Stalky & Co. - Rudyard Kipling (ebooks children's books free TXT) š
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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āOh, thatās Beetleās biznai,ā said Dick Four. āVamp it up, Beetle. Donāt keep us waiting all night. Youāve got to get Pussy out of the light somehow, and bring us all in dancinā at the end.ā
āAll right. You two play it again,ā said Beetle, who, in a gray skirt and a wig of chestnut sausage-curls, set slantwise above a pair of spectacles mended with an old bootlace, represented the Widow Twankay. He waved one leg in time to the hammered refrain, and the banjoes grew louder.
āUm! Ah! ErāāAladdin now has won his wife,āā he sang, and Dick Four repeated it.
āāYour Emperor is appeased.āā Tertius flung out his chest as he delivered his line.
āNow jump up, Pussy! Say, āI think Iād better come to life!ā Then we all take hands and come forward: āWe hope youāve all been pleased.ā Twiggez-vous?ā
āNoustwiggons_. Good enough. Whatās the chorus for the final ballet? Itās four kicks and a turn,ā said Dick Four.
āOh! Er!
John Short will ring the curtain down. And ring the prompterās bell; We hope you know before you go That we all wish you well.ā
āRippinā! Rippinā! Now for the Widowās scene with the Princess. Hurry up, Turkey.ā
McTurk, in a violet silk skirt and a coquettish blue turban, slouched forward as one thoroughly ashamed of himself. The Slave of the Lamp climbed down from the piano, and dispassionately kicked him. āPlay up, Turkey,ā he said; āthis is serious.ā But there fell on the door the knock of authority. It happened to be King, in gown and mortar-board, enjoying a Saturday evening prowl before dinner.
āLocked doors! Locked doors!ā he snapped with a scowl. āWhatās the meaning of this; and what, may I ask, is the intention of thisāthis epicene attire?ā
āPantomime, sir. The Head gave us leave,ā said Abanazar, as the only member of the Sixth concerned. Dick Four stood firm in the confidence born of well-fitting tights, but Beetle strove to efface himself behind the piano. A gray princess-skirt borrowed from a day-boyās mother and a spotted cotton bodice unsystematically padded with imposition-paper make one ridiculous. And in other regards Beetle had a bad conscience.
āAs usual!ā sneered King. āFutile foolery just when your careers, such as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see! The old gang of criminalsāallied forces of disorderāCorkranāāthe Slave of the Lamp smiled politelyāāMcTurkāāthe Irishman scowledāāand, of course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs.ā Abanazar, the Emperor, and Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed them over. āCome forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument of music! You supply, I presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. Esteem yourself to be, as it were, a poet?ā
āHeās found one of āem,ā thought Beetle, noting the flush on Kingās cheek-bone.
āI have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my address, I believeāan effusion intended to rhyme. Soāso you despise me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite awareāyou need not explain āthat it was ostensibly not intended for my edification. I read it with laughterāyes, with laughter. These paper pellets of inky boys āstill a boy we are, Master Gigadibsādo not disturb my equanimity.ā
āWonder which it was,ā thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons on an appreciative public ever since he discovered that it was possible to convey reproof in rhyme.
In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he 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 associatesāwith the usual result. His wild flowers of speechāKing had an unpleasant tongueārestored him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetleās 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.
āAnd the worst of it,ā he explained in a loud voice over his soup, āis that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. Itās miles above them, Iām certain.ā
āWe-ell,ā said the school chaplain slowly, āI donāt know what Corkranās appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin for his amusement.ā
āNonsense! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt.ā
āHe 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 āFors Clavigera.āā
āI donāt know anything about their private lives,ā said a mathematical master hotly, ābut Iāve learned by bitter experience that Number Five study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils.ā
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.
āThat little swine Manders miner must have shown him your stuff. Heās always suckinā up to King. Go and kill him,ā he drawled. āWhich one was it, Beetle?ā
āDunno,ā said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. āThere was one about his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other one was one about him in hell, tellinā the Devil he was a Balliol man. I swear both of āem rhymed all right. By gum! Pāraps Manders minor showed him both! Iāll correct his caesuras for him.ā
He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and white boy in a form-room next door to Kingās 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 ābrewāācoffee, cocoa, buns, new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, ham-and-tongue paste, pilchards, three jams, and at least as many pounds of Devonshire cream.
āMy hat!ā said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. āWho stumped up for this, Stalky?ā It was within a month of term end, and blank starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks.
