"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 mantlepiece, 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.
12
THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR 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 mantlepiece, 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 tomorrow 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 jujitsu 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 goodwill 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, tired as he was.
"What! Three quid!"
"Three crisp, crackling quid. 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 toward
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 neighborhood 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."
"Hello?"
"I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?"
"All sorts of things. Especially my father. 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 'Hello!'"
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.
"Hello?" he said. "What's up?"
"Then you'd say, 'Hello!' 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 father 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!"
"Hello! 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 anyone 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 Psmith."
"Did you say you wanted someone to lend you a quid?"
"Yes," said Jellicoe eagerly. "Do you know anyone?"
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 airplane?
"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 realized 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 percent 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.
13
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 caroled in a gay undertone as he dressed, till Psmith, who
had a sensitive ear, asked as a favor that these farmyard 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 everyone 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 realized 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 endeavor 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 halfway. His hearer must appear to be conscious of the sarcasm
and moved by it. Mike, when masters waxed sarcastic toward 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 afterward
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 draft 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
practicing 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. Halfway 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. Hurt?"
Jellicoe was pressing the injured spot tenderly with his fingertips,
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.
14
MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
There is only one thing to be said in favor 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 toward 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."
"Old Smith and I," said Dunster, "were at prep school together. I'd no
idea I should find him here."
"It was a wonderfully stirring sight when we met," said Psmith; "not
unlike the meeting of Ulysses and the hound Argos, of whom you have
doubtless read in the course of your dabblings in the classics. I was
Ulysses; Dunster gave a lifelike representation of the faithful dawg."
"You still jaw as much as ever, I notice," said the animal delineator,
fondling the beginnings of his moustache.
"More," sighed Psmith, "more. Is anything irritating you?" he added,
eyeing the other's maneuvers with interest.
"You needn't be a funny ass, man," said Dunster, pained; "heaps of
people tell me I ought to have it waxed."
"What it really wants is top-dressing with guano. Hello! another man
out. Adair's bowling better today than he did yesterday."
"I heard about yesterday," said Dunster. "It must have been a rag!
Couldn't we work off some other rag on somebody before I go? I shall be
stopping here till Monday in the village. Well hit, sir - Adair's bowling
is perfectly simple if you go out to it."
"Comrade Dunster went out to it first ball," said Psmith to Mike.
"Oh! chuck it, man; the sun was in my eyes. I hear Adair's got a match
on with the M.C.C. at last."
"Has he?" said Psmith; "I hadn't heard. Archaeology claims so much of my
time that I have little leisure for listening to cricket chitchat."
"What was it Jellicoe wanted?" asked Mike; "was it anything important?"
"He seemed to think so - he kept telling me to tell you to go and see
him."
"I fear Comrade Jellicoe is a bit of a weak-minded blitherer - "
"Did you ever hear of a rag we worked off on Jellicoe once?" asked
Dunster. "The man has absolutely no sense of humor - can't see when he's
being rotted. Well, it was like this - hello! We're all out - I shall have
to be going out to field again, I suppose, dash it! I'll tell you when I
see you again."
"I shall count the minutes," said Psmith.
Mike stretched himself; the sun was very soothing after his two hours in
the detention room; he felt disinclined for exertion.
"I don't suppose it's anything special about Jellicoe, do you?" he said.
"I mean, it'll keep till teatime; it's no catch having to sweat across
to the house now."
"Don't dream of moving," said Psmith. "I have several rather profound
observations on life to make and I can't make them without an audience.
Soliloquy is a knack. Hamlet had got it, but probably only after years
of patient practice. Personally, I need someone to listen when I talk. I
like to feel that I am doing good. You stay where you are - don't
interrupt too much."
Mike tilted his hat over his eyes and abandoned Jellicoe.
It was not until the lock-up bell rang that he remembered him. He went
over to the house and made his way to the dormitory, where he found the
injured one in a parlous state, not so much physical as mental. The
doctor had seen his ankle and reported that it would be on the active
list in a couple of days. It was Jellicoe's mind that needed
attention now.
