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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***
+MIKE AND PSMITH
+
+By P.G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+MEREDITH PRESS / NEW YORK
+
+Copyright 1909 by A. & C. Black
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+  1.  MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+  2.  SEDLEIGH
+  3.  PSMITH
+  4.  STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+  5.  GUERRILLA WARFARE
+  6.  UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+  7.  ADAIR
+  8.  MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+  9.  THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+ 10.  ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+ 11.  THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+ 12.  THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+ 13.  JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+ 14.  MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+ 15.  ... AND FULFILLS IT
+ 16.  PURSUIT
+ 17.  THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+ 18.  MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+ 19.  THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+ 20.  A CHECK
+ 21.  THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+ 22.  MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+ 23.  ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+ 24.  THE ADAIR METHOD
+ 25.  ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+ 26.  CLEARING THE AIR
+ 27.  IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+ 28.  MR. DOWNING MOVES
+ 29.  THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+ 30.  SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In Evelyn Waugh's book _Decline and Fall_ his hero, applying for a post
+as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+grades--leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one
+of those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to
+put the word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster
+qualified to attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is
+a few more Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted,
+that even at a "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only
+drawback is that it does not play the leading schools or the first-rate
+schools or even the good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from
+Wrykyn (a "first-rate school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading
+school") Sedleigh naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike
+some time to adjust himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher,
+accepted the change of conditions with his customary equanimity.
+
+This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books,
+_Psmith in the City_ and _Psmith, Journalist_, before becoming happily
+married in _Leave It to Psmith_, but I have always thought that he was
+most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play to
+his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+English school.
+
+Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous
+characters to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton
+with the son of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and
+Sullivan operettas, and one night he told me about this peculiar
+schoolboy who dressed fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one
+of the masters inquired after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah
+and thinnah." It was all the information I required in order to start
+building him in a star part.
+
+If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life,
+I can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally
+prosperous counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like
+Perry, in appearing for the defense.
+
+I must apologize, as I did in the preface to _Mike at Wrykyn,_ for all
+the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+quite so much of it this time.
+
+P.G. Wodehouse.
+
+
+
+1
+
+MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+
+
+If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he
+might have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr.
+Jackson opened the envelope containing his school report and read the
+contents, that the document in question was not exactly a paean of
+praise from beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was
+late for breakfast in the holidays.
+
+When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for
+the jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in
+a detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+
+"Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are--I've
+been keeping everything hot for you."
+
+"Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+
+Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she
+always did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing
+thoroughly. She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they
+made centuries in first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She
+would field out in the deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at
+the net in the paddock, though for the others, even for Joe, who had
+played in all five Test Matches in the previous summer, she would do it
+only as a favor.
+
+Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+table and watched Mike eat.
+
+"Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+
+The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+interested. "What did it say?"
+
+"I didn't see--I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the envelope.
+Father didn't say anything."
+
+Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+
+"It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+you were in his form."
+
+"No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any
+more tea in that pot?"
+
+"I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+
+"Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+
+"He didn't mean it really, I _know_ he didn't! He couldn't! You're the
+best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+
+"What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+
+"You _are_. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+first term you were there--even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good as
+that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+year or two."
+
+"Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off
+the first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out
+at the net now. Let's go and see."
+
+Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs
+retired as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+
+She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons
+now, and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had
+filled out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had
+the strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple
+to him. It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was
+beginning to find his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own
+special invention, was delighted.
+
+"If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+
+"I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+
+Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the
+wrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no
+light thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+
+As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+
+Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with
+that bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+
+Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant
+nature. Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his
+sons as companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to
+ruffle the placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was
+an unfailing wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's
+sarcastic resume of Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term,
+there had been something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion
+that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike
+from Wrykyn unless the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson
+was a man of his word.
+
+It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+entered the study.
+
+"Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I
+want to speak to you."
+
+Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+
+There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge
+that morning.
+
+"It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out--may I
+bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show--"
+
+"Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen
+to this report."
+
+"Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+
+"It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+
+"Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+
+"'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+
+"It wasn't anything really. I only happened--"
+
+Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+several occasions, he paused.
+
+"'French bad; conduct disgraceful--'"
+
+"Everybody rags in French."
+
+"'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+
+"Nobody does much work in Math."
+
+"'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+
+"We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term--all speeches and
+doubtful readings, and cruxes and things--beastly hard! Everybody
+says so."
+
+"Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+
+Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+
+"'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire
+in him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the
+same effect."
+
+Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted
+a public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him
+thrills of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his
+habit to regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an
+unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as
+near the extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in
+a clear firm hand.
