feel in the dark."
To the left Stalky wriggled, and saw a long line of lead pipe disappearing up a triangular tunnel, whose roof was the rafters and boarding of the college roof, whose floor was sharp-edged joists, and whose side was the rough studding of the lath and plaster wall under the dormer.
"Rummy show. How far does it go?"
"Right along, Muster Corkran--right along from end to end. Her runs under the "ang of the heaves. Have "ee rached the stopc.o.c.k yet? Mr. King got un put in to save us carryin" watter from down-stairs to fill the basins. No place for a l.u.s.ty man like old Richards. I"m tu thickabout to go ferritin". Thank "ee, Muster Corkran."
The water squirted through the tap just inside the cupboard, and, having filled the basins, the grateful Richards waddled away.
The boys sat round-eyed on their beds considering the possibilities of this trove. Two floors below them they could hear the hum of the angry house; for nothing is so still as a dormitory in mid-afternoon of a midsummer term.
"It has been papered over till now." McTurk examined the little door.
"If we"d only known before!"
"I vote we go down and explore. No one will come up this time o" day. We needn"t keep _cave"_."
They crawled in, Stalky leading, drew the door behind them, and on all fours embarked on a dark and dirty road full of plaster, odd shavings, and all the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of a house.
The pa.s.sage was perhaps three feet wide, and, except for the struggling light round the edges of the cupboards (there was one to each dormer), almost pitchy dark.
"Here"s Macrea"s house," said Stalky, his eye at the crack of the third cupboard. "I can see Barnes"s name on his trunk. Don"t make such a row, Beetle! We can get right to the end of the Coll. Come on!... We"re in King"s house now--I can see a bit of Rattray"s trunk. How these beastly boards hurt one"s knees!" They heard his nails sc.r.a.ping, on plaster.
"That"s the ceiling below. Look out! If we smashed that the plaster "ud fall down in the lower dormitory," said Beetle.
"Let"s," whispered McTurk.
"An" be collared first thing? Not much. Why, I can shove my hand ever so far up between these boards."
Stalky thrust an arm to the elbow between the joists.
"No good stayin" here. I vote we go back and talk it over. It"s a crummy place. "Must say I"m grateful to King for his water-works."
They crawled out, brushed one another clean, slid the saloon-pistols down a trouser-leg, and hurried forth to a deep and solitary Devonshire lane in whose flanks a boy might sometimes slay a young rabbit. They threw themselves down under the rank elder bushes, and began to think aloud.
"You know," said Stalky at last, sighting at a distant sparrow, "we could hide our sallies in there like anything."
"Huh!" Beetle snorted, choked, and gurgled. He had been silent since they left the dormitory. "Did you ever read a book called "The History of a House" or something? I got it out of the library the other day. A French woman wrote it--Violet somebody. But it"s translated, you know; and it"s very interestin". Tells you how a house is built."
"Well, if you"re in a sweat to find out that, you can go down to the new cottages they"re building for the coastguard."
"My Hat! I will." He felt in his pockets. "Give me tuppence, some one."
"Rot! Stay here, and don"t mess about in the sun."
"Gi" me tuppence."
"I say, Beetle, you aren"t stuffy about anything, are you?" said McTurk, handing over the coppers. His tone was serious, for though Stalky often, and McTurk occasionally, manoeuvred on his own account, Beetle had never been known to do so in all the history of the confederacy.
"No, I"m not. I"m thinking."
"Well, we"ll come, too," said Stalky, with a general"s suspicion of his aides.
"Don"t want you."
"Oh, leave him alone. He"s been taken worse with a poem," said McTurk.
"He"ll go burbling down to the Pebbleridge and spit it all up in the study when he comes back."
"Then why did he want the tuppence, Turkey? He"s gettin" too beastly independent. Hi! There"s a bunny. No, it ain"t. It"s a cat, by Jove! You plug first."
Twenty minutes later a boy with a straw hat at the back of his head, and his hands in his pockets, was staring at workmen as they moved about a half-finished cottage. He produced some ferocious tobacco, and was pa.s.sed from the forecourt into the interior, where he asked many questions.
"Well, let"s have your beastly epic," said Turkey, as they burst into the study, to find Beetle deep in Viollet-le-Duc and some drawings.
"We"ve had no end of a lark."
"Epic? What epic? I"ve been down to the coastguard."
"No epic? Then we will slay you, O Beetle," said Stalky, moving to the attack. "You"ve got something up your sleeve. _I_ know, when you talk in that tone!"
"Your Uncle Beetle"--with an attempt to imitate Stalky"s war-voice--"is a great man."
"Oh, no; he jolly well isn"t anything of the kind. You deceive yourself, Beetle. Scrag him, Turkey!"
"A great man," Beetle gurgled from the floor. "_You_ are futile--look out for my tie!--futile burblers. I am the Great Man. I gloat. Ouch!
Hear me!"
"Beetle, de-ah"--Stalky dropped unreservedly on Beetle"s chest--"we love you, an" you"re a poet. If I ever said you were a doggaroo, I apologize; but you know as well as we do that you can"t do anything by yourself without mucking it."
"I"ve got a notion."
"And you"ll spoil the whole show if you don"t tell your Uncle Stalky.
Cough it up, ducky, and we"ll see what we can do. Notion, you fat impostor--I knew you had a notion when you went away! Turkey said it was a poem."
"I"ve found out how houses are built. Le" me get up. The floor-joists of one room are the ceiling-joists of the room below."
"Don"t be so filthy technical."
"Well, the man told me. The floor is laid on top of those joists--those boards on edge that we crawled over--but the floor stops at a part.i.tion.
Well, if you get behind a part.i.tion, same as you did in the attic, don"t you see that you can shove anything you please under the floor between the floor-boards and the lath and plaster of the ceiling below? Look here. I"ve drawn it."
He produced a rude sketch, sufficient to enlighten the allies. There is no part of the modern school curriculum that deals with architecture, and none of them had yet reflected whether floors and ceilings were hollow or solid. Outside his own immediate interests the boy is as ignorant as the savage he so admires; but he has also the savage"s resource.
"I see," said Stalky. "I shoved my hand there. An" then?"
"An" then They"ve been calling us stinkers, you know. We might shove somethin" under--sulphur, or something that stunk pretty bad--an" stink "em out. I know it can be done somehow." Beetle"s eyes turned to Stalky handling the diagrams.
"Stinks?" said Stalky interrogatively. Then his face grew luminous with delight. "By gum! I"ve got it. Horrid stinks! Turkey!" He leaped at the Irishman. "This afternoon--just after Beetle went away! _She"s_ the very thing!"
"Come to my arms, my beamish boy," caroled McTurk, and they fell into each other"s arms dancing. "Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay! She will!
She will!"