Mike found him in a condition bordering on collapse. "I say, you might
have come before!" said Jellicoe.
"What's up? I didn't know there was such a hurry about it - what did you
want?"
"It's no good now," said Jellicoe gloomily; "it's too late, I shall get
sacked."
"What on earth are you talking about? What's the row?"
"It's about that money."
"What about it?"
"I had to pay it to a man today, or he said he'd write to the Head - then
of course I should get sacked. I was going to take the money to him this
afternoon, only I got crocked, so I couldn't move. I wanted to get hold
of you to ask you to take it for me - it's too late now!"
Mike's face fell. "Oh, hang it!" he said, "I'm awfully sorry. I'd no
idea it was anything like that - what a fool I was! Dunster did say he
thought it was something important, only like an ass I thought it would
do if I came over at lockup."
"It doesn't matter," said Jellicoe miserably; "it can't be helped."
"Yes, it can," said Mike. "I know what I'll do - it's all right. I'll get
out of the house after lights-out."
Jellicoe sat up. "You can't! You'd get sacked if you were caught."
"Who would catch me? There was a chap at Wrykyn I knew who used to break
out every night nearly and go and pot at cats with an air pistol; it's
as easy as anything."
The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe's face.
"I say, do you think you could, really?"
"Of course I can! It'll be rather a rag."
"I say, it's frightfully decent of you."
"What absolute rot!"
"But look here, are you certain - "
"I shall be all right. Where do you want me to go?"
"It's a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock."
"Lower Borlock?"
"Yes, do you know it?"
"Rather! I've been playing cricket for them all the term."
"I say, have you? Do you know a man called Barley?"
"Barley? Rather - he runs the White Boar."
"He's the chap I owe the money to."
"Old Barley!"
Mike knew the landlord of the White Boar well; he was the wag of the
village team. Every village team, for some mysterious reason, has its
comic man. In the Lower Borlock eleven Mr. Barley filled the post. He
was a large, stout man, with a red and cheerful face, who looked exactly
like the jovial innkeeper of melodrama. He was the last man Mike would
have expected to do the "money by Monday-week or I write to the
headmaster" business.
But he reflected that he had only seen him in his leisure moments, when
he might naturally be expected to unbend and be full of the milk of
human kindness. Probably in business hours he was quite different. After
all, pleasure is one thing and business another.
Besides, five pounds is a large sum of money, and if Jellicoe owed it,
there was nothing strange in Mr. Barley's doing everything he could to
recover it.
He wondered a little what Jellicoe could have been doing to run up a
bill as big as that, but it did not occur to him to ask, which was
unfortunate, as it might have saved him a good deal of inconvenience. It
seemed to him that it was none of his business to inquire into
Jellicoe's private affairs. He took the envelope containing the money
without question.
"I shall bike there, I think," he said, "if I can get into the shed."
The school's bicycles were stored in a shed by the pavilion.
"You can manage that," said Jellicoe; "it's locked up at night, but I
had a key made to fit it last summer, because I used to get out in the
early morning sometimes before it was opened."
"Got it on you?"
"Smith's got it."
"I'll get it from him."
"I say!"
"Well?"
"Don't tell Smith why you want it, will you? I don't want anybody to
know - if a thing once starts getting about it's all over the place in
no time."
"All right, I won't tell him."
"I say, thanks most awfully! I don't know what I should have done, I - "
"Oh, chuck it!" said Mike.
15
... AND FULFILLS IT
Mike started on his ride to Lower Borlock with mixed feelings. It is
pleasant to be out on a fine night in summer, but the pleasure is to a
certain extent modified when one feels that to be detected will mean
expulsion.
