h the beastly thing. I say, Beetle, have you been
droppin' ink on it?"

But Beetle was in no case to answer. Limp and empty, they sprawled
across the harrow, the rust marking their ulsters in red squares and the
abandoned cheroot-end reeking under their very cold noses. Then--they
had heard nothing--the Head himself stood before them--the Head who
should have been in town bribing examiners--the Head fantastically
attired in old tweeds and a deer-stalker!

"Ah," he said, fingering his mustache. "Very good. I might have guessed
who it was. You will go back to the College and give my compliments to
Mr. King and ask him to give you an extra-special licking. You will then
do me five hundred lines. I shall be back to-morrow. Five hundred lines
by five o'clock to-morrow. You are also gated for a week. This is not
exactly the time for breaking bounds. Extra-special, please."

He disappeared over the hedge as lightly as he had come. There was a
murmur of women's voices in the deep lane.

"Oh, you Prooshan brute!" said McTurk as the voices died away. "Stalky,
it's all your silly fault."

"Kill him! Kill him!" gasped Beetle.

"I ca-an't. I'm going to cat again... I don't mind that, but King'll
gloat over us horrid. Extra-special, ooh!"

Stalky made no answer--not even a soft one. They went to College and
received that for which they had been sent. King enjoyed himself most
thoroughly, for by virtue of their seniority the boys were exempt from
his hand, save under special order. Luckily, he was no expert in the
gentle art.

"'Strange, how desire doth outrun performance,'" said Beetle
irreverently, quoting from some Shakespeare play that they were cramming
that term. They regained their study and settled down to the imposition.

"You're quite right, Beetle." Stalky spoke in silky and propitiating
tones. "Now, if the Head had sent us up to a prefect, we'd have got
something to remember!"

"Look here," McTurk began with cold venom, "we aren't goin' to row you
about this business, because it's too bad for a row; but we want you
to understand you're jolly well excommunicated, Stalky. You're a plain
ass."

"How was I to know that the Head 'ud collar us? What was he doin' in
those ghastly clothes, too?"

"Don't try to raise a side-issue," Beetle grunted severely.

"Well, it was all Stettson major's fault. If he hadn't gone an' got
diphtheria 'twouldn't have happened. But don't you think it rather
rummy--the Head droppin'