called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his
mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he held
him up to the derision of his associates--with the usual result. His
wild flowers of speech--King had an unpleasant tongue---restored him to
good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle's latter
end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few
compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he must
come up for judgment when called upon, went to Common-room, where he
triumphed anew over his victims.

"And the worst of it," he explained in a loud voice over his soup, "is
that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. It's miles above
them, I'm certain."

"We-ell," said the school chaplain slowly, "I don't know what Corkran's
appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin for his
amusement."

"Nonsense! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt."

"He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night,
unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers of
'Fors Clavigera.'"

"I don't know anything about their private lives," said a mathematical
master hotly, "but I've learned by bitter experience that Number Five
study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils."

He blushed as the others laughed.

But in the music-room there were wrath and bad language. Only Stalky,
Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano unmoved.

"That little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. He's
always suckin' up to King. Go and kill him," he drawled. "Which one was
it, Beetle?"

"Dunno," said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. "There was one about
his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other one was
one about him in hell, tellin' the Devil he was a Balliol man. I swear
both of 'em rhymed all right. By gum! P'raps Manders minor showed him
both! _I'll_ correct his caesuras for him."

He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and
white boy in a form-room next door to King's study, which, again,
was immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a
form-room sacred to the revels of the Lower Third. Thence he came
back, greatly disordered, to find McTurk, Stalky, and the others of the
company, in his study enjoying an unlimited "brew"--coffee, cocoa, buns,
new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, ham-and