Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (444 page)

“What have I got to do?” McTurk also smiled.

“Head conspiracies — and cabals — and boycotts. Go in for that ‘stealthy intrigue’ that Heffy is always talkin’ about. Come on!”

The house received them on their fall with the mixture of jest and sympathy always extended to boys turned out of their study. The known aloofness of the three made them more interesting.

“Quite like old times, ain’t it?” Stalky selected a locker and flung in his books. “We’ve come to sport with you, my young friends, for a while, because our beloved house-master has hove us out of our diggin’s.”

“‘Serve you jolly well right,” said Orrin, “you cribbers!”

“This will never do,” said Stalky. “We can’t maintain our giddy prestige, Orrin, de-ah, if you make these remarks.”

They wrapped themselves lovingly about the boy, thrust him to the opened window, and drew down the sash to the nape of his neck. With an equal swiftness they tied his thumbs together behind his back with a piece of twine, and then, because he kicked furiously, removed his shoes. There Mr. Prout happened to find him a few minutes later, guillotined and helpless, surrounded by a convulsed crowd who would not assist.

Stalky, in an upper form-room, had gathered himself allies against vengeance. Orrin presently tore up at the head of a boarding party, and the form-room grew one fog of dust through which boys wrestled, stamped, shouted, and yelled. A desk was carried away in the tumult, a knot of warriors reeled into and split a door-panel, a window was broken, and a gas-jet fell. Under cover of the confusion the three escaped to the corridor, whence they called in and sent up passers-by to the fray.

“Rescue, Kings! Kings! Kings! Number Twelve form-room! Rescue, Prouts — Prouts! Rescue, Macraes! Rescue, Hartopps!”

The juniors hurried out like bees aswarm, asking no questions, clattered up the staircase, and added themselves to the embroilment.

“Not bad for the first evening’s work,” said Stalky, rearranging his collar. “I fancy Prout’ll be somewhat annoyed. We’d better establish an alibi.” So they sat on Mr. King’s railings till prep.

“You see,” quoth Stalky, as they strolled up to prep. with the ignoble herd, “if you get the houses well mixed up an’ scufflin’, it’s even bettin’ that some ass will start a real row. Hullo, Orrin, you look rather metagrobolized.”

“It was all your fault, you beast! You started it. We’ve got two hundred lines apiece, and Heffy’s lookin’ for you. Just see what that swine Malpas did to my eye!”

“I like your saying we started it. Who called us cribbers? Can’t your infant mind connect cause and effect yet? Some day you’ll find out that it don’t pay to jest with Number Five.”

“Where’s that shillin’ you owe me?” said Beetle suddenly.

Stalky could not see Prout behind him, but returned the lead without a quaver. “I only owed you ninepence, you old usurer.”

“You’ve forgotten the interest,” said McTurk. “A halfpenny a week per bob is Beetle’s charge. You must be beastly rich, Beetle.”

“Well, Beetle lent me sixpence.” Stalky came to a full stop and made as to work it out on his fingers. “Sixpence on the nineteenth, didn’t he?”

“Yes; but you’ve forgotten you paid no interest on the other bob — the one I lent you before.”

“But you took my watch as security.” The game was developing itself almost automatically.

“Never mind. Pay me my interest, or I’ll charge you interest on interest. Remember, I’ve got your note-of-hand!” shouted Beetle.

“You are a cold-blooded Jew,” Stalky groaned.

“Hush!” said McTurk very loudly indeed, and started as Prout came upon them.

“I didn’t see you in that disgraceful affair in the form-room just now,” said he.

“What, sir? We’re just come up from Mr. King’s,” said Stalky. “Please, sir, what am I to do about prep.? They’ve broken the desk you told me to sit at, and the form’s just swimming with ink.”

“Find another seat — find another seat. D’you expect me to dry-nurse you? I wish to know whether you are in the habit of advancing money to your associates, Beetle?”

