Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling (young adult books to read .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
- Performer: -
Book online «Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling (young adult books to read .txt) đ». Author Rudyard Kipling
Mr. King explained that as he had made it the one rule of his life never to interfere with another manâs house, so he expected not to be too patently interfered with. They might be interested to learn âhere the chaplain heaved a weary sighâthat he had taken all steps that, in his poor judgment, would meet the needs of the case. Nay, further, he had himself expended, with no thought of reimbursement, sums, the amount of which he would not specify, on disinfectants. This he had done because he knew by bitterâby most bitterâexperience that the management of the college was slack, dilatory, and inefficient. He might even add, almost as slack as the administration of certain houses which now thought fit to sit in judgment on his actions. With a short summary of his scholastic career, and a precis of his qualifications, including his degrees, he withdrew, slamming the door.
âHeigho!â said the chaplain. âOurs is a dwarfing lifeâa belittling life, my brethren. God help all schoolmasters! They need it.â
âI donât like the boys, I ownââProut dug viciously with his fork into the table-clothââand I donât pretend to be a strong man, as you know. But I confess I canât see any reason why I should take steps against Stalky and the others because King happens to be annoyed byâbyââ
âFalling into the pit he has digged,â said little Hartopp. âCertainly not, Prout. No one accuses you of setting one house against another through sheer idleness.â
âA belittling lifeâa belittling life.â The chaplain rose. âI go to correct French exercises. By dinner King will have scored off some unlucky child of thirteen; he will repeat to us every word of his brilliant repartees, and all will be well.â
âBut about those three. Are they so prurient-minded?â
âNonsense,â said little Hartopp. âIf you thought for a minute, Prout, you would see that the âprecocious flow of fetid imagery,â that King complains of, is borrowed wholesale from King. He ânursed the pinion that impelled the steel.â Naturally he does not approve. Come into the smoking-room for a minute. It isnât fair to listen to boys; but they should be now rubbing it into Kingâs house outside. Little things please little minds.â
The dingy den off the Common-room was never used for anything except gowns. Its windows were ground glass; one could not see out of it, but one could hear almost every word on the gravel outside. A light and wary footstep came up from Number Five.
âRattray!â in a subdued voiceâRattrayâs study fronted that way. âDâyou know if Mr. Kingâs anywhere about? Iâve got aââ McTurk discreetly left the end of the sentence open.
âNo. heâs gone out,â said Rattray unguardedly.
âAh! The learned Lipsius is airing himself, is he? His Royal Highness has gone to fumigate.â McTurk climbed on the railings, where he held forth like the never-wearied rook.
âNow in all the Coll. there was no stink like the stink of Kingâs house, for it stank vehemently and none knew what to make of it. Save King. And he washed the fags privatimet_seriatim_. In the fishpools of Hesbon washed he them, with an apron about his loins.â
âShut up, you mad Irishman!â There was the sound of a golf-ball spurting up gravel.
âItâs no good getting wrathy, Rattray. Weâve come to jape with you. Come on, Beetle. Theyâre all at home. You can wind âem.â
âWhereâs the Pomposo Stinkadore? âTisnât safe for a pure-souled, high-minded boy to be seen round his house these days. Gone out, has he? Never mind. Iâll do the best I can, Rattray. Iâm inloco_parentis_ just now.â
(âOne for you, Prout,â whispered Macrea, for this was Mr. Proutâs pet phrase.)
âI have a few words to impart to you, my young friend. We will discourse together a while.â
Here the listening Prout sputtered: Beetle, in a strained voice, had chosen a favorite gambit of Kingâs.
âI repeat, Master Rattray, we will confer, and the matter of our discourse shall not be stinks, for that is a loathsome and obscene word. We will, with your good leaveâgranted, I trust, Master Rattray, granted, I trustâstudy thisâthis scabrous upheaval of latent demoralization. What impresses me most is not so much the blatant indecency with which you swagger abroad under your load of putrescenceâ (you must imagine this discourse punctuated with golf-balls, but old Rattray was ever a bad shot) âas the cynical immorality with which you revel in your abhorrent aromas. Far be it from me to interfere with anotherâs houseââ
(âGood Lord!â said Prout, âbut this is King.â
âLine for line, letter for letter; listen;â said little Hartopp.)
âBut to say that you stink, as certain lewd fellows of the baser sort aver, is to say nothingâless than nothing. In the absence of your beloved housemaster, for whom no one has a higher regard than myself, I will, if you will allow me, explain the grossnessâthe unparalleled enormityâthe appalling fetor of the stenches (I believe in the good old Anglo-Saxon word), stenches, sir, with which you have seen fit to infect your house⊠Oh, bother! Iâve forgotten the rest, but it was very beautiful. Arenât you grateful to us for laborinâ with you this way, Rattray? Lots of chaps âud never have taken the trouble, but weâre grateful, Rattray.â
âYes, weâre horrid grateful,â grunted McTurk. âWe donât forget that soap. Weâre polite. Why ainât you polite, Rat?â
âHallo!â Stalky cantered up, his cap over one eye. âExhortinâ the Whiffers, eh? Iâm afraid theyâre too far gone to repent. Rattray! White! Perowne! Malpas! No answer. This is distressinâ. This is truly distressinâ. Bring out your dead, you glandered lepers!â
âYou think yourself funny, donât you?â said Rattray, stung from his dignity by this last. âItâs only a rat or something under the floor. Weâre going to have it up to-morrow.â
âDonât try to shuffle it off on a poor dumb animal, and dead, too. I loathe prevarication. âPon my soul, Rattrayââ
âHold on. The Hartoffles never said âPon my soulâ in all his little life,â said Beetle critically.
