The Stones and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world.
They go about, loud and boisterous, with a whole-hearted and cheerful
indifference to other people's feelings, treading on the toes of their
neighbour and shoving him off the pavement, and always with an eye
wide open for any adventure. As to the kind of adventure, they are not
particular so long as it promises excitement. Sometimes they go
through their whole school career without accident. More often they
run up against a snag in the shape of some serious-minded and muscular
person who objects to having his toes trodden on and being shoved off
the pavement, and then they usually sober down, to the mutual
advantage of themselves and the rest of the community.
One's opinion of this type of youth varies according to one's point of
view. Small boys whom they had occasion to kick, either from pure high
spirits or as a punishment for some slip from the narrow path which
the ideal small boy should tread, regarded Stone and Robinson as
bullies of the genuine "Eric" and "St. Winifred's" brand. Masters were
rather afraid of them. Adair had a smouldering dislike for them. They
were useful at cricket, but apt not to take Sedleigh as seriously as
he could have wished.
As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out
the tea-things.
"Those Fire Brigade meetings," said Stone, "are a rag. You can do what
you like, and you never get more than a hundred lines."
"Don't you!" said Mike. "I got Saturday afternoon."
"What!"
"Is Wilson in too?"
"No. He got a hundred lines."
Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.
"What a beastly swindle!"
"That's because you don't play cricket. Old Downing lets you do what
you like if you join the Fire Brigade and play cricket."
"'We are, above all, a keen school,'" quoted Stone. "Don't you ever
play?"
"I have played a bit," said Mike.
"Well, why don't you have a shot? We aren't such flyers here. If you
know one end of a bat from the other, you could get into some sort of
a team. Were you at school anywhere before you came here?"
"I was at Wrykyn."
"Why on earth did you leave?" asked Stone. "Were you sacked?"
"No. My pater took me away."
"Wrykyn?" said Robinson. "Are you any relation of the Jacksons
there - J. W. and the others?"
"Brother."
"What!"
"Well, didn't you play at all there?"
"Yes," said Mike, "I did. I was in the team three years, and I should
have been captain this year, if I'd stopped on."
There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and
Robinson nearly dropped his tea-cup.
Stone broke the silence.
"But I mean to say - look here! What I mean is, why aren't you playing?
Why don't you play now?"
"I do. I play for a village near here. Place called Little Borlock. A
man who played against Wrykyn for the Free Foresters captains them. He
asked me if I'd like some games for them."
"But why not for the school?"
"Why should I? It's much better fun for the village. You don't get
ordered about by Adair, for a start."
"Adair sticks on side," said Stone.
"Enough for six," agreed Robinson.
"By Jove," said Stone, "I've got an idea. My word, what a rag!"
"What's wrong now?" inquired Mike politely.
"Why, look here. To-morrow's Mid-term Service day. It's nowhere near
the middle of the term, but they always have it in the fourth week.
There's chapel at half-past nine till half-past ten. Then the rest of
the day's a whole holiday. There are always house matches. We're
playing Downing's. Why don't you play and let's smash them?"
"By Jove, yes," said Robinson. "Why don't you? They're always sticking
on side because they've won the house cup three years running. I say,
do you bat or bowl?"
"Bat. Why?"
Robinson rocked on the table.
"Why, old Downing fancies himself as a bowler. You _must_ play,
and knock the cover off him."
"Masters don't play in house matches, surely?"
"This isn't a real house match. Only a friendly. Downing always turns
out on Mid-term Service day. I say, do play."
"Think of the rag."
"But the team's full," said Mike.
"The list isn't up yet. We'll nip across to Barnes' study, and make
him alter it."
They dashed out of the room. From down the passage Mike heard yells of
"_Barnes_!" the closing of a door, and a murmur of excited
conversation. Then footsteps returning down the passage.
Barnes appeared, on his face the look of one who has seen visions.
"I say," he said, "is it true? Or is Stone rotting? About Wrykyn, I
mean."
"Yes, I was in the team."
Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his _Wisden_,
and he had an immense respect for Wrykyn cricket.
"Are you the M. Jackson, then, who had an average of fifty-one point
nought three last year?"
