invented it all."

"Not the least good having a row with a master unless you can make an
ass of him," said Stalky, extended at ease on the hearth-rug. "If
Mason didn't know Number Five--well, he's learnt, that's all. Now, my
dearly beloved 'earers"--Stalky curled his legs under him and
addressed the company--"we've got that strong', perseverin' man King
on our hands. He went miles out of his way to provoke a conflict."
(Here Stalky snapped down the black silk domino and assumed the air of
a judge.) "He has oppressed Beetle, McTurk, and me,
_privatim_et_seriatim_, one by one, as he could catch us. But now, he
has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of
these--these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like
hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry 'Capivi!'"

Stalky's reading did not include Browning or Ruskin.

"And, besides," said McTurk, "he's a Philistine, a basket-hanger. He
wears a tartan tie. Ruskin says that any man who wears a tartan tie
will, without doubt, be damned everlastingly."

"Bravo, McTurk," said Tertius; "I thought he was only a beast."

"He's that, too, of course, but he's worse. Ho has a china basket with
blue ribbons and a pink kitten on it, hung up in his window to grow
musk in. You know when I got all that old oak carvin' out of Bideford
Church, when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who'll
restore a church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with
glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know whether we'd done it with
a fret-saw! Yah! He is the King of basket-hangers!"