m-room."

"What swine!" McTurk listened. "Where's the fun of it? I suppose
Clewer's faggin' for them."

"They aren't prefects. That's one good job," said Stalky, with his
war-grin. "Sefton and Campbell! Um! Campbell and Sefton! Ah! One of
'em's a crammer's pup."

The two were precocious hairy youths between seventeen and eighteen,
sent to the school in despair by parents who hoped that six months'
steady cram might, perhaps, jockey them into Sandhurst. Nominally they
were in Mr. Prout's house; actually they were under the Head's eye;
and since he was very careful never to promote strange new boys to
prefectships, they considered they had a grievance against the school.
Sefton had spent three months with a London crammer, and the tale of his
adventures there lost nothing in the telling. Campbell, who had a fine
taste in clothes and a fluent vocabulary, followed his lead in looking
down loftily on the rest of the world. This was only their second term,
and the school, used to what it profanely called "crammers' pups," had
treated them with rather galling reserve. But their whiskers--Sefton
owned a real razor--and their mustaches were beyond question impressive.

"Shall we go in an' dissuade 'em?" McTurk asked. "I've never had much to
do with 'em, but I'll bet my hat Campbell's a funk."

"No--o! That's _oratio directa_," said Stalky, shaking his head. "I like
_oratio obliqua_. 'Sides, where'd our moral influence be then? Think o'
that!"

"Rot! What are you goin' to do?" Beetle turned into Lower Number Nine
form-room, next door to the study.

"Me?" The lights of war flickered over Stalky's face. "Oh, I want to
jape with 'em. Shut up a bit!"

He drove his hands into his pockets and stared out of window at the sea,
whistling between his teeth. Then a foot tapped the floor; one shoulder
lifted; he wheeled, and began the short quick double-shuffle--the
war-dance of Stalky in meditation. Thrice he crossed the empty
form-room, with compressed lips and expanded nostrils, swaying to the
quick-step. Then he halted before the dumb Beetle and softly knuckled
his bead, Beetle bowing to the strokes. McTurk nursed one knee and
rocked to and fro. They could hear Clewer howling as though his heart
would break.

"Beetle is the sacrifice," Stalky said at last, "I'm sorry for you,
Beetle. 'Member Galton's 'Art of Travel' [one of the forms had been
studying that pleasant work] an' the kid whose bleatin' excited the
tiger?"

"Oh,