[Illustration: "ARE YOU THE M. JACKSON, THEN, WHO HAD AN AVERAGE OF
FIFTY-ONE POINT NOUGHT THREE LAST YEAR?"]
"Yes."
Barnes's manner became like that of a curate talking to a bishop.
"I say," he said, "then - er - will you play against Downing's to-morrow?"
"Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
CHAPTER XL
THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
It is the curious instinct which prompts most people to rub a thing in
that makes the lot of the average convert an unhappy one. Only the
very self-controlled can refrain from improving the occasion and
scoring off the convert. Most leap at the opportunity.
It was so in Mike's case. Mike was not a genuine convert, but to Mr.
Downing he had the outward aspect of one. When you have been
impressing upon a non-cricketing boy for nearly a month that
(_a_) the school is above all a keen school, (_b_) that all
members of it should play cricket, and (_c_) that by not playing
cricket he is ruining his chances in this world and imperilling them
in the next; and when, quite unexpectedly, you come upon this boy
dressed in cricket flannels, wearing cricket boots and carrying a
cricket bag, it seems only natural to assume that you have converted
him, that the seeds of your eloquence have fallen on fruitful soil and
sprouted.
Mr. Downing assumed it.
He was walking to the field with Adair and another member of his team
when he came upon Mike.
"What!" he cried. "Our Jackson clad in suit of mail and armed for the
fray!"
This was Mr. Downing's No. 2 manner - the playful.
"This is indeed Saul among the prophets. Why this sudden enthusiasm
for a game which I understood that you despised? Are our opponents so
reduced?"
Psmith, who was with Mike, took charge of the affair with a languid
grace which had maddened hundreds in its time, and which never failed
to ruffle Mr. Downing.
"We are, above all, sir," he said, "a keen house. Drones are not
welcomed by us. We are essentially versatile. Jackson, the
archaeologist of yesterday, becomes the cricketer of to-day. It is the
right spirit, sir," said Psmith earnestly. "I like to see it."
"Indeed, Smith? You are not playing yourself, I notice. Your
enthusiasm has bounds."
"In our house, sir, competition is fierce, and the Selection Committee
unfortunately passed me over."
* * * * *
There were a number of pitches dotted about over the field, for there
was always a touch of the London Park about it on Mid-term Service
day. Adair, as captain of cricket, had naturally selected the best for
his own match. It was a good wicket, Mike saw. As a matter of fact the
wickets at Sedleigh were nearly always good. Adair had infected the
ground-man with some of his own keenness, with the result that that
once-leisurely official now found himself sometimes, with a kind of
mild surprise, working really hard. At the beginning of the previous
season Sedleigh had played a scratch team from a neighbouring town on a
wicket which, except for the creases, was absolutely undistinguishable
from the surrounding turf, and behind the pavilion after the match
Adair had spoken certain home truths to the ground-man. The latter's
reformation had dated from that moment.
* * * * *
Barnes, timidly jubilant, came up to Mike with the news that he had
won the toss, and the request that Mike would go in first with him.
In stories of the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new
boy, who has been found crying in the boot-room over the photograph of
his sister, contrives to get an innings in a game, nobody suspects
that he is really a prodigy till he hits the Bully's first ball out of
the ground for six.
With Mike it was different. There was no pitying smile on Adair's face
as he started his run preparatory to sending down the first ball.
Mike, on the cricket field, could not have looked anything but a
cricketer if he had turned out in a tweed suit and hobnail boots.
Cricketer was written all over him - in his walk, in the way he took
guard, in his stand at the wickets. Adair started to bowl with the
feeling that this was somebody who had more than a little knowledge of
how to deal with good bowling and punish bad.
Mike started cautiously. He was more than usually anxious to make runs
to-day, and he meant to take no risks till he could afford to do so.
He had seen Adair bowl at the nets, and he knew that he was good.
The first over was a maiden, six dangerous balls beautifully played.
The fieldsmen changed over.
The general interest had now settled on the match between Outwood's
and Downing's. The fact in Mike's case had gone round the field, and,
as several of the other games had not yet begun, quite a large crowd
had collected near the pavilion to watch. Mike's masterly treatment of
the opening over had impressed the spectators, and there was a popular
desire to see how he would deal with Mr. Downing's slows. It was
generally anticipated that he would do something special with them.
