Page:Stalky and co - Kipling (1908).djvu/92

80 They went to their study in more or less of silence. There they began to laugh—laugh as only boys can. They laughed with their foreheads on the tables, or on the floor; laughed at length, curled over the backs of chairs or clinging to a book-shelf; laughed themselves limp.

And in the middle of it Orrin entered on behalf of the house.

'Don't mind us, Orrin; sit down. You don't know how we respect and admire you. There's something about your pure, high, young forehead, full of the dreams of innocent boyhood, that's no end fetchin'. It is, indeed.'

'The house sent me to give you this.' He laid a folded sheet of paper on the table and retired with an awful front.

'It's the resolution! Oh, read it, some one. I'm too silly-sick with laughin' to see,' said Beetle.

Stalky jerked it open with a precautionary sniff.

'Phew! Phew! Listen. "The House notices with pain and contempt the attitude of indiference"—how many f's in indifference, Beetle?'

'Two for choice.'

'Only one here—"adopted by the occupants of Number Five Study in relation to the insults offered to Mr. Prout's Home at the recent meeting in Number Twelve form-room, and the House hereby pass a vote of censure on the said stud." That's all.' 'And she bled all down my shirt, too!' said Beetle.

'An' I'm catty all over,' said M'Turk, 'though I washed twice.'