It was Carson, the head of the school, a simple, straight-minded soul, and a pillar of the First Fifteen, who crossed over from the prefects' table and in a husky, official voice invited the three to attend in his study in half an hour.
`Prefects' meetin'!' Prefects' meetin'!' hissed the tables, and they imitated barbarically the actions and effects of the ground-ash.
`How are we goin' to jest with 'em?' said Stalky, turning half-face to Beetle. `It's your play this time!'
`Look here,' was the answer, `all I want you to do is not to laugh. I'm goin' to take charge o' young Tulke's immorality -- à la King, and it's goin' to be serious. If you can't help laughin' don't look at me, or I'll go pop.'
`I see. All right,' said Stalky.
M`Turk's lank frame stiffened in every muscle and his eyelids dropped half over his eyes. That last was a war-signal.
The eight or nine seniors, their faces very set and sober, were ranged in chairs round Carson's severely Philistine study. Tulke was not popular among them, and a few who had had experience of Stalky & Company doubted that he might, perhaps, have made an ass of himself. But the dignity of the Sixth was to be upheld. So Carson began hurriedly:
`Look here, you chaps, I've -- we've sent for you to tell you you're a good deal too cheeky to the Sixth -- have been for some time -- and -- and we've stood about as much as we're goin' to, and it seems you've been cursin' and swearin' at Tulke on the Bideford road this afternoon, and we're goin' to show you you can't do it. That's all.'
`Well, that's awfully good of you,' said Stalky, `but we happen to have a few rights of our own, too. You can't, just because you happen to be made prefects, haul up seniors and jaw 'em on spec, like a house- master. We aren't fags, Carson. This kind of thing may do for Davies tertius, but it won't do for us.'
`It's only old Prout's lunacy that we weren't prefects long ago. You know that,' said M`Turk. `You haven't any tact.'
`Hold on,' said Beetle. `A prefects' meetin' has to be reported to the Head. I want to know if the Head backs Tulke in this business?'
`Well -- well, it isn't exactly a prefects' meeting,' said Carson. `We only called you in to warn you.'
`But all the prefects are here,' Beetle insisted. `Where's the difference?'
`My Gum!' said Stalky. `Do you mean to say you've just called us in for a jaw -- after comin' to us before the whole school at tea an' givin' 'em the impression it was a prefects' meeting? 'Pon my Sam, Carson, you'll get into trouble, you will.'
`Hole-an'-corner business -- hole-an'-corner business,' said M`Turk, wagging his head. `Beastly suspicious.'
The Sixth looked at each other uneasily. Tulke had called three prefects' meetings in two terms, till the Head had informed the Sixth that they were expected to maintain discipline without the recurrent menace of his authority. Now, it seemed that they had made a blunder at the outset, but any right-minded boy would have sunk the legality and been properly impressed by the Court. Beetle's protest was distinct `cheek.'
`Well, you chaps deserve a lickin',' cried one Naughten incautiously. Then was Beetle filled with a noble inspiration.