-tongue paste,
pilchards, three jams, and at least as many pounds of Devonshire cream.

"My hat!" said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. "Who stumped
up for this, Stalky?" It was within a month of term end, and blank
starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks.

"You," said Stalky, serenely.

"Confound you! You haven't been popping my Sunday bags, then?"

"Keep your hair on. It's only your watch."

"Watch! I lost it--weeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to shoot
the old ram--the day our pistol burst."

"It dropped out of your pocket (you're so beastly careless, Beetle), and
McTurk and I kept it for you. I've been wearing it for a week, and you
never noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. Got thirteen
and sevenpence. Here's the ticket."

"Well, that's pretty average cool," said Abanazar behind a slab of cream
and jam, as Beetle, reassured upon the safety of his Sunday trousers,
showed not even surprise, much less resentment. Indeed, it was McTurk
who grew angry, saying:

"You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated beast!
Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! 'Never got a sniff of any
ticket."

"Ah, that was because you locked your trunk, and we wasted half the
afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if you'd behaved
like a Christian, Turkey."

"My Aunt!" said Abanazar, "you chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to
Beetle, though."

"That's beastly unfair," said Stalky, "when I took all the trouble to
pawn it. Beetle never knew he had a watch. Oh, I say, Rabbits-Eggs gave
me a lift into Bideford this afternoon."

Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrier--an outcrop of the early Devonian
formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. "He was
pretty average drunk, or he wouldn't have done it. Rabbits-Eggs is a
little shy of me, somehow. But I swore it was _pax_ between us, and gave
him a bob. He stopped at two pubs on the way in, so he'll be howling
drunk to-night. Oh, don't begin reading, Beetle; there's a council of
war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?"

"'Chivied Manders minor into the Lower Third box-room. 'Had all his
beastly little friends on top of me," said Beetle from behind a jar of
pilchards and a book.

"You ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to,"
said McTurk.

"I didn't think," said Beetle, meekly, scooping out pilchards with a
spoon.

"Course you didn't. You never do." McTu