Off the first ball of the master's over a leg-bye was run.
Mike took guard.
Mr. Downing was a bowler with a style of his own. He took two short
steps, two long steps, gave a jump, took three more short steps, and
ended with a combination of step and jump, during which the ball
emerged from behind his back and started on its slow career to
the wicket. The whole business had some of the dignity of the
old-fashioned minuet, subtly blended with the careless vigour of
a cake-walk. The ball, when delivered, was billed to break from
leg, but the programme was subject to alterations.
If the spectators had expected Mike to begin any firework effects with
the first ball, they were disappointed. He played the over through
with a grace worthy of his brother Joe. The last ball he turned to leg
for a single.
His treatment of Adair's next over was freer. He had got a sight of
the ball now. Half-way through the over a beautiful square cut forced
a passage through the crowd by the pavilion, and dashed up against the
rails. He drove the sixth ball past cover for three.
The crowd was now reluctantly dispersing to its own games, but it
stopped as Mr. Downing started his minuet-cake-walk, in the hope that
it might see something more sensational.
This time the hope was fulfilled.
The ball was well up, slow, and off the wicket on the on-side. Perhaps
if it had been allowed to pitch, it might have broken in and become
quite dangerous. Mike went out at it, and hit it a couple of feet from
the ground. The ball dropped with a thud and a spurting of dust in the
road that ran along one side of the cricket field.
It was returned on the instalment system by helpers from other games,
and the bowler began his manoeuvres again. A half-volley this time.
Mike slammed it back, and mid-on, whose heart was obviously not in the
thing, failed to stop it.
"Get to them, Jenkins," said Mr. Downing irritably, as the ball came
back from the boundary. "Get to them."
"Sir, please, sir - - "
"Don't talk in the field, Jenkins."
Having had a full-pitch hit for six and a half-volley for four, there
was a strong probability that Mr. Downing would pitch his next ball
short.
The expected happened. The third ball was a slow long-hop, and hit the
road at about the same spot where the first had landed. A howl of
untuneful applause rose from the watchers in the pavilion, and Mike,
with the feeling that this sort of bowling was too good to be true,
waited in position for number four.
There are moments when a sort of panic seizes a bowler. This happened
now with Mr. Downing. He suddenly abandoned science and ran amok. His
run lost its stateliness and increased its vigour. He charged up to
the wicket as a wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole
idea now was to bowl fast.
When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be
batting, if you can manage it.
By the time the over was finished, Mike's score had been increased by
sixteen, and the total of his side, in addition, by three wides.
And a shrill small voice, from the neighbourhood of the pavilion,
uttered with painful distinctness the words, "Take him off!"
That was how the most sensational day's cricket began that Sedleigh
had known.
A description of the details of the morning's play would be
monotonous. It is enough to say that they ran on much the same lines
as the third and fourth overs of the match. Mr. Downing bowled one
more over, off which Mike helped himself to sixteen runs, and then
retired moodily to cover-point, where, in Adair's fifth over, he
missed Barnes - the first occasion since the game began on which that
mild batsman had attempted to score more than a single. Scared by this
escape, Outwood's captain shrank back into his shell, sat on the
splice like a limpet, and, offering no more chances, was not out at
lunch time with a score of eleven.
Mike had then made a hundred and three.
* * * * *
As Mike was taking off his pads in the pavilion, Adair came up.
"Why did you say you didn't play cricket?" he asked abruptly.
[Illustration: "WHY DID YOU SAY YOU DIDN'T PLAY CRICKET?" HE ASKED]
When one has been bowling the whole morning, and bowling well, without
the slightest success, one is inclined to be abrupt.
Mike finished unfastening an obstinate strap. Then he looked up.
"I didn't say anything of the kind. I said I wasn't going to play
here. There's a difference. As a matter of fact, I was in the Wrykyn
team before I came here. Three years."
Adair was silent for a moment.
"Will you play for us against the Old Sedleighans to-morrow?" he said
at length.
Mike tossed his pads into his bag and got up.
"No, thanks."
There was a silence.
"Above it, I suppose?"
"Not a bit. Not up to it. I shall want a lot of coaching at that end
net of yours before I'm fit to play for Sedleigh."
There was another pause.