+
+"You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in
+its envelope.
+
+Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+
+"I shall abide by what I said."
+
+Mike's heart thumped.
+
+"You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+
+Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that
+moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of
+the earth.
+
+The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+normally easygoing man.
+
+Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason
+he said very little now.
+
+"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+
+Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name--one of
+those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What
+had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they
+play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps
+they didn't even _play_ cricket!
+
+"But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+
+Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide
+his sympathy.
+
+"It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit--boys work there. Young Barlitt
+won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was the
+vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+of conversation were not Mike's.
+
+"Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+
+Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he
+would have liked to have said.
+
+
+
+2
+
+SEDLEIGH
+
+
+The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up,
+opened the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic
+and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+
+"For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if
+he hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that
+Sedleigh station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+
+Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike
+was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And,
+so far from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously
+incompetent than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to
+the handle of the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage
+van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair.
+Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, and the man who took
+his ticket.
+
+"Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from
+Mike's _distrait_ air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up
+in the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+
+"I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+
+"It's a goodish step, sir."
+
+"Here you are."
+
+"Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+was it you was going to?"
+
+"Outwood's."
+
+"Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+it, sir."
+
+"Worse luck," said Mike.
+
+He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a
+place where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven,
+and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of
+arriving at Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the
+bitter part of it. He had never been in command. For the last two
+seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading the
+averages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains under
+whom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby,
+and Henfrey, had always been sportsmen to him. But it was not the same
+thing. He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He
+had had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind. Now it might
+never be used. He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who would be
+captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some scheme of
+his own. There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the ideal way;
+and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own about cricket
+coaching at school.
+
+Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few
+overs, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended
+upon. There was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn
+would have a bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched
+athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless,
+and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points.
+Sheen's victory in the light weights at Aldershot had been their one
+success. And now, on top of all this, the captain of cricket was removed
+during the Easter holidays. Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found
+himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works with a great loathing.
+
+The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set
+in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country,
+but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and
+past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he
+caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore
+an unmistakably schoollike look.
+
+This must be Sedleigh.
+
+Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+
+There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by
+a cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+
+Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+
+He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+
+There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+he reminded Mike of Smee in _Peter Pan_. He had the same eyebrows and
+pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+
+"Jackson?" he said mildly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a
+cup of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You
+come from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near
+Brindleford? It is a part of the country which I have always wished to
+visit. I dare say you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St.
+Ambrose at Brindleford?"
+
+Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed
+him one on a tray, said he had not.
+
+"Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad
+to have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England,
+and it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose.
+A deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+1133-40--"
+
+"Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+
+"What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful
+preservation. It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and
+two and a half wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the
+apse wall. It will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present,
+Jackson, good-bye."
+
+Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a
+little hard.
+
+He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had
+come by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+
+A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and
+fixed it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he
+inspected Mike in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible
+speck of dust from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+
+"Hello," he said.
+
+He spoke in a tired voice.
+
+"Hello," said Mike.
+
+"Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever
+sitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these
+chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That
+sort of idea. My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+
+
+
+3
+
+PSMITH
+
+
+"Jackson," said Mike.
+
+"Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led
+Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+
+"The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I
+don't know."
+
+"The boy--what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+
+"Yes! Why, are you new?"
+
+"Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion
+to write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for
+Smythe. My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but
+I've decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty.
+The resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on
+the back of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert
+(though I hope you won't), or simply Smith, the _P_ not being sounded.
+Compare the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar
+miss-in-balk. See?"
+
+Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+courtesy.
+
+"Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but
+a babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse
+to keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of
+the first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like
+gaze on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+
+"No?" said Mike.
+
+"No. I was superannuated last term."
+
+"Bad luck."
+
+"For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+
+"But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+
+"This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a
+Balliol--"
+
+"Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+
+"That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+here to get a Balliol too. Do _you_ know Barlitt?"
+
+"His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+that I was sent here."
+
+"Do you come from Crofton?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+
+Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+at least be tolerable.
+
+"Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+painful story. Now tell me yours."
+
+"Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad
+reports."
+
+"My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen
+of it?"
+
+"Rotten."
+
+"I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought
+to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+
+"He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+and things."
+
+"And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of
+a stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+grounds--he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man--and I
+hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark
+you, laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off
+cricket. To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser
+leg, "was the dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A
+noble game, but a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field
+out at the nets till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you
+are a blood at the game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and
+so on."
+
+"I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+
+He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of
+pleasure. To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were,
+was one way of treating the situation, and one not without its meed
+of comfort.
+
+Psmith approved the resolve.
