"I repeat, Master Rattray, we will confer, and the matter of our
discourse shall not be stinks, for that is a loathsome and obscene
word. We will, with your good leave--granted, I trust, Master
Rattray, granted, I trust--study this--this scabrous upheaval of
latent demoralization. What impresses me most is not so much the
blatant indecency with which you swagger abroad under your load of
putrescence" (you must imagine this discourse punctuated with
golf-balls, but old Rattray was ever a bad shot) "as the cynical
immorality with which you revel in your abhorrent aromas. Far be it
from me to interfere with another's house--"

("Good Lord!" said Prout, "but this is King."

"Line for line, letter for letter; listen;" said little Hartopp.)

"But to say that you stink, as certain lewd fellows of the baser sort
aver, is to say nothing--less than nothing. In the absence of your
beloved house-master, for whom no one has a higher regard than
myself, I will, if you will allow me, explain the grossness--the
unparalleled enormity--the appalling fetor of the stenches (I believe
in the good old Anglo-Saxon word), stenches, sir, with which you have
seen fit to infect your house... Oh, bother! I've forgotten the rest,
but it was very beautiful. Aren't you grateful to us for laborin'
with you this way, Rattray? Lots of chaps 'ud never have taken the
trouble, but we're grateful, Rattray."

"Yes, we're horrid grateful," grunted McTurk. "We don't forget that
soap. We're polite. Why ain't you polite, Rat?"

"Hallo!" Stalky cantered up, his cap over one eye. "Exhortin' the