āYou,ā said Stalky, serenely.
āConfound you! You havenāt been popping my Sunday bags, then?ā
āKeep your hair on. Itās only your watch.ā
āWatch! I lost itāweeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to shoot the old ramāthe day our pistol burst.ā
āIt dropped out of your pocket (youāre so beastly careless, Beetle), and McTurk and I kept it for you. Iāve been wearing it for a week, and you never noticed. Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. Got thirteen and sevenpence. Hereās the ticket.ā
āWell, thatās pretty average cool,ā 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:
āYou gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated beast! Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! āNever got a sniff of any ticket.ā
āAh, that was because you locked your trunk, and we wasted half the afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if youād behaved like a Christian, Turkey.ā
āMy Aunt!ā said Abanazar, āyou chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to Beetle, though.ā
āThatās beastly unfair,ā said Stalky, āwhen 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.ā
Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrierāan outcrop of the early Devonian formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. āHe was pretty average drunk, or he wouldnāt 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 heāll be howling drunk to-night. Oh, donāt begin reading, Beetle; thereās a council of war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?ā
āāChivied Manders minor into the Lower Third box-room. āHad all his beastly little friends on top of me,ā said Beetle from behind a jar of pilchards and a book.
āYou ass! Any fool could have told you where Manders would bunk to,ā said McTurk.
āI didnāt think,ā said Beetle, meekly, scooping out pilchards with a spoon.
āCourse you didnāt. You never do.ā McTurk adjusted Beetleās collar with a savage tug. āDonāt drop oil all over my āForsā or Iāll scrag you!ā
āShut up, youāyou Irish Biddy! āTisnāt your beastly āFors.ā Itās one of mine.ā
The book was a fat, brown-backed volume of the later Sixties, which King had once thrown at Beetleās head that Beetle might see whence the name Gigadibs came. Beetle had quietly annexed the book, and had seenāseveral things. The quarter-comprehended verses lived and ate with him, as the bedropped pages showed. He removed himself from all that world, drifting at large with wondrous Men and Women, till McTurk hammered the pilchard spoon on his head and he snarled.
āBeetle! Youāre oppressed and insulted and bullied by King. Donāt you feel it?ā
āLet me alone! I can write some more poetry about him if I am, I suppose.ā
āMad! Quite mad!ā said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. āBeetle reads an ass called Browninā, and McTurk reads an ass called Ruskin; andāā
āRuskin isnāt an ass,ā said McTurk. āHeās almost as good as the Opium Eater. He says āweāre children of noble races trained by surrounding art.ā That means me, and the way I decorated the study when you two badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading, or Iāll shove a pilchard down your neck!ā
āItās two to one,ā said Stalky, warningly, and Beetle closed the book, in obedience to the law under which he and his companions had lived for six checkered years.
The visitors looked on delighted. Number Five study had a reputation for more variegated insanity than the rest of the school put together; and so far as its code allowed friendship with outsiders it was polite and open-hearted to its neighbors on the same landing.
āWhat rot do you want now?ā said Beetle.
āKing! War!ā said McTurk, jerking his head toward the wall, where hung a small wooden West-African war-drum, a gift to McTurk from a naval uncle.
āThen we shall be turned out of the study again,ā said Beetle, who loved his flesh-pots. āMason turned us out forājust warbling on it.ā Mason was the mathematical master who had testified in Common-room.
āWarbling?āO Lord!ā said Abanazar. āWe couldnāt hear ourselves speak in our study when you played the infernal thing. Whatās the good of getting turned out of your study, anyhow?ā
āWe lived in the form-rooms for a week, too,ā said Beetle, tragically. āAnd it was beastly cold.ā
āYe-es, but Masonās rooms were filled with rats every day we were out. It took him a week to draw the inference,ā said McTurk. āHe loathes rats. āMinute he let us go back the rats stopped. Masonās a little shy of us now, but there was no evidence.ā
āJolly well there wasnāt,ā said Stalky, āwhen I got out on the roof and dropped the beastly things down his chimney. But, look hereāquestion is, are our characters good enough just now to stand a study row?ā
āNever mind mine,ā said Beetle. āKing swears I havenāt any.ā
āIām not thinking of you,ā Stalky returned scornfully. āYou arenāt going up for the Army, you old bat. I donāt want to be expelledāand the Headās getting rather shy of us, too.ā
āRot!ā said McTurk. āThe Head never expels except for beastliness or stealing. But I forgot; you and
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