And the Sixth in Carson's study stood aghast, glowering at Tulke, who was on the edge of tears.
`Well,' said the head-prefect acidly. `You've made a pretty average ghastly mess of it, Tulke.'
`Why -- why didn't you lick that young devil Beetle before he began jawing?' Tulke wailed.
`I knew there'd be a row,' said a prefect of Prout's house. `But you would insist on the meeting, Tulke.'
`Yes, and a fat lot of good it's done us,' said Naughten. `They come in here and jaw our heads off when we ought to be jawin' them. Beetle talks to us as if we were a lot of blackguards and -- and all that. And when they've hung us up to dry, they go out and slam the door like a house-master. All your fault, Tulke.'
`But I didn't kiss her.'
`You ass! If you'd said you had and stuck to it, it would have been ten times better than what you did,' Naughten retorted. `Now they'll tell the whole school -- and Beetle 'll make up a lot of beastly rhymes and nick- names.'
`But, hang it, she kissed me!' Outside his work, Tulke's mind moved slowly.
`I'm not thinking of you. I'm thinking of us. I'll go up to their study and see if I can make 'em keep quiet!'
`Tulke's awf'ly cut up about this business,' Naughten began, ingratiatingly, when he found Beetle.
`Who's kissed him this time?'
`-- and I've come to ask you chaps, and especially you, Beetle, not to let the thing be known all over the school. Of course, fellows as senior as you are can easily see why.'
`Um!' said Beetle, with the cold reluctance of one who faces an unpleasant public duty. `I suppose I must go and talk to the Sixth again.'
`Not the least need, my dear chap, I assure you,' said Naughten hastily. `I'll take any message you care to send.'
But the chance of supplying the missing adjective was too tempting. So Naughten returned to that still undissolved meeting, Beetle, white, icy, and aloof, at his heels.
`There seems,' he began, with laboriously crisp articulation, `there seems to be a certain amount of uneasiness among you as to the steps we may think fit to take in regard to this last revelation of the--ah--obscene. If it is any consolation to you to know that we have decided--for the honour of the school, you understand-- to keep our mouths shut as to these--ah--obscenities, you--ah--have it.
He wheeled, his head among the stars, and strode statelily back to his study, where Stalky and M`Turk lay side by side upon the table wiping their tearful eyes--too weak to move.
. . . . .
The Latin prose paper was a success beyond their wildest dreams. Stalky and M`Turk were, of course, out of all examinations (they did extratuition with the Head), but Beetle attended with zeal.
`This, I presume, is a par-ergon on your part,' said King, as he dealt out the papers. `One final exhibition ere you are translated to loftier spheres? A last attack on the classics? It seems to confound you already.'
Beetle studied the print with knit brows. `I can't make head or tail of it,' he murmured. `What does it mean?'