"Oh, McTurk, please let me go. I don't stink--I swear I don't!"

"Guilty conscience!" cried Beetle. "Who said you did?"

"What d'you make of it?" Stalky punted the small boy into Beetle's
arms.

"Snf! Snf! He does, though. I think it's leprosy--or thrush. P'raps
it's both. Take it away."

"Indeed, Master Beetle"--King generally came to the house-door for a
minute or two as the bell rang--" we are vastly indebted to you for
your diagnosis, which seems to reflect almost as much credit on the
natural unwholesomeness of your mind as it does upon your pitiful
ignorance of the diseases of which you discourse so glibly. We will,
however, test your knowledge in other directions."

That was a merry lesson, but, in his haste to scarify Beetle, King
clean neglected to give him an imposition, and since at the same time
he supplied him with many priceless adjectives for later use, Beetle
was well content, and applied himself most seriously throughout third
lesson (algebra with little Hartopp) to composing a poem entitled
"The Lazar-house."

After dinner King took his house to bathe in the sea off the
Pebbleridge. It was an old promise; but he wished he could have
evaded it, for all Prout's lined up by the Fives Court and cheered
with intention. In his absence not less than half the school invaded
the infected dormitory to draw their own conclusions. The cat had
gained in the last twelve hours, but a battlefield of the fifth day