Stalky & Co.

“It seems - and who so astonished as they? - that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty of both suppressio veri and suggestio falsi (well-known gods against whom they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful.””

— Rudyard Kipling

“Ye've a furtive look in your eye - a furtive, sneakin', poachin' look in your eye, that 'ud ruin the reputation of an archangel!””

— Rudyard Kipling

“And if you expect you'll gain anything from us by your way of approachin' us, you're jolly well mistaken. That's all. Good-night.'They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs.'But - but what the dickens have we done?' said Harrison, amazedly, to Craye.'I don't know. Only - it always happens that way when one has anything to do with them. They're so beastly plausible.””

— Rudyard Kipling

“Well-meanin' man. Did it all for the best." Stalky curled gracefully round the stair-rail. "Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the left boot.””

— Rudyard Kipling

“He has oppressed Beetle, M'Turk, and me, privatim et seriatim, one by one, as he could catch us. But now he has insulted Number Five up in the music-room, and in the presence of these - these ossifers of the Ninety-third, wot look like hairdressers. Binjimin, we must make him cry "Capivi!"'Stalky's reading did not include Browning or Ruskin.””

— Rudyard Kipling

“Stalky,' in their school vocabulary, meant clever, well-considered and wily, as applied to plans of action; and 'stalkiness' was the one virtue Corkran toiled after.””

— Rudyard Kipling

“I've never done any cattle-liftin', but it seems to me-e-e that one might just as well be stalky about a thing as not.””

— Rudyard Kipling

“Mad! Quite mad!' said Stalky to the visitors, as one exhibiting strange beasts. 'Beetle reads an ass called Brownin', and M'Turk reads an ass called Ruskin; and-' 'Ruskin isn't an ass,' said M'Turk. 'He's almost as good as the Opium-Eater. He says we're "children of noble races, trained by surrounding art." That means me, and the way I decorated the study when you two badgers would have stuck up brackets and Christmas cards. Child of a noble race, trained by surrounding art, stop reading or I'll shove a pilchard down your neck!””

— Rudyard Kipling

“besides, this is much too good to tell all the other brutes in the Coll. They'd understand. They play cricket, and say, 'Yes sir', and 'Oh, sir', and 'No, sir'.””

— Rudyard Kipling