Mike did not want to be expelled, for many reasons. Now that he had
grown used to the place he was enjoying himself at Sedleigh to a certain
extent. He still harbored a feeling of resentment against the school in
general and Adair in particular, but it was pleasant in Outwood's now
that he had got to know some of the members of the house, and he liked
playing cricket for Lower Borlock; also, he was fairly certain that his
father would not let him go to Cambridge if he were expelled from
Sedleigh. Mr. Jackson was easygoing with his family, but occasionally
his foot came down like a steam hammer, as witness the Wrykyn
school-report affair.
So Mike pedaled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job done without
delay.
Psmith had yielded up the key, but his inquiries as to why it was needed
had been embarrassing. Mike's statement that he wanted to get up early
and have a ride had been received by Psmith, with whom early rising was
not a hobby, with honest amazement and a flood of advice and warning on
the subject.
"One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a
certain number of hours' sleep a day - I cannot recall for the moment how
many - made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my
memory. However, there you are. I've given you the main idea of the
thing; and a German doctor says that early rising causes insanity.
Still, if you're bent on it...." After which he had handed over the key.
Mike wished he could have taken Psmith into his confidence. Probably he
would have volunteered to come, too; Mike would have been glad of a
companion.
It did not take him long to reach Lower Borlock. The White Boar stood at
the far end of the village, by the cricket field. He rode past the
church - standing out black and mysterious against the light sky - and the
rows of silent cottages, until he came to the inn.
The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out - it was
sometime past eleven.
The advantage an inn has over a private house, from the point of view of
the person who wants to get into it when it has been locked up, is that
a nocturnal visit is not so unexpected in the case of the former.
Preparations have been made to meet such an emergency. Where with a
private house you would probably have to wander around heaving rocks and
end by climbing up a waterspout, when you want to get into an inn you
simply ring the night bell, which, communicating with the boots' room,
has that hard-worked menial up and doing in no time.
After Mike had waited for a few minutes there was a rattling of chains
and a shooting of bolts and the door opened.
"Yes, sir?" said the boots, appearing in his shirt sleeves. "Why, 'ello!
Mr. Jackson, sir!"
Mike was well known to all dwellers in Lower Borlock, his scores being
the chief topic of conversation when the day's labors were over.
"I want to see Mr. Barley, Jack."
"He's bin' in bed this half hour back, Mr. Jackson."
"I must see him. Can you get him down?"
The boots looked doubtful. "Roust the guv'nor outer bed?" he said.
Mike quite admitted the gravity of the task. The landlord of the White
Boar was one of those men who need a beauty sleep.
"I wish you would - it's a thing that can't wait. I've got some money to
give to him."
"Oh, if it's _that_ ..." said the boots.
Five minutes later mine host appeared in person, looking more than
usually portly in a check dressing gown and red bedroom slippers.
"You can pop off, Jack."
Exit boots to his slumbers once more.
"Well, Mr. Jackson, what's it all about?"
"Jellicoe asked me to come and bring you the money."
"The money? What money?"
"What he owes you; the five pounds, of course."
"The five - " Mr. Barley stared openmouthed at Mike for a moment; then he
broke into a roar of laughter which shook the sporting prints on the
wall and drew barks from dogs in some distant part of the house. He
staggered about laughing and coughing till Mike began to expect a fit of
some kind. Then he collapsed into a chair, which creaked under him, and
wiped his eyes.
"Oh dear!" he said, "Oh dear! The five pounds!"
Mike was not always abreast of the rustic idea of humor, and now he felt
particularly fogged. For the life of him he could not see what there was
to amuse anyone so much in the fact that a person who owed five pounds
was ready to pay it back. It was an occasion for rejoicing, perhaps, but
rather for a solemn, thankful, eyes-raised-to-heaven kind of rejoicing.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Five pounds!"
"You might tell us the joke."
Mr. Barley opened the letter, read it, and had another attack; when this
was finished he handed the letter to Mike, who was waiting patiently by,
hoping for light, and requested him to read it.