"Then you won't play?" asked Adair.
"I'm not keeping you, am I?" said Mike, politely.
It was remarkable what a number of members of Outwood's house appeared
to cherish a personal grudge against Mr. Downing. It had been that
master's somewhat injudicious practice for many years to treat his
own house as a sort of Chosen People. Of all masters, the most
unpopular is he who by the silent tribunal of a school is convicted
of favouritism. And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he
favours and not merely individuals. On occasions when boys in his
own house and boys from other houses were accomplices and partners
in wrong-doing, Mr. Downing distributed his thunderbolts unequally,
and the school noticed it. The result was that not only he himself,
but also - which was rather unfair - his house, too, had acquired a
good deal of unpopularity.
The general consensus of opinion in Outwood's during the luncheon
interval was that, having got Downing's up a tree, they would be fools
not to make the most of the situation.
Barnes's remark that he supposed, unless anything happened and wickets
began to fall a bit faster, they had better think of declaring
somewhere about half-past three or four, was met with a storm of
opposition.
"Declare!" said Robinson. "Great Scott, what on earth are you talking
about?"
"Declare!" Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. "I never
saw such a chump."
"They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?" suggested Barnes.
"Sick! I should think they would," said Stone. "That's just the gay
idea. Can't you see that by a miracle we've got a chance of getting a
jolly good bit of our own back against those Downing's ticks? What
we've got to do is to jolly well keep them in the field all day if we
can, and be jolly glad it's so beastly hot. If they lose about a dozen
pounds each through sweating about in the sun after Jackson's drives,
perhaps they'll stick on less side about things in general in future.
Besides, I want an innings against that bilge of old Downing's, if I
can get it."
"So do I," said Robinson.
"If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson."
"Rather not."
"Well, I won't then," said Barnes unhappily. "Only you know they're
rather sick already."
"Don't you worry about that," said Stone with a wide grin. "They'll be
a lot sicker before we've finished."
And so it came about that that particular Mid-term Service-day match
made history. Big scores had often been put up on Mid-term Service
day. Games had frequently been one-sided. But it had never happened
before in the annals of the school that one side, going in first early
in the morning, had neither completed its innings nor declared it
closed when stumps were drawn at 6.30. In no previous Sedleigh match,
after a full day's play, had the pathetic words "Did not bat" been
written against the whole of one of the contending teams.
These are the things which mark epochs.
Play was resumed at 2.15. For a quarter of an hour Mike was
comparatively quiet. Adair, fortified by food and rest, was bowling
really well, and his first half-dozen overs had to be watched
carefully. But the wicket was too good to give him a chance, and Mike,
playing himself in again, proceeded to get to business once more.
Bowlers came and went. Adair pounded away at one end with brief
intervals between the attacks. Mr. Downing took a couple more overs,
in one of which a horse, passing in the road, nearly had its useful
life cut suddenly short. Change-bowlers of various actions and paces,
each weirder and more futile than the last, tried their luck. But
still the first-wicket stand continued.
The bowling of a house team is all head and no body. The first pair
probably have some idea of length and break. The first-change pair are
poor. And the rest, the small change, are simply the sort of things
one sees in dreams after a heavy supper, or when one is out without
one's gun.
Time, mercifully, generally breaks up a big stand at cricket before
the field has suffered too much, and that is what happened now.
At four o'clock, when the score stood at two hundred and twenty
for no wicket, Barnes, greatly daring, smote lustily at a rather
wide half-volley and was caught at short-slip for thirty-three. He
retired blushfully to the pavilion, amidst applause, and Stone came
out.
As Mike had then made a hundred and eighty-seven, it was assumed by
the field, that directly he had topped his second century, the closure
would be applied and their ordeal finished. There was almost a sigh of
relief when frantic cheering from the crowd told that the feat had
been accomplished. The fieldsmen clapped in quite an indulgent sort of
way, as who should say, "Capital, capital. And now let's start
_our_ innings." Some even began to edge towards the pavilion.
But the next ball was bowled, and the next over, and the next after
that, and still Barnes made no sign. (The conscience-stricken captain
of Outwood's was, as a matter of fact, being practically held down by
Robinson and other ruffians by force.)
A grey dismay settled on the field.
