`He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, unofficially, and M'Turk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers of Fors Clavigera.'

`I don't know anything about their private lives,' said a methematical master hotly, `but I've learned by bitter experience that Number Five study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils.' He blushed as the others laughed.

But in the music-room there was wrath and bad language. Only Stalky, Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano unmoved.

`That little swine Manders minor must have shown him your stuff. He's always suckin' up to King. Go and kill him,' he drawled. `Which one was it, Beetle?'

`Dunno,' said Beetle, struggling out of the skirt. `There was one about his hunting for popularity with the small boys, and the other one was one about him in hell, tellin' the Devil he was a Balliol man. I swear both of 'em rhymed all right. By gum! P'raps Manders minor showed him both! I'll correct his caesuras for him.'

He disappeared down two flights of stairs, flushed a small pink and white boy in a form-room next door to King's study, which, again, was immediately below his own, and chased him up the corridor into a form-room sacred to the revels of the Lower Third. Thence he came back, greatly disordered, to find M'Turk, Stalky, and the others of the company in his study enjoying an unlimited `brew' -- coffee, cocoa, buns, new bread hot and steaming, sardine, sausage, ham-and-tongue paste, pilchards, three jams, and at least as many pounds of Devonshire cream.

`My Hat!' said he, throwing himself upon the banquet. `Who stumped up for this, Stalky?' It was within a month of term end, and blank starvation had reigned in the studies for weeks.

`You,' said Stalky serenely.

`Confound you! You haven't been popping my Sunday bags, then?'

`Keep your hair on. It's only your watch.'

`Watch! I lost it -- weeks ago. Out on the Burrows, when we tried to shoot the old ram -- the day our pistol burst.'

`It dropped out of your pocket (you're so beastly careless, Beetle), and M'Turk and I kept it for you. I've been wearing it for a week, and you never noticed. 'Took it into Bideford after dinner to-day. 'Got thirteen and sevenpence. Here's the ticket.'

`Well, that's pretty average cool,' said Abanazar behind a slab of cream and jam, as Beetle, reassured upon the safety of his Sunday trousers, showed not even surprise, much less resentment. Indeed, it was M'Turk who grew angry, saying:

`You gave him the ticket, Stalky? You pawned it? You unmitigated beast! Why, last month you and Beetle sold mine! `Never got a sniff of any ticket.'

`Ah, that was because you locked your trunk and we wasted half the afternoon hammering it open. We might have pawned it if you'd behaved like a Christian, Turkey.'

`My Aunt!' said Abanazar, `you chaps are communists. Vote of thanks to Beetle, though.'

`That's beastly unfair,' said Stalky, `when I took all the trouble to pawn it. Beetle never knew he had a watch. Oh, I say, Rabbits-Eggs gave me a lift into Bideford this afternoon.'