“He came just the same, and he about saved my life. I was all bunged up one night—just goin’ to croak, the doctor said—and they stuck a tube or somethin’ in my throat, and the Head sucked out the stuff.”
“Ugh! ’Shot if I would!”
“He ought to have got diphtheria himself, the doctor said. So he stayed on at our house instead of going back. I’d ha’ croaked in another twenty minutes, the doctor says.”
Here the coachman, being under orders, whipped up and nearly ran over the three.
“My Hat!” said Beetle. “That’s pretty average heroic.”
“Pretty average!” McTurk’s knee in the small of his back cannoned him into Stalky, who punted him back. “You ought to be hung!”
“And the Head ought to get the V.C.,” said Stalky. “Why, he might have been dead and buried by now. But he wasn’t. But he didn’t. Ho! ho! He just nipped through the hedge like a lusty old blackbird. Extra-special, five hundred lines, an’ gated for a week—all sereno!”
“I’ve read o’ somethin’ like that in a book,” said Beetle. “Gummy, what a chap! Just think of it!”
“I’m thinking,” said McTurk; and he delivered a wild Irish yell that made the team turn round.
“Shut your fat mouth,” said Stalky, dancing with impatience. “Leave it to your Uncle Stalky, and he’ll have the Head on toast. If you say a word, Beetle, till I give you leave, I swear I’ll slay you. Habeo Capitem crinibus minimis. I’ve got him by the short hairs! Now look as if nothing had happened.”