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842 blub, and told Mason he'd lead a new life if Mason would let him off this time, but Mason wouldn't. Said it was his duty to report him to the Head."

"Vindictive swine! " said Beetle. "It was all those rats! Then I blubbed, too, and Stalky confessed that he'd been a thief in regular practice for six years, ever since he came to the school; and that I'd taught him—à la Fagin. Mason turned white with joy; thought he had us on toast."

"Gorgeous! Gorgeous!" said Dick Four. "We never heard of this."

"Course not. Mason kept it jolly quiet. He wrote down all our statements on impot-paper. There wasn't anything he wouldn't believe," said Stalky.

"And handed it all up to the Head, with an extempore prayer. It took about forty pages," said Beetle. "I helped a lot."

"And then, you crazy idiots?" said Abanazar.

"Oh, we were sent for; and Stalky asked to have the 'depositions' read out, and the Head knocked him spinning into a waste-paper basket. Then he gave us eight cuts apiece—welters—for—for—takin' unheard-of liberties with a new master. I saw his shoulders shaking when we went out. Do you know," said Beetle, pensively, "that Mason can't look at us now in second lesson without blushing? We three stare at him sometimes till he regularly trickles. He's an awfully sensitive beast."

"He read 'Eric, or Little by Little, said McTurk; "so we gave him 'St. Winifred's, or the World of School.' They spent all their spare time stealing at St. Winifred's, when they weren't praying or getting drunk at pubs. Well, that was only a week ago, and the Head's a little bit shy of us. He called it constructive devilry. Stalky invented it all."

"Not the least good having a row with a master unless you can make him ridiculous," said Stalky, extended at ease on the hearth-rug. "If Mason didn't know Number Five—well, he's learnt, that's all. Now, my dearly beloved 'earers"—Stalky curled his legs under him and addressed the company—"we've got that strong, perseverin' man King on our hands. He went miles out of his way to provoke a conflict." (Here Stalky snapped down the black silk domino and assumed the air of a judge.) "He has oppressed Beetle, McTurk, and me, privatim et seriatim, one by one, as he could catch us. But now he has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of these—these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like hairdressers. Benjamin, we must make him cry 'Capivi!

Stalky's reading did not include Browning or Ruskin.

"And, besides," said McTurk, "he's a