“I’m all right,” he protested. “I swear I heard a lot what Turkey said. Shut up! Oh, shut _up_! Do shut up, you putrid asses.” Beetle was speaking from the fender, his head between Turkey’s knees, and Stalky largely over the rest of him. “What’s the metre of the beastly thing?” McTurk waved his Horace. “Look it up, Stalky. Twelfth of the Third.” “_Ionicum a minore_,” Stalky reported, closing his book in turn. “Don’t let him forget it”; and Turkey’s Horace marked the metre on Beetle’s skull, with special attention to elisions. It hurt. “Miserar’ est neq’ amori dare ludum neque dulci Mala vino laver’ aut ex----” “Got it? You liar! You’ve no ear at all! Chorus, Stalky!” Both Horaces strove to impart the measure, which was altogether different from its accompaniment. Presently Howell dashed in from his study below. “Look _out_! If you make this infernal din we’ll have some one up the staircase in a sec.” “We’re teachin’ Beetle Horace. He was goin’ to burble us some muck he’d read,” the tutors explained. “’Twasn’t muck! It was about those Tom-a-Bedlams in _Lear_.” “Oh!” said Stalky. “Why didn’t you say so?” “’Cause you didn’t listen. They had drinkin’-horns an’ badges, and there’s a Johnson note on Shakespeare about the meanin’ of Edgar sayin’ ‘My horn’s dry.’ But Johnson’s dead-wrong about it. Aubrey says----” “Who’s Aubrey?” Howell demanded. “Does King know about him?” “Dunno. Oh yes, an’ Johnson started to learn Dutch when he was seventy.” “What the deuce for?” Stalky asked. “For a change after his Dikker, I suppose,” Howell suggested. “And I looked up a lot of other English stuff, too. I’m goin’ to try it all on King.” “Showin’-off as usual,” said the acid McTurk, who, like his race, lived and loved to destroy illusions. “No. For a draw. He’s an unjust dog! If you read, he says you’re showin’-off. If you don’t, you’re a mark-huntin’ Philistine. What does he want you to do, curse him?” “Shut up, Beetle!” Stalky pronounced. “There’s more than draws in this. You’ve cribbed your maths off me ever since you came to Coll. You don’t know what a co-sine is, even _now_. Turkey does all your Latin.” “I like that! Who does both your _Picciolas_?” “French don’t count. It’s time you began to work for your giddy livin’ an’ help us. _You_ aren’t goin’ up for anythin’ that matters. Play for your side, as Heffles says, or die the death! You don’t want to die the death, again, do you? Now, let’s hear about that stinkard Johnson swottin’ Dutch. You’re sure it was Sammivel, not Binjamin? You _are_ so dam’ inaccurate!” Beetle conducted an attentive class on the curiosities of literature for nearly a quarter of an hour. As Stalky pointed out, he promised to be useful. * * * * *