he writing-table.
Beetle made zealous feint to stop it, and in that endeavor overturned
a student's lamp, which dripped, _via_ King's papers and some choice
books, greasily on to a Persian rug. There was much broken glass on the
window-seat; the china basket--McTurk's aversion--cracked to flinders,
had dropped her musk plant and its earth over the red rep cushions;
Manders minor was bleeding profusely from a cut on the cheek-bone; and
King, using strange words, every one of which Beetle treasured, ran
forth to find the school-sergeant, that Rabbits-Eggs might be instantly
cast into jail.

"Poor chap!" said Beetle, with a false, feigned sympathy. "Let it
bleed a little. That'll prevent apoplexy," and he held the blind head
skilfully over the table, and the papers on the table, as he guided the
howling Manders to the door.

Then did Beetle, alone with the wreckage, return good for evil. How, in
that office, a complete set of "Gibbon" was scarred all along the back
as by a flint; how so much black and copying ink came to be mingled with
Manders's gore on the table-cloth; why the big gum-bottle, unstoppered,
had rolled semicircularly across the floor; and in what manner the white
china door-knob grew to be painted with yet more of Manders's young
blood, were matters which Beetle did not explain when the rabid King
returned to find him standing politely over the reeking hearth-rug.

"You never told me to go, sir," he said, with the air of Casabianca, and
King consigned him to the outer darkness.

But it was to a boot-cupboard under the staircase on the ground floor
that he hastened, to loose the mirth that was destroying him. He had
not drawn breath for a first whoop of triumph when two hands choked him
dumb.

"Go to the dormitory and get me my things. Bring 'em to Number Five
lavatory. I'm still in tights," hissed Stalky, sitting on his head.
"Don't run. Walk."

But Beetle staggered into the form-room next door, and delegated his
duty to the yet unenlightened McTurk, with an hysterical precis of the
campaign thus far. So it was McTurk, of the wooden visage, who brought
the clothes from the dormitory while Beetle panted on a form. Then the
three buried themselves in Number Five lavatory, turned on all the taps,
filled the place with steam, and dropped weeping into the baths, where
they pieced out the war.

"_Moi_! _Je_! _Ich_! _Ego_!" gasped Stalky. "I waited till I
couldn't hear myself think, while you played the d