The bowling had now become almost unbelievably bad. Lobs were being
tried, and Stone, nearly weeping with pure joy, was playing an innings
of the How-to-brighten-cricket type. He had an unorthodox style, but
an excellent eye, and the road at this period of the game became
absolutely unsafe for pedestrians and traffic.
Mike's pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score,
too, was mounting steadily.
"This is foolery," snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fifty
went up on the board. "Barnes!" he called.
There was no reply. A committee of three was at that moment engaged in
sitting on Barnes's head in the first eleven changing-room, in order
to correct a more than usually feverish attack of conscience.
"Barnes!"
"Please, sir," said Stone, some species of telepathy telling him what
was detaining his captain. "I think Barnes must have left the field.
He has probably gone over to the house to fetch something."
"This is absurd. You must declare your innings closed. The game has
become a farce."
"Declare! Sir, we can't unless Barnes does. He might be awfully
annoyed if we did anything like that without consulting him."
"Absurd."
"He's very touchy, sir."
"It is perfect foolery."
"I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir."
Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.
* * * * *
In a neat wooden frame in the senior day-room at Outwood's, just above
the mantelpiece, there was on view, a week later, a slip of paper. The
writing on it was as follows:
OUTWOOD'S _v_. DOWNING'S
_Outwood's. First innings._
J. P. Barnes, _c_. Hammond, _b_. Hassall... 33
M. Jackson, not out........................ 277
W. J. Stone, not out....................... 124
Extras............................... 37
- - -
Total (for one wicket)...... 471
Downing's did not bat.
CHAPTER XLI
THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF JELLICOE
Outwood's rollicked considerably that night. Mike, if he had cared to
take the part, could have been the Petted Hero. But a cordial
invitation from the senior day-room to be the guest of the evening at
about the biggest rag of the century had been refused on the plea of
fatigue. One does not make two hundred and seventy-seven runs on a hot
day without feeling the effects, even if one has scored mainly by the
medium of boundaries; and Mike, as he lay back in Psmith's deck-chair,
felt that all he wanted was to go to bed and stay there for a week.
His hands and arms burned as if they were red-hot, and his eyes were
so tired that he could not keep them open.
Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, discoursed in a desultory way
on the day's happenings - the score off Mr. Downing, the undeniable
annoyance of that battered bowler, and the probability of his venting
his annoyance on Mike next day.
"In theory," said he, "the manly what-d'you-call-it of cricket and all
that sort of thing ought to make him fall on your neck to-morrow and
weep over you as a foeman worthy of his steel. But I am prepared to
bet a reasonable sum that he will give no Jiu-jitsu exhibition of this
kind. In fact, from what I have seen of our bright little friend, I
should say that, in a small way, he will do his best to make it
distinctly hot for you, here and there."
"I don't care," murmured Mike, shifting his aching limbs in the chair.
"In an ordinary way, I suppose, a man can put up with having his
bowling hit a little. But your performance was cruelty to animals.
Twenty-eight off one over, not to mention three wides, would have made
Job foam at the mouth. You will probably get sacked. On the other
hand, it's worth it. You have lit a candle this day which can never be
blown out. You have shown the lads of the village how Comrade
Downing's bowling ought to be treated. I don't suppose he'll ever take
another wicket."
"He doesn't deserve to."
Psmith smoothed his hair at the glass and turned round again.
"The only blot on this day of mirth and good-will is," he said, "the
singular conduct of our friend Jellicoe. When all the place was
ringing with song and merriment, Comrade Jellicoe crept to my side,
and, slipping his little hand in mine, touched me for three quid."
This interested Mike, fagged as he was.
"What! Three quid!"
"Three jingling, clinking sovereigns. He wanted four."
"But the man must be living at the rate of I don't know what. It was
only yesterday that he borrowed a quid from _me_!"
"He must be saving money fast. There appear to be the makings of a
financier about Comrade Jellicoe. Well, I hope, when he's collected
enough for his needs, he'll pay me back a bit. I'm pretty well cleaned
out."
"I got some from my brother at Oxford."
