n week-days, and marvellous made-up ties on
Sundays--no man rebuking. McTurk was going up for Cooper's Hill, and
Stalky for Sandhurst, in the spring; and the Head had told them both
that, unless they absolutely collapsed during the holidays, they were
safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head seldom erred in an estimate of
form.

He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him much good advice, not
one word of which did Beetle remember when he dashed up to the study,
white with excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It demanded a
great belief.

"You begin on a hundred a year?" said McTurk unsympathetically. "Rot!"

"And my passage out! It's all settled. The Head says he's been breaking
me in for this for ever so long, and I never knew--I never knew. One
don't begin with writing straight off, y'know. Begin by filling in
telegrams and cutting things out o' papers with scissors."

"Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you'll make of it," said Stalky.
"But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my dearly
beloved 'earers--though not prefects."

"Not half bad years, either," said McTurk. "I shall be sorry to leave
the old Coll.; shan't you?"

They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebbleridge in the clear
winter light. "Wonder where we shall all be this time next year?" said
Stalky absently.

"This time five years," said McTurk.

"Oh," said Beetle, "my leavin's between ourselves. The Head hasn't told
any one. I know he hasn't, because Prout grunted at me to-day that if
I were more reasonable--yah!--I might be a prefect next term. I s'ppose
he's hard up for his prefects."

"Let's finish up with a row with the Sixth," suggested McTurk.

"Dirty little schoolboys!" said Stalky, who already saw himself a
Sandhurst cadet. "What's the use?"

"Moral effect," quoth McTurk. "Leave an imperishable tradition, and all
the rest of it."

"Better go into Bideford an' pay up our debts," said Stalky. "I've got
three quid out of my father--_ad hoc_. Don't owe more than thirty bob,
either. Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say you want to
correct the 'Swillingford Patriot.'"

"Well, I do," said Beetle. "It'll be my last issue, and I'd like it to
look decent. I'll catch him before he goes to his lunch."

Ten minutes later they wheeled out in line, by grace released from
five o'clock call-over, and all the afternoon lay before them. So also
unluckily did King, who never passed without witt