“No, sir; not as a general rule, sir.”

“It is a most reprehensible habit. I thought that my house, at least, would be free from it. Even with my opinion of you, I hardly thought it was one of your vices.”

“There’s no harm in lending money, sir, is there?”

“I am not going to bandy words with you on your notions of morality. How much have you lent Corkran?”

“I — I don’t quite know,” said Beetle. It is difficult to improvise a going concern on the spur of the minute.

“You seemed certain enough just now.”

“I think it’s two and fourpence,” said McTurk, with a glance of cold scorn at Beetle. In the hopelessly involved finances of the study there was just that sum to which both McTurk and Beetle laid claim, as their share in the pledging of Stalky’s second-best Sunday trousers. But Stalky had maintained for two terms that the money was his “commission” for effecting the pawn; and had, of course, spent it on a study “brew.”

“Understand this, then. You are not to continue your operations as a money-lender. Two and fourpence, you said, Corkran?”

Stalky had said nothing, and continued so to do.

“Your influence for evil is quite strong enough without buying a hold over your companions.” He felt in his pockets, and (oh joy!) produced a florin and fourpence. “Bring me what you call Corkran’s note-of-hand, and be thankful that I do not carry the matter any further. The money is stopped from your pocket-money, Corkran. The receipt to my study, at once!”

Little they cared! Two and fourpence in a lump is worth six weekly sixpences any hungry day of the week.

“But what the dooce is a note-of-hand?” said Beetle. “I only read about it in a book.”

“Now you’ve jolly well got to make one,” said Stalky.

“Yes — but our ink don’t turn black till next day. S’pose he’ll spot that?”

“Not him. He’s too worried,” said McTurk. “Sign your name on a bit of impot-paper, Stalky, and write, ‘I O U two and fourpence.’ Aren’t you grateful to me for getting that out of Prout? Stalky’d never have paid... Why, you ass!”

Mechanically Beetle had handed over the money to Stalky as treasurer of the study. The custom of years is not lightly broken. In return for the document, Prout expounded to Beetle the enormity of money-lending, which, like everything except compulsory cricket, corrupted houses and destroyed good feeling among boys, made youth cold and calculating, and opened the door to all evil. Finally, did Beetle know of any other cases? If so, it was his duty as proof of repentance to let his house-master know. No names need be mentioned.

Beetle did not know — at least, he was not quite sure, sir. How could he give evidence against his friends? The house might, of course — here he feigned an anguished delicacy — be full of it. He was not in a position to say. He had not met with any open competition in his trade; but if Mr. Prout considered it was a matter that affected the honor of the house (Mr. Prout did consider it precisely that), perhaps the house-prefects would be better...

He spun it out till half-way through prep.

“And,” said the amateur Shylock, returning to the form-room and dropping at Stalky’s side, “if he don’t think the house is putrid with it, I’m several Dutch-men — that’s all... I’ve been to Mr. Prout’s study, sir.” This to the prep.-master. “He said I could sit where I liked, sir... Oh, he is just tricklin’ with emotion... Yes, sir, I’m only askin’ Corkran to let me have a dip in his ink.”

After prayers, on the road to the dormitories, Harrison and Craye, senior house-prefects, zealous in their office, waylaid them with great anger. “What have you been doing to Heffy this time, Beetle? He’s been jawing us all the evening.”

“What has His Serene Transparency been vexin’ you for?” said McTurk.

“About Beetle lendin’ money to Stalky,” began Harrison; “and then Beetle went and told him that there was any amount of money-lendin’ in the house.”

“No, you don’t,” said Beetle, sitting on a boot-basket. “That’s just what I didn’t tell him. I spoke the giddy truth. He asked me if there was much of it in the house; and I said I didn’t know.”

“He thinks you’re a set of filthy Shylocks,” said McTurk. “It’s just as well for you he don’t think you’re burglars. You know he never gets a notion out of his conscientious old head.”

