can--"

"Come on!" shouted Stalky. "What the devil are you waiting for? Dismiss!
Break off."

"Why--what the--where the--?"

The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as boy
after boy fell out.

"I--I don't know that I shan't have to report this to the Head," he
stammered.

"Report, then, and be damned to you," cried Stalky, white to the lips,
and ran out.

"Rummy thing!" said Beetle to McTurk. "I was in the study, doin' a
simply lovely poem about the Jelly-Bellied Flag-Flapper, an' Stalky
came in, an' I said 'Hullo!' an' he cursed me like a bargee, and then
he began to blub like anything. Shoved his head on the table and howled.
Hadn't we better do something?"

McTurk was troubled. "P'raps he's smashed himself up somehow."

They found him, with very bright eyes, whistling between his teeth.

"Did I take you in, Beetle? I thought I would. Wasn't it a good draw?
Didn't you think I was blubbin'? Didn't I do it well? Oh, you fat old
ass!" And he began to pull Beetle's ears and checks, in the fashion that
was called "milking."

"I knew you were blubbin'," Beetle replied, composedly. "Why aren't you
at drill?"

"Drill! What drill?"

"Don't try to be a clever fool. Drill in the Gym."

"'Cause there isn't any. The volunteer cadet-corps is broke
up--disbanded--dead--putrid--corrupt---stinkin'. An' if you look at me
like that, Beetle, I'll slay you too... Oh, yes, an' I'm goin' to be
reported to the Head for swearin'."

THE LAST TERM.

It was within a few days of the holidays, the term-end examinations,
and, more important still, the issue of the College paper which Beetle
edited. He had been cajoled into that office by the blandishments of
Stalky and McTurk and the extreme rigor of study law. Once installed, he
discovered, as others have done before him, that his duty was to do
the work while his friends criticized. Stalky christened it the
"Swillingford Patriot," in pious memory of Sponge--and McTurk compared
the output unfavorably with Ruskin and De Quincey. Only the Head took
an interest in the publication, and his methods were peculiar. He gave
Beetle the run of his brown-bound, tobacco-scented library; prohibiting
nothing, recommending nothing. There Beetle found a fat arm-chair, a
silver inkstand, and unlimited pens and paper. There were scores and
scores of ancient dramatists; there were Hakluyt, his voyages; French
translations of Muscovite authors called Pushkin and