to quote the Head, in a little business which we have agreed to
forget, that strikes me as flagrant injustice... What are you laughing
at, you young sinners? Isn't it true? I will not stay to be shouted at.
What I looked into this den of iniquity for was to find out if any one
cared to come down for a bathe off the Ridge. But I see you won't."

"Won't we, though! Half a shake, Padre Sahib, till we get our towels,
and _nous sommes avec vous_!"

A LITTLE PREP.

Easter term was but a month old when Stettson major, a day-boy,
contracted diphtheria, and the Head was very angry. He decreed a new and
narrower set of bounds--the infection had been traced to an out-lying
farmhouse--urged the prefects severely to lick all trespassers, and
promised extra attentions from his own hand. There were no words bad
enough for Stettson major, quarantined at his mother's house, who had
lowered the school-average of health. This he said in the gymnasium
after prayers. Then he wrote some two hundred letters to as many anxious
parents and guardians, and bade the school carry on. The trouble did not
spread, but, one night, a dog-cart drove to the Head's door, and in the
morning the Head had gone, leaving all things in charge of Mr. King,
senior house-master. The Head often ran up to town, where the school
devoutly believed he bribed officials for early proofs of the Army
Examination papers; but this absence was unusually prolonged.

"Downy old bird!" said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in the
study. "He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under a false
name."

"What for?" Beetle entered joyously into the libel.

"Forty shillin's or a month for hackin' the chucker-out of the Pavvy on
the shins. Bates always has a spree when he goes to town. Wish he
was back, though. I'm about sick o' King's 'whips an' scorpions' an'
lectures on public-school spirit--yah!--and scholarship!"

"'Crass an' materialized brutality of the middle-classes--readin' solely
for marks. Not a scholar in the whole school,'" McTurk quoted, pensively
boring holes in the mantel-piece with a hot poker.

"That's rather a sickly way of spending an afternoon. Stinks too.
Let's come out an' smoke. Here's a treat." Stalky held up a long Indian
cheroot. "'Bagged it from my pater last holidays. I'm a bit shy of it
though; it's heftier than a pipe. We'll smoke it palaver-fashion. Hand
it round, eh? Let's lie up behind the old harrow on the Monkey-farm
Road