Suddenly the keeper passed them at a trot. “Who’m they to combe-bottom for Lard’s sake? Master’ll be crazy,” he said. Kipling put this inscription in a copy of Stalky, & Co.: “This is not intended to be merely a humorous book, but it is an Education, a work of the greatest value. Rudyard Kipling at Inglemere, Ascot. Sunday 25th Jan. 1925.” Go to the dormitory and get me my things. Bring ’em to Number Five lavatory. I’m still in tights,” hissed Stalky, sitting on his head. “Don’t run. Walk.” Then you chaps had better clear out,” said Stalky politely to the visitors. “‘Tisn’t fair to mix you up in a study row. Besides, we can’t afford to have evidence.” In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he held him up to the derision of his associates–with the usual result. His wild flowers of speech–King had an unpleasant tongue—restored him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle’s latter end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he must come up for judgment when called upon, went to Common-room, where he triumphed anew over his victims.

In Ambush" (August 1898, McClure's Magazine; December, 1898, Pearson's Magazine): The three boys, reading and smoking in their "bunker" (hide-out), see a gamekeeper shooting a fox, something anathema in a place where foxhunting is practiced. When M'Turk tells the keeper's employer, a colonel who owns land adjoining their school, he gratefully invites them to visit his land. Later Sergeant Foxy, Mr. King, and Mr. Prout follow the boys to see what they're up to when far from the school, and Stalky leads them onto the colonel's land. The colonel upbraids them for trespassing, amusing the boys, who are eavesdropping. Though the Head finds out that the boys are technically innocent, he canes them for causing trouble. They were careful, as only boys can be when there is a hurt to be inflicted. They waited through one suffocating week till Prout and King were their royal selves again; waited till there was a house-match–their own house, too–in which Prout was taking part; waited, further, till he had his pads in the pavilion and stood ready to go forth. King was scoring at the window, and the three sat on a bench without. Now, the Pleasant Isle of Aves lay due southwest. “They’re deep–day-vilish deep,” said Stalky. “Why are they drawin’ those covers?” But it was to a boot-cupboard under the staircase on the ground floor that he hastened, to loose the mirth that was destroying him. He had not drawn breath for a first whoop of triumph when two hands choked him dumb.

AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE.

You see!” said Stalky, when they were out of ear-shot. “He _can’t_ keep a secret. He’s followin’ to cut off our line of retreat. He’ll wait at the baths till Heffy comes along. They’ve tried every blessed place except along the cliffs, and now they think they’ve bottled us. No need to hurry.” Kipling’s first book championing the great man “Stalky” is near the top of my list of must-read literature for adolescent men, though it is a book that I have never recommended to said young men. The reason for my reticence finds basis in the all-too-abundant collection of “good naughties” that in the book one therein finds—the kind of good naughties that every child must pursue, but that no adult can properly recommend. They were careful not to cross the Colonel’s path–he had served his turn, and they would not out-wear their welcome–nor did they show up on the sky-line when they could move in cover. The shelter of the gorze by the cliff-edge was their chosen retreat. Beetle christened it the Pleasant Isle of Aves, for the peace and the shelter of it; and here, the pipes and tobacco once cache’d in a convenient ledge an arm’s length down the cliff, their position was legally unassailable. Every giddy word of it, my Chingangook,” said Beetle, dancing. “Why shouldn’t it? _We’ve_ done nothing wrong. _We_ ain’t poachers. _We_ didn’t cut about blastin’ the characters of poor, innocent boys–saying they were drunk.” murmured Stalky, as Rabbits-Eggs swore into the patient night, protesting that he saw the “dommed colleger” who was assaulting him.

Hullo, here’s a keeper,” said Stalky, shutting “Handley Cross” cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared on the sky-line to the east. “Confound him, he’s going to sit down.” That day came a little sooner than they expected–came when the Sergeant, whose duty it was to collect defaulters, did not attend an afternoon call-over. Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through the furze. Cause there isn’t any. The volunteer cadet-corps is broke up—disbanded—dead—putrid—corrupt—-stinkin’. But they’ve no following in the school, and they are distinctly—er—brutal to their juniors,” said Prout, who had from a distance seen Beetlevote of censure on the said study.’ That’s all.”“And she bled all down my shirt, too!” said Beetle. If we attended the matches an’ yelled, ‘Well hit, sir,’ an’ stood on one leg an’ grinned every time Heffy said, ‘So ho, my sons. Is it thus?’ an’ said, ‘Yes, sir,’ an’‘No, sir,’ an’‘O, sir,’ an’‘Please, sir,’ like a lot o’ filthy fa-ags, Heffy ‘ud think no end of us,” said McTurk with a sneer. I’ll have nothing private with you! Ye can be as private as ye please on the other side o’ that gate an’–I wish ye a very good afternoon.” 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.”

Down went McTurk’s inky thumb over an imaginary arena full of bleeding Kings. “_Placete_, child of a generous race!” he cried to Beetle. Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. He and Foxy will watch it. It’s nothing to do with us; only we mustn’t be seen that way for a bit.” They spun wildly on their heels, jodeling after the accepted manner of a “gloat,” which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man’s song of triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer just in time to meet their house-master, who had spent the afternoon watching their abandoned hut in the “wuzzy.” The Head saw–saw even to the uttermost farthing–and his mouth twitched a little under his mustache. Le Gallienne, Richard (1900). Rudyard Kipling: A Criticism. London and New York: John Lane: The Bodley Head. p.70. Ellipsis by Le Gallienne.

SLAVES OF THE LAMP

Explain to the proprietor. You can explain, Sergeant,” shouted King. Evidently the Sergeant had surrendered to the major force. The boys did not concern themselves with lessons for the next few days. They had all Colonel Dabney’s estate to play with, and they explored it with the stealth of Red Indians and the accuracy of burglars. They could enter either by the Lodge-gates on the upper road–they were careful to ingratiate themselves with the Lodge-keeper and his wife–drop down into the combe, and return along the cliffs; or they could begin at the combe and climb up into the road. Yes, sir,” said Beetle, with a sheepish grin on his lips and murder in his heart. Hope had nearly left him, but he clung to a well-established faith that never was Stalky so dangerous as when he was invisible. He was merely working up to a peroration, and the boys knew it; but McTurk cut through the frothing sentence, the others echoing:

Meanwhile, “In Ambush” appeared in McClure’s Magazine in August, 1898, and on August 13th it is recorded ‘The schoolboy stories sent to Watt’– who arranged for their appearance monthly from January to May, 1899, in McClure’s and The Windsor. “The Flag of Their Country” was, however, only being written on November 3rd, 1898, and “The Last Term” on November 14th. Rabbits-Eggs was the local carrier–an outcrop of the early Devonian formation. It was Stalky who had invented his unlovely name. “He was pretty average drunk, or he wouldn’t have done it. Rabbits-Eggs is a little shy of me, somehow. But I swore it was _pax_ between us, and gave him a bob. He stopped at two pubs on the way in, so he’ll be howling drunk to-night. Oh, don’t begin reading, Beetle; there’s a council of war on. What the deuce is the matter with your collar?”

By Rudyard Kipling

Ah-haa!” said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. “Curious! Now _my_ house never dream of doing these things.” I don’t know anything about their private lives,” said a mathematical master hotly, “but I’ve learned by bitter experience that Number Five study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils.” It’s all right. The Hefflelinga means well. _But_ he is an ass. _And_ we show him that we think he’s an ass. An’ _so_ Heffy don’t love us. ‘Told me last night after prayers that he was _in_loco_parentis_,” Beetle grunted.