“And my passage out! It’s all settled. The Head says he’s been breaking me in for this for ever so long, and I never knew—I never knew. One don’t begin with writing straight off, y’know. Begin by filling in telegrams and cutting things out o’ papers with scissors.”
“Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you’ll make of it,” said Stalky. “But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my dearly beloved ’earers—though not prefects.”
“Not half bad years, either,” said McTurk. “I shall be sorry to leave the old Coll.; shan’t you?”
They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebbleridge in the clear winter light. “Wonder where we shall all be this time next year?” said Stalky absently.
“This time five years,” said McTurk.
“Oh,” said Beetle, “my leavin’s between ourselves. The Head hasn’t told any one. I know he hasn’t, because Prout grunted at me to-day that if I were more reasonable—yah!—I might be a prefect next term. I s’ppose he’s hard up for his prefects.”
“Let’s finish up with a row with the Sixth,” suggested McTurk.
“Dirty little schoolboys!” said Stalky, who already saw himself a Sandhurst cadet. “What’s the use?”
“Moral effect,” quoth McTurk. “Leave an imperishable tradition, and all the rest of it.”
“Better go into Bideford an’ pay up our debts,” said Stalky. “I’ve got three quid out of my father—ad hoc. Don’t owe more than thirty bob, either. Cut along, Beetle, and ask the Head for leave. Say you want to correct the ‘Swillingford Patriot.’”