+
+"Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will
+search the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive
+fossil together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus
+improve our minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't
+wonder if one mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a
+bit of rabbit shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade
+Outwood during our brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the
+lynx-eyed contingent. With tact we ought to be able to slip away from
+the merry throng of fossil chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+
+"Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used
+to break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+
+"It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+
+"I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+
+"Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+and look."
+
+They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+
+"This'll do us well," he said.
+
+It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung
+on a nail.
+
+"Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+
+"I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+
+"Not now."
+
+"You aren't going to collar it!"
+
+"That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+claims. This is practical socialism."
+
+"But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+
+"His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to
+pig it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be
+alone. It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a
+fatiguing day. And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help
+me fetch up my box from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various
+things in it."
+
+
+
+4
+
+STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+
+
+Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he
+preferred to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that
+the wooden bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was
+Mike who wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who
+abstracted the key from the door of the next study, though the idea
+was Psmith's.
+
+"Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what
+we chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door
+unlocked in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody
+comes right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think
+with a little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think
+you could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks.
+We make progress. We make progress."
+
+"We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the
+evening meal?"
+
+"Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something
+to be at Wrykyn."
+
+"These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+this, I wonder."
+
+A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed,
+and a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+
+"Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+
+"The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things
+to say on the subject."
+
+Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On
+his face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+
+Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+stateliness to do the honors.
+
+"What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+
+"We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues
+after our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths.
+Let me introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in
+appearance, perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will
+doubtless come up in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+
+"My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and
+harangued Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+
+"Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these:
+'It might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said
+huskily, 'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and
+said, 'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters--"
+
+"I want to know what--"
+
+"Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected
+by his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival,
+you find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not
+Spiller." Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of
+tea. Spiller's sad case had moved him greatly.
+
+The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+
+"It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+
+"The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+
+"Well, it's beastly cheek."
+
+Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went
+straight to the root of the matter.
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+
+Spiller evaded the question.
+
+"It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+studies."
+
+"But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual
+and the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place
+bagging studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption
+that it is impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a
+lesson to you."
+
+"Look here, I tell you what it--"
+
+"I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if
+you trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He
+said, 'I couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the
+accelerator.' 'But suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now
+we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out
+to be the foot brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a
+ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never
+confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you
+had only realized the possibility of somebody someday collaring your
+study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing
+with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as
+a surprise. The cry goes round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He
+cannot cope with the situation.'"
+
+"Can't I! I'll--"
+
+"What _are_ you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+
+"All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's
+my study."
+
+"But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man
+of Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you
+intend to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade
+Jackson before you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an
+insignificant-looking little weed. And you _are_ an
+insignificant-looking little weed."
+
+"We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+
+"Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well
+all go together."
+
+The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined,
+Mike sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he
+walked, and now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by
+the wayside.
+
+Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently
+the leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+
+"Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you
+have already made friends."
+
+"Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+study-claimer's shoulder--a proceeding violently resented by
+Spiller--"is a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands
+before one like some beautiful flower."
+
+Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+
+"Er--quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys in
+my house friendly toward one another."
+
+"There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is
+the heart of a little child."
+
+"Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I--"
+
+"But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak
+to you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+
+"Please, sir--" began Spiller
+
+"I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological
+Society in the school."
+
+Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over
+the School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support.
+Boys came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at
+times, not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact
+that it provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+main, earnest.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society.
+I--er--in a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become
+a member?"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+
+"Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+
+"Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+down your name at once."
+
+"And Jackson's, sir."
+
+"Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted.
+This is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+
+"Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to
+join."
+
+"Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+
+"Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+from the school."
+
+"We shall be there, sir."
+
+"Capital!"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+you could spare the time, sir."
+
+"Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+
+"Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+study?"
+
+"By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+
+"Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+evenings."
+
+"Quite so. Quite so."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+
+"Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+
+"I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should
+have spoken before."
+
+"But sir--"
+
+Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+
+"This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+
+He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+
+"We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study.
+He would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+
+"Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+
+"On Saturday, sir."
+
+"All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+"is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one
+of these afternoons."
+
+
+
+5
+
+GUERRILLA WARFARE
+
+
+"There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study
+with the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than
+sitting under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on
+Spiller; he would not have appreciated it properly."
+
+Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you
+in a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+other before."
+
+"The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we
+are now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood
+is not going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+
+"What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+
+"What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+
+"Made it jolly hot for them!"
+
+"So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a
+reasonable number of assailants in defense of the home."
+
+Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all
+right while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+
+"That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at
+us through the door, and we can lock that."
+
+"And jam a chair against it."
