Ch. 8: The Last Term - Page 2

giddy
jesting with the Sixth since we've been passed over than any one else
in the last seven years."

He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of
stick-up collars, which custom decreed could be worn only by the
Sixth. And the Sixth saw those collars and said no word. "Pussy,"
Abanazar, or Dick Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded
in five minutes or... But the Sixth of that term was made up mostly
of young but brilliantly clever boys, pets of the house-masters, too
anxious for their dignity to care to come to open odds with the
resourceful three. So they crammed their caps at the extreme back of
their heads, instead of a trifle over one eye as the Fifth should,
and rejoiced in patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous
made-up ties on Sundays--no man rebuking. McTurk was going up for
Cooper's Hill, and Stalky for Sandhurst, in the spring; and the Head
had told them both that, unless they absolutely collapsed during the
holidays, they were safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head seldom
erred in an estimate of form.

He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him much good advice, not
one word of which did Beetle remember when he dashed up to the study,
white with excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It demanded
a great belief.

"You begin on a hundred a year?" said McTurk unsympathetically.
"Rot!"

"And my passage out! It's all settled. The Head says he's been
breaking me in for this for ever so long, and I never knew--I never
knew. One don't begin with writing straight off, y'know. Begin by
filling in telegrams and cutting things out o' papers with scissors."

"Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you'll make of it," said Stalky.
"But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my
dearly beloved 'earers--though not prefects."

"Not half bad years, either," said McTurk. "I shall be sorry to leave
the old Coll.; shan't you?"

They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebbleridge in the
clear winter light. "Wonder where we shall all be this time next
year?" said Stalky absently.

"This time five years," said McTurk.

"Oh," said Beetle, "my leavin's between ourselves. The Head hasn't
told any one. I know he hasn't, because Prout grunted at me to-day
that if I were more reasonable--yah!--I might be a prefect next
term. I s'ppose he's hard up for his prefects."

"Let's finish up with a row with the Sixth," suggested McTurk.

"Dirty little schoolboys!" said Stalky, who already saw himself a
Sandhurst cadet. "What's the use?"