"Perhaps he's saving up to get married. We may be helping towards
furnishing the home. There was a Siamese prince fellow at my dame's at
Eton who had four wives when he arrived, and gathered in a fifth
during his first summer holidays. It was done on the correspondence
system. His Prime Minister fixed it up at the other end, and sent him
the glad news on a picture post-card. I think an eye ought to be kept
on Comrade Jellicoe."
* * * * *
Mike tumbled into bed that night like a log, but he could not sleep.
He ached all over. Psmith chatted for a time on human affairs in
general, and then dropped gently off. Jellicoe, who appeared to be
wrapped in gloom, contributed nothing to the conversation.
After Psmith had gone to sleep, Mike lay for some time running over in
his mind, as the best substitute for sleep, the various points of his
innings that day. He felt very hot and uncomfortable.
Just as he was wondering whether it would not be a good idea to get up
and have a cold bath, a voice spoke from the darkness at his side.
"Are you asleep, Jackson?"
"Who's that?"
"Me - Jellicoe. I can't get to sleep."
"Nor can I. I'm stiff all over."
"I'll come over and sit on your bed."
There was a creaking, and then a weight descended in the neighbourhood
of Mike's toes.
Jellicoe was apparently not in conversational mood. He uttered no word
for quite three minutes. At the end of which time he gave a sound
midway between a snort and a sigh.
"I say, Jackson!" he said.
"Yes?"
"Have you - oh, nothing."
Silence again.
"Jackson."
"Hullo?"
"I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?"
"All sorts of things. Especially my pater. Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. So would mine."
"Everybody's would, I expect."
"Yes."
The bed creaked, as Jellicoe digested these great thoughts. Then he
spoke again.
"It would be a jolly beastly thing to get sacked."
Mike was too tired to give his mind to the subject. He was not really
listening. Jellicoe droned on in a depressed sort of way.
"You'd get home in the middle of the afternoon, I suppose, and you'd
drive up to the house, and the servant would open the door, and you'd
go in. They might all be out, and then you'd have to hang about, and
wait; and presently you'd hear them come in, and you'd go out into the
passage, and they'd say 'Hullo!'"
Jellicoe, in order to give verisimilitude, as it were, to an otherwise
bald and unconvincing narrative, flung so much agitated surprise into
the last word that it woke Mike from a troubled doze into which he had
fallen.
"Hullo?" he said. "What's up?"
"Then you'd say. 'Hullo!' And then they'd say, 'What are you doing
here? 'And you'd say - - "
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"About what would happen."
"Happen when?"
"When you got home. After being sacked, you know."
"Who's been sacked?" Mike's mind was still under a cloud.
"Nobody. But if you were, I meant. And then I suppose there'd be an
awful row and general sickness, and all that. And then you'd be sent
into a bank, or to Australia, or something."
Mike dozed off again.
"My pater would be frightfully sick. My mater would be sick. My sister
would be jolly sick, too. Have you got any sisters, Jackson? I say,
Jackson!"
"Hullo! What's the matter? Who's that?"
"Me - Jellicoe."
"What's up?"
"I asked you if you'd got any sisters."
"Any _what_?"
"Sisters."
"Whose sisters?"
"Yours. I asked if you'd got any."
"Any what?"
"Sisters."
"What about them?"
The conversation was becoming too intricate for Jellicoe. He changed
the subject.
"I say, Jackson!"
"Well?"
"I say, you don't know any one who could lend me a pound, do you?"
"What!" cried Mike, sitting up in bed and staring through the darkness
in the direction whence the numismatist's voice was proceeding. "Do
_what_?"
"I say, look out. You'll wake Smith."
"Did you say you wanted some one to lend you a quid?"
"Yes," said Jellicoe eagerly. "Do you know any one?"
Mike's head throbbed. This thing was too much. The human brain could
not be expected to cope with it. Here was a youth who had borrowed a
pound from one friend the day before, and three pounds from another
friend that very afternoon, already looking about him for further
loans. Was it a hobby, or was he saving up to buy an aeroplane?
"What on earth do you want a pound for?"
"I don't want to tell anybody. But it's jolly serious. I shall get
sacked if I don't get it."
Mike pondered.
