“As usual!” sneered King. “Futile foolery just when your careers, such as they may be, are hanging in the balance. I see! Ah, I see! The old gang of criminals--allied forces of disorder--Corkran”--the Slave of the Lamp smiled politely--“McTurk”--the Irishman scowled--“and, of course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs.” Abanazar, the Emperor, and Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed them over. “Come forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument of music! You supply, I presume, the doggerel for this entertainment. Esteem yourself to be, as it were, a poet?” “He’s found one of ’em,” thought Beetle, noting the flush on King’s cheek-bone. “I have just had the pleasure of reading an effusion of yours to my address, I believe--an effusion intended to rhyme. So--so you despise me, Master Gigadibs, do you? I am quite aware--you need not explain--that it was ostensibly not intended for my edification. I read it with laughter--yes, with laughter. These paper pellets of inky boys--still a boy we are, Master Gigadibs--do not disturb my equanimity.” “Wonder which it was,” thought Beetle. He had launched many lampoons on an appreciative public ever since he discovered that it was possible to convey reproof in rhyme. In sign of his unruffled calm, King proceeded to tear Beetle, whom he called Gigadibs, slowly asunder. From his untied shoestrings to his mended spectacles (the life of a poet at a big school is hard) he held him up to the derision of his associates--with the usual result. His wild flowers of speech--King had an unpleasant tongue---restored him to good humor at the last. He drew a lurid picture of Beetle’s latter end as a scurrilous pamphleteer dying in an attic, scattered a few compliments over McTurk and Corkran, and, reminding Beetle that he must come up for judgment when called upon, went to Common-room, where he triumphed anew over his victims. “And the worst of it,” he explained in a loud voice over his soup, “is that I waste such gems of sarcasm on their thick heads. It’s miles above them, I’m certain.” “We-ell,” said the school chaplain slowly, “I don’t know what Corkran’s appreciation of your style may be, but young McTurk reads Ruskin for his amusement.” “Nonsense! He does it to show off. I mistrust the dark Celt.” “He does nothing of the kind. I went into their study the other night, unofficially, and McTurk was gluing up the back of four odd numbers of ‘Fors Clavigera.’” “I don’t know anything about their private lives,” said a mathematical master hotly, “but I’ve learned by bitter experience that Number Five study are best left alone. They are utterly soulless young devils.” He blushed as the others laughed. But in the music-room there were wrath and bad language. Only Stalky, Slave of the Lamp, lay on the piano unmoved. “That little swine Manders minor must have shown him your stuff. He’s always suckin’ up to King. Go and kill him,” he drawled. “Which one was it, Beetle?”