“Well-meanin’ man. Did it all for the best.” Stalky curled gracefully round the stair-rail. “Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the left boot. Bad for the honor of the house — very.”

“Shut up,” said Harrison. “You chaps always behave as if you were jawin’ us when we come to jaw you.”

“You’re a lot too cheeky,” said Craye.

“I don’t quite see where the cheek comes in, except on your part, in interferin’ with a private matter between me an’ Beetle after it has been settled by Prout.” Stalky winked cheerfully at the others.

“That’s the worst of clever little swots,” said McTurk, addressing the gas. “They get made prefects before they have any tact, and then they annoy chaps who could really help ‘em to look after the honor of the house.”

“We won’t trouble you to do that!” said Craye hotly.

“Then what are you badgerin’ us for?” said Beetle. “On your own showing, you’ve been so beastly slack, looking after the house, that Prout believes it’s a nest of money-lenders. I’ve told him that I’ve lent money to Stalky, and no one else. I don’t know whether he believes me, but that finishes my case. The rest is your business.”

“Now we find out,” Stalky’s voice rose, “that there is apparently an organized conspiracy throughout the house. For aught we know, the fags may be lendin’ and borrowin’ far beyond their means. We aren’t responsible for it. We’re only the rank and file.”

“Are you surprised we don’t wish to associate with the house?” said McTurk, with dignity. “We’ve kept ourselves to ourselves in our study till we were turned out, and now we find ourselves let in for for this sort of thing. It’s simply disgraceful.”

“Then you hector and bullyrag us on the stairs,” said Stalky, “about matters that are your business entirely. You know we aren’t prefects.”

“You threatened us with a prefect’s lickin’ just now,” said Beetle, boldly inventing as he saw the bewilderment in the faces of the enemy. “And if you expect you’ll gain anything from us by your way of approachin’ us, you’re jolly well mistaken. That’s all. Good-night.”

They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs.

“But — but what the dickens have we done?” said Harrison, amazedly, to Craye.

“I don’t know. Only — it always happens that way when one has anything to do with them. They’re so beastly plausible.”

And Mr. Prout called the good boys into his study anew, and succeeded in sinking both his and their innocent minds ten fathoms deeper in blindfolded bedazement. He spoke of steps and measures, of tone and loyalty in the house and to the house, and urged them to take up the matter tactfully.

So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any connection with any other establishment. Beetle promptly went to his house-master, and wished to know by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a matter already settled between him and his house-master. In injured innocence no boy excelled Beetle.

Then it occurred to Prout that he might have been unfair to the culprit, who had not striven to deny or palliate his offense. He sent for Harrison and Craye, reprehending them very gently for the tone they had adopted to a repentant sinner, and when they returned to their study, they used the language of despair. They then made headlong inquisition through the house, driving the fags to the edge of hysterics, and unearthing, with tremendous pomp and parade, the natural and inevitable system of small loans that prevails among small boys.

“You see, Harrison, Thornton minor lent me a penny last Saturday, because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at Keyte’s. I didn’t know there was any harm in it. And Wray major borrowed twopence from me when my uncle sent me a post-office order — I cashed it at Keyte’s — for five bob; but he’ll pay me back before the holidays. We didn’t know there was anything wrong in it.”

They waded through hours of this kind of thing, but found no usury, or anything approaching to Beetle’s gorgeous scale of interest. The seniors — for the school had no tradition of deference to prefects outside compulsory games — told them succinctly to go about their business. They would not give evidence on any terms. Harrison was one idiot, and Craye was another; but the greatest of all, they said, was their house-master.

When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its conscience, it breaks into knots and coteries — small gatherings in the twilight, box-room committees, and groups in the corridor. And when from group to group, with an immense affectation of secrecy, three wicked boys steal, crying “
Cave’
” when there is no need of caution, and whispering “Don’t tell!” on the heels of trumpery confidences that instant invented, a very fine air of plot and intrigue can be woven round such a house.