebbleridge. It was an old promise; but he wished he could have evaded it, for all Prout's lined up by the Fives Court and cheered with intention. In his absence not less than half the school invaded the infected dormitory to draw their own conclusions. The cat had gained in the last twelve hours, but a battlefield of the fifth day could not have been so flamboyant as the spies reported.

”My word, she _is_ doin' herself proud,” said Stalky. ”Did you ever smell anything like it? Ah, an' she isn't under White's dormitory at all yet.”

”But she will be. Give her time,” said Beetle. ”She'll twine like a giddy honeysuckle. What howlin' Lazarites they are! No house is justified in makin' itself a stench in the nostrils of decent--”

”High-minded, pure-souled boys. Do you burn with remorse and regret?”

said McTurk, as they hastened to meet the house coming up from the sea.

King had deserted it, so speech was unfettered. Round its front played a crowd of skirmishers--all houses mixed--flying, reforming, shrieking insults. On its tortured flanks marched the Hoplites, seniors hurling jests one after another--simple and primitive jests of the Stone Age.

To these the three added themselves, dispa.s.sionately, with an air of aloofness, almost sadly.