(âAh!â said Prout to little Hartopp.)
âUpon my word, sir, upon my word, sir, I expected better things of you, Rattray. Why can you not own up to your misdeeds like a man? Have I ever shown any lack of confidence in you?â
(âItâs not brutality,â murmured little Hartopp, as though answering a question no one had asked. âItâs boy; only boy.â)
âAnd this was the house,â Stalky changed from a pecking, fluttering voice to tragic earnestness. âThis was theâtheâopen cesspit that dared to call us âstinkers.â And nowâand now, it tries to shelter itself behind a dead rat. You annoy me, Rattray. You disgust me! You irritate me unspeakably! Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable temperââ
(âThis is to your address, Macrea,â said Prout.
âI fear so, I fear so.â)
âOr I should scarcely be able to contain myself before your mocking visage.â
âCave!â in an undertone. Beetle had spied King sailing down the corridor.
âAnd what may you be doing here, my little friends?â the housemaster began. âI had a fleeting notionâcorrect me if I am wrongâ (the listeners with one accord choked)ââthat if I found you outside my house I should visit you with dire pains and penalties.â
âWe were just goinâ for a walk, sir,â said Beetle.
âAnd you stopped to speak to Rattray enroute_?â
âYes, sir. Weâve been throwing golf-balls,â said Rattray, coming out of the study.
(âOld Rat is more of a diplomat than I thought. So far he is strictly within the truth,â said little Hartopp. âObserve the ethics of it, Prout.â)
âOh, you were sporting with them, were you? I must say I do not envy you your choice of associates. I fancied they might have been engaged in some of the prurient discourse with which they have been so disgustingly free of late. I should strongly advise you to direct your steps most carefully in the future. Pick up those golf-balls.â He passed on.
Next day Richards, who had been a carpenter in the Navy, and to whom odd jobs were confided, was ordered to take up a dormitory floor; for Mr. King held that something must have died there.
âWe need not neglect all our work for a trumpery incident of this nature; though I am quite aware that little things please little minds. Yes, I have decreed the boards to be taken up after lunch under Richardsâs auspices. I have no doubt it will be vastly interesting to a certain type of so-called intellect; but any boy of my house or anotherâs found on the dormitory stairs will ipsofacto_ render himself liable to three hundred lines.â
The boys did not collect on the stairs, but most of them waited outside Kingâs. Richards had been bound to cry the news from the attic window, and, if possible, to exhibit the corpse.
ââTis a cat, a dead cat!â Richardsâs face showed purple at the window. He had been in the chamber of death and on his knees for some time.
âCat be blowed!â cried McTurk. âItâs a dead fag left over from last term. Three cheers for Kingâs dead fag!â
They cheered lustily.
âShow it, show it! Letâs have a squint at it!â yelled the juniors. âGive her to the Bug-hunters.â (This was the Natural History Society). âThe cat looked at the Kingâand died of it! Hoosh! Yai! Yaow! Maiow! Ftzz!â were some of the cries that followed.
Again Richards appeared.
âSheâve beenââhe checked himself suddenlyââdead a long taime.â
The school roared.
âWell, come on out for a walk,â said Stalky in a well-chosen pause. âItâs all very disgustinâ, and I do hope the Lazar-house wonât do it again.â
âDo what?â a Kingâs boy cried furiously.
âKill a poor innocent cat every time you want to get off washing. Itâs awfully hard to distinguish between you as it is. I prefer the cat, I must say. She isnât quite so whiff. What are you goinâ to do, Beetle?â
âJevais_gloater_. Jevais_gloater_tout_le_ blessed afternoon. Jamaisjâai_ gloateâcomme_je_gloateraiaujourdâhui. Nousbunkerons_aux_ bunkers.â
And it seemed good to them so to do.
Down in the basement, where the gas flickers and the boots stand in racks, Richards, amid his blacking-brushes, held forth to Oke of the Common-room, Gumbly of the dining-halls, and fair Lena of the laundry.
âYiss. Her were in a shockinâ staate anâ condition. Her nigh made me sick, I tal âee. But I rowted un out, and I rowted un out, anâ I made all shipshape, though her smelt like to bilges.â
âHer died mousinâ, I reckon, poor thing,â said Lena.
âThen her moused different to any made cat oâ Godâs world, Lena. I up with the top-board, anâ she were lying on her back, anâ I turned un ovver with the brume-handle, anâ âtwas her back was all covered with the plaster from âtwixt the lathinâ. Yiss, I tal âee. Anâ under her head there lay, like, soâs to say, a little pillow oâ plaster druv up in front of her by raison of her slidinâ along on her back. No cat niver went mousinâ on her back, Lena. Some one had shoved her along right underneath, so far as they could shove un. Cats donât make theyselves pillows for to die on. Shoved along, she were, when she was settinâ for to be cold, laike.â
âOh, yeouâm too clever to live, Fatty. Yeou go get wed anâ taught some sense,â said Lena, the affianced of Gumbly.
âLarned a little âfore iver some maidens was born. Sarved in the Queenâs Navy, I have, where yeouâm taught to use your eyes. Yeou go âtend your own business, Lena.â
âDo âee mean what youâm been tellinâ us?â said Oke.
âAsk me no questions, Iâll
Comments (0)