"Dear, dear!" chuckled Mr. Barley, "five pounds! They may teach you
young gentlemen to talk Latin and Greek and what-not at your school, but
it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you how many beans make five;
it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you to come in when it rained;
it 'ud do ..."
Mike was reading the letter.
"Dear Mr. Barley," it ran.
"I send the £5, which I could not get before. I hope it is in time,
because I don't want you to write to the headmaster. I am sorry Jane and
John ate your wife's hat and the chicken and broke the vase."
There was some more to the same effect; it was signed "T.G. Jellicoe."
"What on earth's it all about?" said Mike, finishing this curious
document.
Mr. Barley slapped his leg. "Why, Mr. Jellicoe keeps two dogs here; I
keep 'em for him till the young gentlemen go home for their holidays.
Aberdeen terriers, they are, and as sharp as mustard. Mischief! I
believe you, but, love us! they don't do no harm! Bite up an old shoe
sometimes and such sort of things. The other day, last Wednesday it
were, about 'ar parse five, Jane - she's the worst of the two, always up
to it, she is - she got hold of my old hat and had it in bits before you
could say knife. John upset a china vase in one of the bedrooms chasing
a mouse, and they got on the coffee-room table and ate half a cold
chicken what had been left there. So I says to myself, 'I'll have a game
with Mr. Jellicoe over this,' and I sits down and writes off saying the
little dogs have eaten a valuable hat and a chicken and what not, and
the damage'll be five pounds, and will he kindly remit same by Saturday
night at the latest or I write to his headmaster. Love us!" Mr. Barley
slapped his thigh, "he took it all in, every word - and here's the five
pounds in cash in this envelope here! I haven't had such a laugh since
we got old Tom Raxley out of bed at twelve of a winter's night by
telling him his house was afire."
It is not always easy to appreciate a joke of the practical order if one
has been made even merely part victim of it. Mike, as he reflected that
he had been dragged out of his house in the middle of the night, in
contravention of all school rules and discipline, simply in order to
satisfy Mr. Barley's sense of humor, was more inclined to be abusive
than mirthful. Running risks is all very well when they are necessary,
or if one chooses to run them for one's own amusement, but to be placed
in a dangerous position, a position imperiling one's chance of going to
the 'Varsity, is another matter altogether.
But it is impossible to abuse the Barley type of man. Barley's enjoyment
of the whole thing was so honest and childlike. Probably it had given
him the happiest quarter of an hour he had known for years, since, in
fact, the affair of old Tom Raxley. It would have been cruel to damp
the man.
So Mike laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the five
pounds, accepted a ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode off
on his return journey.
* * * * *
Mention has been made above of the difference which exists between
getting into an inn after lockup and into a private house. Mike was to
find this out for himself.
His first act on arriving at Sedleigh was to replace his bicycle in the
shed. This he accomplished with success. It was pitch-dark in the shed,
and as he wheeled his machine in, his foot touched something on the
floor. Without waiting to discover what this might be, he leaned his
bicycle against the wall, went out, and locked the door, after which he
ran across to Outwood's.
Fortune had favored his undertaking by decreeing that a stout drainpipe
should pass up the wall within a few inches of his and Psmith's study.
On the first day of term, it may be remembered he had wrenched away the
wooden bar which bisected the window frame, thus rendering exit and
entrance almost as simple as they had been for Wyatt during Mike's first
term at Wrykyn.
He proceeded to scale this water pipe.
He had got about halfway up when a voice from somewhere below cried,
"Who's that?"
16
PURSUIT
These things are Life's Little Difficulties. One can never tell
precisely how one will act in a sudden emergency. The right thing for
Mike to have done at this crisis was to have ignored the voice, carried
on up the water pipe, and through the study window, and gone to bed. It
was extremely unlikely that anybody could have recognized him at night
against the dark background of the house. The position then would have
been that somebody in Mr. Outwood's house had been seen breaking in
after lights-out; but it would have been very difficult for the
authorities to have narrowed the search down any further than that.
