“Than any hushed-up scandal could? Quite so. Our reputation among the farmers is most unsavory. But I would much sooner deal with any amount of ingenious crime of that nature than--some other offenses.” “They may be all right, but they are unboylike, abnormal, and, in my opinion, unsound,” Prout insisted. “The moral effect of their performances must pave the way for greater harm. It makes me doubtful how to deal with them. I might separate them.” “You might, of course; but they have gone up the school together for six years. _I_ shouldn’t care to do it,” said Macrea. “They use the editorial ‘we,’” said King, irrelevantly. “It annoys me. ‘Where’s your prose, Corkran?’ ‘Well, sir, we haven’t quite done it yet.’ ‘We’ll bring it in a minute,’ and so on. And the same with the others.” “There’s great virtue in that ‘we,’” said little Hartopp. “You know I take them for trig. McTurk may have some conception of the meaning of it; but Beetle is as the brutes that perish about sines and cosines. He copies serenely from Stalky, who positively rejoices in mathematics.” “Why don’t you stop it?” said Prout. “It rights itself at the exams. Then Beetle shows up blank sheets, and trusts to his ‘English’ to save him from a fall. I fancy he spends most of his time with me in writing verse.” “I wish to Heaven he would transfer a little of his energy in that direction to Elegiacs.” King jerked himself upright. “He is, with the single exception of Stalky, the very vilest manufacturer of ‘barbarous hexameters’ that I have ever dealt with.” “The work is combined in that study,” said the chaplain. “Stalky does the mathematics, McTurk the Latin, and Beetle attends to their English and French. At least, when he was in the sick-house last month--” “Malingering,” Prout interjected. “Quite possibly. I found a very distinct falling off in their ‘Roman d’un Jeune Homme Pauvre’ translations.” “I think it is profoundly immoral,” said Prout. “I’ve always been opposed to the study system.” “It would be hard to find any study where the boys don’t help each other; but in Number Five the thing has probably been reduced to a system,” said little Hartopp. “They have a system in most things.” “They confess as much,” said the Reverend John. “I’ve seen McTurk being hounded up the stairs to elegise the ‘Elegy in a Churchyard,’ while Beetle and Stalky went to punt-about.” “It amounts to systematic cribbing,” said Prout, his voice growing deeper and deeper. “No such thing,” little Hartopp returned. “You can’t teach a cow the violin.” “In intention it is cribbing.” “But we spoke under the seal of the confessional, didn’t we?” said the Reverend John. “You say you’ve heard them arranging their work in this way, Gillett,” Prout persisted. “Good Heavens! Don’t make _me_ Queen’s evidence, my dear fellow. Hartopp is equally incriminated. If they ever found out that I had sneaked, our relations would suffer--and I value them.”