+
+"_And_, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of the
+nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+
+"Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+cart."
+
+Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the
+man, Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind--such foresight!
+such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+rooms we're done--we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of
+the night."
+
+"We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+
+"Not the matron--Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+
+As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+followed a knocking.
+
+"This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+parley with the man."
+
+Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood
+giggling with his hands in his pockets.
+
+"I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+
+"If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+
+The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+
+"I _do_ wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+description--"
+
+"My name's Jellicoe."
+
+"Mine is Psmith--P-s-m-i-t-h--one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The object
+on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything
+downstairs. You _are_ chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his
+study? He's making no end of a row about it."
+
+"Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+
+"What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+
+"He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+
+"As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of
+human nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say
+that he would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the
+glad throng?"
+
+"Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. _I_
+think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"How many _will_ there be, then?" asked Mike.
+
+"He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+has been bagged."
+
+"Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+
+"We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only
+thing is we must get into the same dormitory."
+
+"This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with,
+say, about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+
+"Five--there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+chaps."
+
+"I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+Outwood and stake out another claim."
+
+Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+he said.
+
+"We must apologize for disturbing you, sir--"
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to
+me when they wish for my advice or help."
+
+"We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling
+Jellicoe kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself."
+
+"You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it--I like to see it."
+
+"And we can have the room, sir?"
+
+"Certainly--certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+
+"And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that
+we are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade
+Jellicoe for his valuable assistance."
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+
+The handle began to revolve again.
+
+"That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+one's leisure cruelly."
+
+This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+come down," he said.
+
+Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The senior day room chaps."
+
+"Spiller?"
+
+"Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+
+"They want us to speak to them?"
+
+"They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+
+"Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as
+the messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door
+open, I think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what
+can we do for you?"
+
+Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+the doorway.
+
+"Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+
+"After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+
+"You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+
+"We'll risk it," said Mike.
+
+Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+
+"Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+
+There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been
+watching. He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against
+the advancing crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the
+weight and impetus of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back,
+and Mike, stepping into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+
+"A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at
+the looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the
+first shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+
+A heavy body crashed against the door.
+
+"They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+
+"We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+
+There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm
+and a leg.
+
+Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the
+flowerbed below.
+
+Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had
+pressed against the wall.
+
+"Robinson. I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+
+Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+in the corridor.
+
+Somebody hammered on the door.
+
+"Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+
+"You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you
+don't."
+
+"Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+
+A bell rang in the distance.
+
+"Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+
+"They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+"There's no harm in going out."
+
+The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+
+In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was
+plain that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's
+face was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of
+garden mold.
+
+Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element.
+His demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+
+Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to
+Mike. It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as
+you can."
+
+Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky
+you two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you
+into the senior day room and scrag you there."
+
+"This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but
+it can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My
+nerves are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce
+them to hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign--the thing
+must be settled at once."
+
+"Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+
+"No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it
+as tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will
+try to corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could
+fake up some sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all
+the trouble over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I
+don't propose to be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose
+that we let them come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this
+meeting with me?"
+
+"I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+
+"As a matter of fact--if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+
+"Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at
+all; he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we
+have our little wooden _châlet_ to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+moral support, but otherwise, _ne pas_. And now, as there won't be
+anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write
+home and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+
+
+
+6
+
+UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+
+
+Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements
+of the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for
+Dormitory One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The
+rest of the opposing forces were distributed among other and more
+distant rooms. It was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be
+the rendezvous. As to the time when an attack might be expected, it was
+unlikely that it would occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went
+the round of the dormitories at eleven.
+
+"And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+conducted in a subdued and _sotto voce_ manner, or may we let ourselves
+go a bit here and there?"
+
+"I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you--he sleeps miles
+away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often
+rag half the night and nothing happens."
+
+"This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment.
+What would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of
+these reckless youths!"
+
+"All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+stopping the show before it's half started."
+
+"Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up--I can hear it sizzling. I quite
+agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as well
+to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody else
+who might interfere with our gambols?"
+
+"Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+
+"Who is Barnes?"
+
+"Head of the house--a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson; they
+rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+
+"Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+
+Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again,
+closing the door.
+
+"How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+
+"Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated
+imitation of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He
+would then--"
+
+"I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of
+the steps?"
+
+"Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson,
+the man with the big brain!"
+
+The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+
+"Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+finest purlers in the world's history."
+
+"If they've got a torch--"
+
+"They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then
+they'll charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire
+into the brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade
+Jellicoe's jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not
+be amiss--we will enmesh the enemy!"
+
+"Right ho!" said Mike.
