“To-morrow,” Dick Four announced, “we’ll sacrifice to him. Fags in blazin’ paper-baskets!” and with thundering “Ingle-go-jangs” the Idol retired to its shrine.
It had been a satisfactory performance. Little Hartopp, surprised labelling “rocks” in Number Twelve, which held the Natural History Museum, had laughed consumedly; and the Reverend John, just before prep, complimented Dick that he had not a single dissenter to his following. In this respect the affair was an advance on Byzantium and Alexandria which, of course, were torn by rival sects led by militant Bishops or zealous heathen. Vide, (Beetle,) Hypatia, and (if Dick Four ever listened, instead of privily swotting up his Euclid, in Church) the Reverend John’s own sermons. Mr. King, who had heard the noise but had not appeared, made no comment till dinner, when he told the Common Room ceiling that he entertained the lowest opinion of Uncle Remus’s buffoonery, but opined that it might interest certain types of intellect. Little Hartopp, School Librarian, who had, by special request, laid in an extra copy of the book, differed acridly. He had, he said, heard or overheard every salient line of Uncle Remus quoted, appositely too, by boys whom he would not have credited with intellectual interests. Mr. King repeated that he was wearied by the senseless and childish repetitions of immature minds. He recalled the Patience epidemic. Mr. Prout did not care for Uncle Remus—the dialect put him off—but he thought the Houses were getting a bit out of hand. There was nothing one could lay hold of, of course—“As yet,” Mr. Brownell interjected darkly. “But this larking about in form-rooms,” he added, “had potentialities which, if he knew anything of the Animal Boy, would develop—or had developed.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said the Reverend John. “This is the first time to my knowledge that Stalky has ever played second-fiddle to any one. Brer Terrapin was entirely Dick Four’s notion. By the way, he was painted your House-colours, King.”
“Was he?” said King artlessly. “I have always held that our Dickson Quartus had the rudiments of imagination. We will look into it—look into it.”
“In our loathsome calling, more things are done by judicious letting alone than by any other,” the Reverend John grunted.
“I can’t subscribe to that,” said Mr. Prout. “You haven’t a House,” and for once Mr. King backed Prout.
“Thank Heaven I haven’t. Or I should be like you two. Leave ’em alone! Leave ’em alone! Haven’t you ever seen puppies fighting over a slipper for hours?”
“Yes, but Gillette admits that Dickson Quartus was the only begetter of this manifestation. I wasn’t aware that the—er—Testacean had been tricked out in my colours,” said King.
And at that very hour, Number Five Study—“prep” thrown to the winds—were toiling inspiredly at a Tar Baby made up of Beetle’s sweater, and half-a-dozen lavatory-towels; a condemned cretonne curtain and ditto baize table-cloth for “natal stuffin’”; an ancient, but air-tight puntabout-ball for the head; all three play-box ropes for bindings; and most of Richard’s weekly blacking allowance for Prout’s House’s boots to give tone to the whole.
“Gummy!” said Beetle when their curtain-pole had been taken down and Tar Baby hitched to the end of it by a loop in its voluptuous back. “It looks pretty average indecent, somehow.”