Wonder what they'd say at 'St. Winifred's, or the World of
School.'--By gum! That reminds me we owe the Lower Third one for
assaultin' Beetle when he chivied Manders minor. Come on! It's an
alibi, Samivel; and, besides, if we let 'em off they'll be worse next
time."

The Lower Third had set a guard upon their form-room for the space of
a full hour, which to a boy is a lifetime. Now they were busy with
their Saturday evening businesses--cooking sparrows over the gas with
rusty nibs; brewing unholy drinks in gallipots; skinning moles with
pocket-knives; attending to paper trays full of silkworms, or
discussing the iniquities of their elders with a freedom, fluency,
and point that would have amazed their parents. The blow fell without
warning. Stalky upset a form crowded with small boys among their own
cooking utensils, McTurk raided the untidy lockers as a terrier digs
at a rabbit-hole, while Beetle poured ink upon such heads as he could
not appeal to with a Smith's Classical Dictionary. Three brisk
minutes accounted for many silkworms, pet larvae, French exercises,
school caps, half-prepared bones and skulls, and a dozen pots of
home-made sloe jam. It was a great wreckage, and the form-room looked
as though three conflicting tempests had smitten it.

"Phew!" said Stalky, drawing breath outside the door (amid groans of
"Oh, you beastly ca-ads! You think yourselves awful funny," and so
forth). "_That's_ all right. Never let the sun go down upon your
wrath. Rummy little devils, fags. Got no notion o' combinin'."

"Six of 'em sat on my head when I went in after Manders minor," said
Beetle. "I warned 'em what they'd get, though."