Said Foxy: 'After a fine speech like what you 'eard night before last, you ought to take 'old of your drill with re-newed activity. I don't see how you can avoid comin' out an' marchin' in the open now.'
'Can't we get out of it, then, Foxy?' Stalky's fine old silky tone should have warned him.
'No, not with his giving the flag so generously. He told me before he left this morning that there was no objection to the corps usin' it as their own. It's a handsome flag.'
Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead silence, and fell out. His example was followed by Hogan and Ansell.
Perowne hesitated. 'Look here, oughtn't we?' he began.
'I'll get it out of the locker in a minute,' said the Sergeant, his back turned. 'Then we can'
'Come on!' shouted Stalky. 'What the devil are you waiting for? Dismiss! Break off.'
'Why—what the—where the?'
The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as boy after boy fell out.
'I—I don't know that I shan't have to report this to the Head,' he stammered.
'Report, then, and be damned to you,' cried Stalky, white to the lips, and ran out.
•••••
'Rummy thing!' said Beetle to M'Turk. 'I was in the study, doin' a simply lovely poem about the Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper, an' Stalky came in, an' I said "Hullo!" an' he cursed me like a bargee, and then he began to blub like anything. Shoved
