Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/120

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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 blood 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 youthful gore, 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. I'm all right here."

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.

"Moil Je! Ich! Ego!" gasped Stalky. "I waited till I couldn't hear myself think, while you played the drum. Hid in the coal-locker, and tweaked Rabbits-Eggs, and Rabbits-Eggs rocked King. Wasn't it beautiful? Did you hear the glass?"

"Why, he—he—he," shrieked McTurk one trembling finger pointed at Beetle.

"Why, I—I—I was through it all," Beetle howled; "in his study, being jawed."

"Oh, my soul!" said Stalky with a yell, disappearing under water.

"The—the glass was nothing. Manders minor's head's cut open. La—la —lamp upset all over the rug. Blood on the books and papers. The gum! The gum! The gum! The ink! The ink! The ink! Oh, My!"

Then Stalky leaped out, all scarlet as he was, and shook Beetle into some sort of coherence; but his tale prostrated them afresh.

"I bunked for the boot-cupboard the second I heard King go downstairs. Beetle tumbled in on top of me. The key's hid behind the loose board. There isn't a shadow of evidence," said Stalky. They were all chanting together.

"And he turned us out himself—himself—himself!" This from McTurk. "He can't begin to suspect us. Oh, Stalky, it's the loveliest thing we've ever done."

"Gum! Gum! Dollops of gum!" shouted Beetle, his spectacles gleaming through a sea of lather. "Ink and blood all mixed. I held the little beast's head all over the Latin proses for Monday. Golly, how the oil stunk! And Rabbits