Stalky Co. | Page 7

and he told his tale alternately as a schoolboy and, when the iniquity of the thing overcame him, as an indignant squire; concluding: "So you see he must be in the habit of it. I--we---one never wants to accuse a neighbor's man; but I took the liberty in this case--"
"I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous---oh, infamous!"
The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and Colonel Dabney was talking as one man to another. "This comes of promoting a fisherman--a fisherman--from his lobster-pots. It's enough to ruin the reputation of an archangel. Don't attempt to deny it. It is! Your father has brought you up well. He has. I'd much like the pleasure of his acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young gentlemen? English they are. Don't attempt to deny it. They came up with you, too? Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present state of education I shouldn't have thought any three boys would be well enough grounded. But out of the mouths of--No--no! Not that by any odds. Don't attempt to deny it. Ye're not! Sherry always catches me under the liver, but--beer, now? Eh? What d'you say to beer, and something to eat? It's long since I was a boy--abominable nuisances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, too!" They were fed on the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but McTurk with bright eyes continued a free and lofty discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a brother.
"My dear man, of course ye can come again. Did I not say exceptions prove the rule? The lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so long as you do not disturb my pheasants. The two are not incompatible. Don't attempt to deny it. They're not! I'll never allow another gun, though. Come and go as ye please. I'll not see you, and ye needn't see me. Ye've been well brought up. Another glass of beer, now? I tell you a fisherman he was and a fisherman he shall be to-night again. He shall! Wish I could drown him. I'll convoy you to the Lodge. My people are not precisely--ah--broke to boy, but they'll know you again."
He dismissed them with many compliments by the high Lodge-gate in the split-oak park palings and they stood still; even Stalky, who had played second, not to say a dumb, fiddle, regarding McTurk as one from another world. The two glasses of strong home-brewed had brought a melancholy upon the boy, for, slowly strolling with his hands in his pockets, he crooned:--" Oh, Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that's goin' round?"
Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle would have fallen upon him, for that song was barred utterly--anathema--the sin of witchcraft. But seeing what he had wrought, they danced round him in silence, waiting till it pleased him to touch earth.
The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile from College. McTurk shivered and came out of dreams. The glory of his holiday estate had left him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking English once more.
"Turkey, it was immense!" said Stalky, generously. "I didn't know you had it in you. You've got us a hut for the rest of the term, where we simply can't be collared. Fids! Fids! Oh, Fids! I gloat! Hear me gloat!"
They spun wildly on their heels, jodeling after the accepted manner of a "gloat," which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man's song of triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer just in time to meet their house-master, who had spent the afternoon watching their abandoned hut in the "wuzzy."
Unluckily, all Mr. Prout's imagination leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys that he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for at any moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricket--even house-matches; Beetle's views on the honor of the house he knew were incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. Consequently--since human nature is what it is--those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was nothing very serious, but...
"Ti-ra-ra-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!" Stalky, still on his heels, whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining-hall.
"Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!" Beetle spun behind him with outstretched arms.
"Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!" McTurk's voice cracked.
Now was there or was there not a distinct flavor of beer as they shot past Mr. Prout?
He was unlucky in that his conscience as a house-master impelled him to consult his associates. Had he taken his pipe and his troubles to little Hartopp's rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved confusion, for Hartopp believed in boys, and knew