Those who have followed Mike's career as set forth by the present
historian will have realised by this time that he was a good long way
from being perfect. As the Blue-Eyed Hero he would have been a rank
failure. Except on the cricket field, where he was a natural genius,
he was just ordinary. He resembled ninety per cent. of other members
of English public schools. He had some virtues and a good many
defects. He was as obstinate as a mule, though people whom he liked
could do as they pleased with him. He was good-natured as a general
thing, but on occasion his temper could be of the worst, and had, in
his childhood, been the subject of much adverse comment among his
aunts. He was rigidly truthful, where the issue concerned only
himself. Where it was a case of saving a friend, he was prepared to
act in a manner reminiscent of an American expert witness.
He had, in addition, one good quality without any defect to balance
it. He was always ready to help people. And when he set himself to do
this, he was never put off by discomfort or risk. He went at the thing
with a singleness of purpose that asked no questions.
Bob's postal order, which had arrived that evening, was reposing in
the breast-pocket of his coat.
It was a wrench, but, if the situation was so serious with Jellicoe,
it had to be done.
* * * * *
Two minutes later the night was being made hideous by Jellicoe's
almost tearful protestations of gratitude, and the postal order had
moved from one side of the dormitory to the other.
CHAPTER XLII
JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK-LIST
Mike woke next morning with a confused memory of having listened to a
great deal of incoherent conversation from Jellicoe, and a painfully
vivid recollection of handing over the bulk of his worldly wealth to
him. The thought depressed him, though it seemed to please Jellicoe,
for the latter carolled in a gay undertone as he dressed, till Psmith,
who had a sensitive ear, asked as a favour that these farm-yard
imitations might cease until he was out of the room.
There were other things to make Mike low-spirited that morning. To
begin with, he was in detention, which in itself is enough to spoil a
day. It was a particularly fine day, which made the matter worse. In
addition to this, he had never felt stiffer in his life. It seemed to
him that the creaking of his joints as he walked must be audible to
every one within a radius of several yards. Finally, there was the
interview with Mr. Downing to come. That would probably be unpleasant.
As Psmith had said, Mr. Downing was the sort of master who would be
likely to make trouble. The great match had not been an ordinary
match. Mr. Downing was a curious man in many ways, but he did not make
a fuss on ordinary occasions when his bowling proved expensive.
Yesterday's performance, however, stood in a class by itself. It stood
forth without disguise as a deliberate rag. One side does not keep
another in the field the whole day in a one-day match except as a
grisly kind of practical joke. And Mr. Downing and his house realised
this. The house's way of signifying its comprehension of the fact was
to be cold and distant as far as the seniors were concerned, and
abusive and pugnacious as regards the juniors. Young blood had been
shed overnight, and more flowed during the eleven o'clock interval
that morning to avenge the insult.
Mr. Downing's methods of retaliation would have to be, of necessity,
more elusive; but Mike did not doubt that in some way or other his
form-master would endeavour to get a bit of his own back.
As events turned out, he was perfectly right. When a master has got
his knife into a boy, especially a master who allows himself to be
influenced by his likes and dislikes, he is inclined to single him out
in times of stress, and savage him as if he were the official
representative of the evildoers. Just as, at sea, the skipper, when he
has trouble with the crew, works it off on the boy.
Mr. Downing was in a sarcastic mood when he met Mike. That is to say,
he began in a sarcastic strain. But this sort of thing is difficult to
keep up. By the time he had reached his peroration, the rapier had
given place to the bludgeon. For sarcasm to be effective, the user of
it must be met half-way. His hearer must appear to be conscious of the
sarcasm and moved by it. Mike, when masters waxed sarcastic towards
him, always assumed an air of stolid stupidity, which was as a suit of
mail against satire.
So Mr. Downing came down from the heights with a run, and began to
express himself with a simple strength which it did his form good to
listen to. Veterans who had been in the form for terms said afterwards
that there had been nothing to touch it, in their experience of the
orator, since the glorious day when Dunster, that prince of raggers,
who had left at Christmas to go to a crammer's, had introduced three
lively grass-snakes into the room during a Latin lesson.
"You are surrounded," concluded Mr. Downing, snapping his pencil in
two in his emotion, "by an impenetrable mass of conceit and vanity and
selfishness. It does not occur to you to admit your capabilities as a
cricketer in an open, straightforward way and place them at the
disposal of the school. No, that would not be dramatic enough for you.
