“Oh, you’re a beastly funk!” The speaker was already hidden by the fog.
“Hang it all,” said McTurk. “It’s about the first time we’ve ever tried a cattle-lift at the Coll. Let’s——”
“Not much,” said Corkran firmly; “keep your eye on your Uncle.” His word was law in these matters, for experience had taught them that if they manœuvred without Corkran they fell into trouble.
“You’re wrathy because you didn’t think of it first,” said Beetle. Corkran kicked him thrice calmly, neither he nor Beetle changing a muscle the while.
“No, I ain’t; but it isn’t stalky enough for me.”
“Stalky,” in their school vocabulary, meant clever, well-considered and wily, as applied to plans of action; and “stalkiness” was the one virtue Corkran toiled after.
“’Same thing,” said McTurk. “You think you’re the only stalky chap in the Coll.”
Corkran kicked him as he had kicked Beetle; and even as Beetle, McTurk took not the faintest notice. By the etiquette of their friendship, this was no more than a formal notice of dissent from a proposition.
“They haven’t thrown out any pickets,” Corkran went on (That school prepared boys for the Army). “You ought to do that—even for apples. Toowey’s farmyard may be full of farm-chaps.”
“’Twasn’t last week,” said Beetle, “when we smoked in that cartshed place. It’s a mile from any house, too.”