`You'll make it pax, Sefton, won't you? You can't stand up to those young devils--'
`Don't be rude, Campbell, de-ah,' said M`Turk, `or you'll catch it again!'
`You are devils, you know,' said Campbell.
`What? for a little bullyin'--same as you've been givin' Clewer! How long have you been jestin' with him?' said Stalky. `All this term?'
`We didn't always knock him about, though!'
`You did when you could catch him,' said Beetle, cross-legged on the floor, dropping a stump from time to time across Sefton's instep. `Don't I know it!'
`I--perhaps we did.'
`And you went out of your way to catch him? Don't I know it! Because he was an awful little beast, eh? Don't I know it! Now, you see you're awful beasts, and you're gettin' what he got--for bein' a beast. Just because we choose.'
`We never really bullied him--like you've done us.'
`Yah!' said Beetle. `They never really bully--"Molly" Fairburn didn't. Only knock 'em about a little bit. That's what they say. Only kick their souls out of 'em, and they go and blub in the box-rooms. Shove their heads into the ulsters an' blub. Write home three times a day--yes, you brute, I've done that--askin' to be taken away. You've never been bullied properly, Campbell. I'm sorry you made pax.'
`I'm not!' said Campbell, who was a humorist in a way. `Look out, you're slaying Sefton!'
In his excitement Beetle had used the stump unreflectingly, and Sefton was now shouting for mercy.
`An' you!' he cried, wheeling where he sat. `You've never been bullied, either. Where were you before you came here?'
`I--I had a tutor.'
`Yah! You would. You never blubbed in your life. But you're blubbin' now, by gum. Aren't you blubbin'?'
`Can't you see, you blind beast?' Sefton fell over sideways, tear-tracks furrowing the dried lather. Crack came the cricket-stump on the curved latter-end of him.
`Blind, am I,' said Beetle, `and a beast? Shut up, Stalky. I'm goin' to jape a bit with our friend, à la "Molly" Fairburn. I think I can see. Can't I see, Sefton?'
`The point is well taken,' said M`Turk, watching the stump at work. `You'd better say that he sees, Seffy.'
`You do--you can! I swear you do!' yelled Sefton, for strong arguments were coercing him.
`Aren't my eyes lovely?' The stump rose and fell steadily throughout this catechism.
`Yes.'
`A gentle hazel, aren't they?'
`Yes--oh yes!'
`What a liar you are! They're sky-blue. Ain't they sky-blue?'