It would be too commonplace altogether. Far too commonplace!" Mr.
Downing laughed bitterly. "No, you must conceal your capabilities. You
must act a lie. You must - who is that shuffling his feet? I will not
have it, I _will_ have silence - you must hang back in order to
make a more effective entrance, like some wretched actor who - I will
_not_ have this shuffling. I have spoken of this before. Macpherson,
are you shuffling your feet?"
"Sir, no, sir."
"Please, sir."
"Well, Parsons?"
"I think it's the noise of the draught under the door, sir."
Instant departure of Parsons for the outer regions. And, in the
excitement of this side-issue, the speaker lost his inspiration, and
abruptly concluded his remarks by putting Mike on to translate in
Cicero. Which Mike, who happened to have prepared the first half-page,
did with much success.
* * * * *
The Old Boys' match was timed to begin shortly after eleven o'clock.
During the interval most of the school walked across the field to look
at the pitch. One or two of the Old Boys had already changed and were
practising in front of the pavilion.
It was through one of these batsmen that an accident occurred which
had a good deal of influence on Mike's affairs.
Mike had strolled out by himself. Half-way across the field Jellicoe
joined him. Jellicoe was cheerful, and rather embarrassingly grateful.
He was just in the middle of his harangue when the accident happened.
To their left, as they crossed the field, a long youth, with the faint
beginnings of a moustache and a blazer that lit up the surrounding
landscape like a glowing beacon, was lashing out recklessly at a
friend's bowling. Already he had gone within an ace of slaying a small
boy. As Mike and Jellicoe proceeded on their way, there was a shout of
"Heads!"
The almost universal habit of batsmen of shouting "Heads!" at whatever
height from the ground the ball may be, is not a little confusing. The
average person, on hearing the shout, puts his hands over his skull,
crouches down and trusts to luck. This is an excellent plan if the
ball is falling, but is not much protection against a skimming drive
along the ground.
When "Heads!" was called on the present occasion, Mike and Jellicoe
instantly assumed the crouching attitude.
Jellicoe was the first to abandon it. He uttered a yell and sprang
into the air. After which he sat down and began to nurse his ankle.
The bright-blazered youth walked up.
"Awfully sorry, you know, man. Hurt?"
Jellicoe was pressing the injured spot tenderly with his finger-tips,
uttering sharp howls whenever, zeal outrunning discretion, he prodded
himself too energetically.
"Silly ass, Dunster," he groaned, "slamming about like that."
"Awfully sorry. But I did yell."
"It's swelling up rather," said Mike. "You'd better get over to the
house and have it looked at. Can you walk?"
Jellicoe tried, but sat down again with a loud "Ow!" At that moment
the bell rang.
"I shall have to be going in," said Mike, "or I'd have helped you
over."
"I'll give you a hand," said Dunster.
He helped the sufferer to his feet and they staggered off together,
Jellicoe hopping, Dunster advancing with a sort of polka step. Mike
watched them start and then turned to go in.
CHAPTER XLIII
MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
There is only one thing to be said in favour of detention on a fine
summer's afternoon, and that is that it is very pleasant to come out
of. The sun never seems so bright or the turf so green as during the
first five minutes after one has come out of the detention-room. One
feels as if one were entering a new and very delightful world. There
is also a touch of the Rip van Winkle feeling. Everything seems to
have gone on and left one behind. Mike, as he walked to the cricket
field, felt very much behind the times.
Arriving on the field he found the Old Boys batting. He stopped and
watched an over of Adair's. The fifth ball bowled a man. Mike made his
way towards the pavilion.
Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found
Psmith seated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster.
"Return of the exile," said Psmith. "A joyful occasion tinged with
melancholy. Have a cherry? - take one or two. These little acts of
unremembered kindness are what one needs after a couple of hours in
extra pupil-room. Restore your tissues, Comrade Jackson, and when you
have finished those, apply again.
"Is your name Jackson?" inquired Dunster, "because Jellicoe wants to
see you."
"Alas, poor Jellicoe!" said Psmith. "He is now prone on his bed in the
dormitory - there a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Jellicoe, the darling of
the crew, faithful below he did his duty, but Comrade Dunster has
broached him to. I have just been hearing the melancholy details."