leasure in some other way. Say, a
thousand lines apiece, a week's gating, and a few things of that kind.
Much too big to lick, aren't you?"

"Oh, no, sir," said Stalky cheerfully; for a week's gating in the summer
term is serious.

"Ve-ry good. Then we will do what we can. I wish you wouldn't bother
me."

It was a fair, sustained, equable stroke, with a little draw to it,
but what they felt most was his unfairness in stopping to talk between
executions. Thus: "Among the--lower classes this would lay me open to
a charge of--assault. You should be more grateful for your--privileges
than you are. There is a limit--one finds it by experience,
Beetle--beyond which it is never safe to pursue private vendettas,
because--don't move--sooner or later one comes--into collision with
the--higher authority, who has studied the animal. _Et ego_--McTurk,
please--_in Arcadia vixi_. There's a certain flagrant injustice about
this that ought to appeal to--your temperament. And that's all! You will
tell your house-master that you have been formally caned by me."

"My word!" said McTurk, wriggling his shoulder-blades all down the
corridor. "That was business! The Prooshan Bates has an infernal
straight eye."

"Wasn't it wily of me to ask for the lickin'," said Stalky, "instead of
those impots?"

"Rot! We were in for it from the first. I knew the look of his old eye,"
said Beetle. "I was within an inch of blubbing."

"Well, I didn't exactly smile," Stalky confessed.

"Let's go down to the lavatory and have a look at the damage. One of us
can hold the glass and t'others can squint."

They proceeded on these lines for some ten minutes. The wales were very
red and very level. There was not a penny to choose between any of them
for thoroughness, efficiency, and a certain clarity of outline that
stamps the work of the artist.

"What are you doing down there?" Mr. Prout was at the head of the
lavatory stairs, attracted by the noise of splashing.

"We've only been caned by the Head, sir, and we're washing off the
blood. The Head said we were to tell you. We were coming to report
ourselves in a minute, sir. (_Sotto voce_.) That's a score for Heffy!"

"Well, he deserves to score something, poor devil," said McTurk, putting
on his shirt. "We've sweated a stone and a half off him since we began."

"But look here, why aren't we wrathy with the Head? He said it was a
flagrant injustice. So it is!" said Beetle.

"Dear man," said McTurk,