"My word! Mr. Prout"s gone and told the Head," said Stalky. "He"s a moral double-ender. Not fair, luggin" the Head into a house-row."
"I should recommend a copy-book on a--h"m--safe and certain part," said the Reverend John disinterestedly.
"Huh! He licks across the shoulders, an" it would slam like a beastly barn-door," said Beetle. "Good-night, Padre. We"re in for it."
Once more they stood in the presence of the Head--Belial, Mammon, and Lucifer. But they had to deal with a man more subtle than them all. Mr.
Prout had talked to him, heavily and sadly, for half an hour; and the Head had seen all that was hidden from the house-master.
"You"ve been bothering Mr. Prout," he said pensively. "House-masters aren"t here to be bothered by boys more than is necessary. I don"t like being bothered by these things. You are bothering _me_. That is a very serious offense. You see it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, now, I purpose to bother you, on personal and private grounds, because you have broken into my time. You are much too big to lick, so I suppose I shall have to mark my displeasure in some other way. Say, a thousand lines apiece, a week"s gating, and a few things of that kind.
Much too big to lick, aren"t you?"
"Oh, no, sir," said Stalky cheerfully; for a week"s gating in the summer term is serious.
"Ve-ry good. Then we will do what we can. I wish you wouldn"t bother me."
It was a fair, sustained, equable stroke, with a little draw to it, but what they felt most was his unfairness in stopping to talk between executions. Thus: "Among the--lower cla.s.ses this would lay me open to a charge of--a.s.sault. You should be more grateful for your--privileges than you are. There is a limit--one finds it by experience, Beetle--beyond which it is never safe to pursue private vendettas, because--don"t move--sooner or later one comes--into collision with the--higher authority, who has studied the animal. _Et ego_--McTurk, please--_in Arcadia vixi_. There"s a certain flagrant injustice about this that ought to appeal to--your temperament. And that"s all! You will tell your house-master that you have been formally caned by me."
"My word!" said McTurk, wriggling his shoulder-blades all down the corridor. "That was business! The Prooshan Bates has an infernal straight eye."
"Wasn"t it wily of me to ask for the lickin"," said Stalky, "instead of those impots?"
"Rot! We were in for it from the first. I knew the look of his old eye,"
said Beetle. "I was within an inch of blubbing."
"Well, I didn"t exactly smile," Stalky confessed.
"Let"s go down to the lavatory and have a look at the damage. One of us can hold the gla.s.s and t"others can squint."
They proceeded on these lines for some ten minutes. The wales were very red and very level. There was not a penny to choose between any of them for thoroughness, efficiency, and a certain clarity of outline that stamps the work of the artist.
"What are you doing down there?" Mr. Prout was at the head of the lavatory stairs, attracted by the noise of splashing.
"We"ve only been caned by the Head, sir, and we"re washing off the blood. The Head said we were to tell you. We were coming to report ourselves in a minute, sir. (_Sotto voce_.) That"s a score for Heffy!"
"Well, he deserves to score something, poor devil," said McTurk, putting on his shirt. "We"ve sweated a stone and a half off him since we began."
"But look here, why aren"t we wrathy with the Head? He said it was a flagrant injustice. So it is!" said Beetle.
"Dear man," said McTurk, and vouchsafed no further answer.
It was Stalky who laughed till he had to hold on by the edge of a basin.
"You _are_ a funny a.s.s! What"s that for?" said Beetle.
"I"m--I"m thinking of the flagrant injustice of it!"
THE MORAL REFORMERS.
There was no disguising the defeat. The victory was to Prout, but they grudged it not. If he had broken the rules of the game by calling in the Head, they had had a good run for their money.
The Reverend John sought the earliest opportunity of talking things over. Members of a bachelor Common-room, of a school where masters"
studies are designedly dotted among studies and form-rooms, can, if they choose, see a great deal of their charges. Number Five had spent some cautious years in testing the Reverend John. He was emphatically a gentleman. He knocked at a study door before entering; he comported himself as a visitor and not a strayed lictor; he never prosed, and he never carried over into official life the confidences of idle hours.
Prout was ever an unmitigated nuisance; King came solely as an avenger of blood; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, seldom forgot his office; but the Reverend John was a guest desired and beloved by Number Five.
Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent briar between his teeth, chin down in three folds on his clerical collar, and blowing like an amiable whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it appeared to them, and specially of that last interview with the Head--in the matter of usury.
"One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good,"
he said, twinkling and shaking all over; "and, as you say, you were entirely in the right."
"Ra-ather, Padre! We could have proved it if he"d let us talk," said Stalky; "but he didn"t. The Head"s a downy bird."
"He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! Well, you worked hard enough for it."
"But he"s awfully fair. He doesn"t lick a chap in the morning an" preach at him in the afternoon," said Beetle.
"He can"t; he ain"t in Orders, thank goodness," said McTurk. Number Five held the very strongest views on clerical head-masters, and were ever ready to meet their pastor in argument.
"Almost all other schools have clerical Heads," said the Reverend John gently.
"It isn"t fair on the chaps," Stalky replied. "Makes "em sulky. Of course it"s different with you, sir. You belong to the school--same as we do. I mean ordinary clergymen."
"Well, I am a most ordinary clergyman; and Mr. Hartopp"s in Orders, too."
"Ye--es, but he took "em after he came to the Coll. We saw him go up for his exam. That"s all right," said Beetle. "But just think if the Head went and got ordained!"
"What would happen, Beetle?"
"Oh, the Coll. "ud go to pieces in a year, sir. There"s no doubt o"
that."
"How d"you know?" The Reverend John was smiling.
"We"ve been here nearly six years now. There are precious few things about the Coll. we don"t know," Stalky replied. "Why, even you came the term after I did, sir. I remember your asking our names in form your first lesson. Mr. King, Mr. Prout, and the Head, of course, are the only masters senior to us--in that way."
"Yes, we"ve changed a good deal--in Common-room."
"Huh!" said Beetle with a grunt. "They came here, an" they went away to get married. Jolly good riddance, too!"
"Doesn"t our Beetle hold with matrimony?"
"No, Padre; don"t make fun of me. I"ve met chaps in the holidays who"ve got married house-masters. It"s perfectly awful! They have babies and teething and measles and all that sort of thing right bung _in_ the school; and the masters" wives give tea-parties--tea-parties, Padre!--and ask the chaps to breakfast."