There were thirty-four boys in Outwood's, of whom about fourteen were
much the same size and build as Mike.
The suddenness, however, of the call caused Mike to lose his head. He
made the strategic error of sliding rapidly down the pipe, and running.
There were two gates to Mr. Outwood's front garden. The drive ran in a
semicircle, of which the house was the center. It was from the
right-hand gate, nearest to Mr. Downing's house, that the voice had
come, and, as Mike came to the ground, he saw a stout figure galloping
toward him from that direction. He bolted like a rabbit for the other
gate. As he did so, his pursuer again gave tongue.
"Oo-oo-oo yer!" was the exact remark.
Whereby Mike recognized him as the school sergeant. "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was
that militant gentleman's habitual way of beginning a conversation.
With this knowledge, Mike felt easier in his mind. Sergeant Collard was
a man of many fine qualities (notably a talent for what he was wont to
call "spott'n," a mysterious gift which he exercised on the rifle
range), but he could not run. There had been a time in his hot youth
when he had sprinted like an untamed mustang in pursuit of volatile
Pathans in Indian hill wars, but Time, increasing his girth, had taken
from him the taste for such exercise. When he moved now it was at a
stately walk. The fact that he ran tonight showed how the excitement of
the chase had entered into his blood.
"Oo-oo-oo yer!" he shouted again, as Mike, passing through the gate,
turned into the road that led to the school. Mike's attentive ear noted
that the bright speech was a shade more puffily delivered this time. He
began to feel that this was not such bad fun after all. He would have
liked to be in bed, but, if that was out of the question, this was
certainly the next-best thing.
He ran on, taking things easily, with the sergeant panting in his wake,
till he reached the entrance to the school grounds. He dashed in and
took cover behind a tree.
Presently the sergeant turned the corner, going badly and evidently
cured of a good deal of the fever of the chase. Mike heard him toil on
for a few yards and then stop. A sound of panting was borne to him.
Then the sound of footsteps returning, this time at a walk. They passed
the gate and went on down the road.
The pursuer had given the thing up.
Mike waited for several minutes behind his tree. His program now was
simple. He would give Sergeant Collard about half an hour, in case the
latter took it into his head to "guard home" by waiting at the gate.
Then he would trot softly back, shoot up the water pipe once more, and
so to bed. It had just struck a quarter to something - twelve, he
supposed - on the school clock. He would wait till a quarter past.
Meanwhile, there was nothing to be gained from lurking behind a tree. He
left his cover, and started to stroll in the direction of the pavilion.
Having arrived there, he sat on the steps, looking out onto the
cricket field.
His thoughts were miles away, at Wrykyn, when he was recalled to
Sedleigh by the sound of somebody running. Focusing his gaze, he saw a
dim figure moving rapidly across the cricket field straight for him.
His first impression, that he had been seen and followed, disappeared as
the runner, instead of making for the pavilion, turned aside, and
stopped at the door of the bicycle shed. Like Mike, he was evidently
possessed of a key, for Mike heard it grate in the lock. At this point
he left the pavilion and hailed his fellow rambler by night in a
cautious undertone.
The other appeared startled.
"Who the dickens is that?" he asked. "Is that you, Jackson?"
Mike recognized Adair's voice. The last person he would have expected to
meet at midnight obviously on the point of going for a bicycle ride.
"What are you doing out here. Jackson?"
"What are you, if it comes to that?"
Adair was adjusting his front light.
"I'm going for the doctor. One of the chaps in our house is bad."
"Oh!"
"What are you doing out here?"
"Just been for a stroll."
"Hadn't you better be getting back?"
"Plenty of time."
"I suppose you think you're doing something tremendously brave and
dashing?"
"Hadn't you better be going to the doctor?"
"If you want to know what I think - "
"I don't. So long."
Mike turned away, whistling between his teeth. After a moment's pause,
Adair rode off. Mike saw his light pass across the field and through the