Publication history
The story was first published in The Windsor Magazine in May 1899, and subsequently collected in Stalky & Co. (1899) It was later included in The Complete Stalky & Co. (1929)
The story
It is Stalky & Co.’s last term. Stalky is off to Sandhurst, Turkey to Cooper’s Hill (the Engineering College) and Beetle to journalism in India. They have not been made prefects, and they think little of the ‘Sixth’, which is full of clever academic boys of little character.
The three go down to town to say farewell to Mother Yeo in the dairy, and her pretty daughter Mary, and on the way are challenged by Tulke, a sixth-former, for being out of bounds. They ignore him, and when – from the dairy – they see him passing in the street, they persuade Mary to go out and give him a kiss.
She does so, and Tulke flees in embarrassment. On their return they are summoned by the prefects, but make fools of them with the help of the story of Tulke’s ‘amours’. Meanwhile Beetle has made a nonsense of King’s Latin exam paper by altering the type at the printers. They [are leaving the Coll. on a high note.
[I.Q.]