Description
Stalky & Co. (More Stories)
“IN AMBUSH.”
In summer all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the
College–little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes,
full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly
forbidden, palaces of delight. And for the fifth summer in succession,
Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle (this was before they reached the dignity of
a study) had built like beavers a place of retreat and meditation, where
they smoked.
Now, there was nothing in their characters as known to Mr. Prout,
their house-master, at all commanding respect; nor did Foxy, the
subtle red-haired school Sergeant, trust them. His business was to wear
tennis-shoes, carry binoculars, and swoop hawklike upon evil boys. Had
he taken the field alone, that hut would have been raided, for Foxy
knew the manners of his quarry; but Providence moved Mr. Prout,
whose school-name, derived from the size of his feet, was Hoofer, to
investigate on his own account; and it was the cautious Stalky who
found the track of his pugs on the very floor of their lair one peaceful
afternoon when Stalky would fain have forgotten Prout and his works in
a volume of Surtees and a new briar-wood pipe. Crusoe, at sight of the
footprint, did not act more swiftly than Stalky. He removed the pipes,
swept up all loose match-ends, and departed to warn Beetle and McTurk.
But it was characteristic of the boy that he did not approach his allies
till he had met and conferred with little Hartopp, President of the
Natural History Society, an institution which Stalky held in contempt,
Hartopp was more than surprised when the boy meekly, as he knew how,
begged to propose himself, Beetle, and McTurk as candidates; confessed
to a long-smothered interest in first-fl
Product ID: 9781776782154
Sku: 9781776782154