+
+"These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will
+retire to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe
+like an asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at
+the top of the steps, listening."
+
+"You _are_ a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+
+Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying
+experience, especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential.
+Mike was tired after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was
+jerked back to wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle;
+the faintest rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight
+giggle, succeeded by a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe,
+too, had heard the noise.
+
+There was a creaking sound.
+
+It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened
+the door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic;
+he was flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the
+true artist.
+
+The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard
+had reached the second step.... In another moment--
+
+CRASH!
+
+And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+
+A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+contents had got to the right address.
+
+Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on
+the nose.
+
+Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he
+ran amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but
+his left went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick
+freed his ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a
+sudden increase in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good
+work that was being put in by Psmith.
+
+Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual
+kind of housemaster.
+
+He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that
+made itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+
+All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other
+dormitories, roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport.
+They had switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+
+By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a
+gingerly fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In
+the direction of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord
+of a dressing gown, was engaging the remaining three with a
+patient smile.
+
+They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+cord acutely.
+
+The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having
+seized and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again
+with the cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the
+spectators.
+
+Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+everywhere--on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+inadvertently trod), on the floor--he ranged the room, sowing
+destruction.
+
+The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this
+was to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the
+garrison armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a
+final rush sent them through.
+
+"Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+in the doorway.
+
+It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood
+alone in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had
+pitchforked him so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time
+since his father had given him his views upon school reports that
+morning in the Easter holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped,
+outnumbered as he was, that the enemy would come on again and not give
+the thing up in disgust; he wanted more.
+
+On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+
+Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+
+It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back
+along the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some
+clouded cane.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's--Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+words; where you pick them up I can't think--not from me. Well, well, I
+suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+night, good night."
+
+The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+
+Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+
+On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  _Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease._
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+7
+
+ADAIR
+
+
+On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+
+He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+
+"That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+
+His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+
+"Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+
+Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and
+wiry, light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to
+running. Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced
+eye saw that.
+
+As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was
+that rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or
+the passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected
+to lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very
+different thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that
+comes to the top by sheer force of character and determination. He was
+not naturally clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged
+resolution which had carried him up the school, and landed him high in
+the Sixth. As a cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had
+given him a good eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had
+triumphed over her failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of
+more trouble than most people give to their life work he had made
+himself into a bowler. He read the authorities, and watched first-class
+players, and thought the thing out on his own account, and he divided
+the art of bowling into three sections. First, and most
+important--pitch. Second on the list--break. Third--pace. He set himself
+to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling at his own pace and without
+any attempt at break, he could now drop the ball on an envelope seven
+times out of ten.
+
+Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could
+get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything
+but a plumb wicket.
+
+Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+sprints and all the rest of it.
+
+Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+
+A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a
+small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before
+him. There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of
+them in all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been
+influenced by Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the
+effects of his work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature
+to want to get something which somebody else obviously values very much;
+and when it was observed by members of his form that Adair was going to
+great trouble and inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or
+fifteen, they naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in
+those teams. The consequence was that his form always played hard. This
+made other forms play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair
+succeeded to the captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year,
+Sedleigh, as Mr. Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach
+to a cricket master that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying,
+was a keen school. As a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+
+All it wanted now was opportunity.
+
+This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness
+for his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which
+really is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average
+public-school boy _likes_ his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at
+Rugger and Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry
+to leave, and he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for
+any passionate, deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather
+bad form than otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the
+back, and cried, "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old
+school, Jenkins! The dear old school! The old place you love so!" he
+would feel seriously ill.
+
+Adair was the exception.
+
+To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead;
+his guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia
+at one end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant
+times Adair had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to
+Sedleigh. The place had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike,
+violently transplanted from Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not
+to be mentioned in the same breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the
+future, saw a colossal establishment, a public school among public
+schools, a lump of human radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars
+year after year without ceasing.
+
+It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+should take its rank among _the_ schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+
+"He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's
+in the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years
+running. He would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained
+his wrist. And he plays fives jolly well!"
+
+"Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+from that moment.
+
+Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with
+his form master during morning school.
+
+"'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+into the man's head; and when I _had_ driven it in, he sent me out of
+the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+persecuted by scoundrels."
+
+"Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+
+They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+
+"Haven't you _ever_ played?"
+
+"My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+
+Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+qualities.
+
+"Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this
+afternoon and seeing what you can do with a hard ball--if you can manage
+without your little sister."
+
+"I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+
+Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+
+Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+
+"My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the
+Young Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are
+being carried back to the pavilion after your century against
+Loamshire--do you play Loamshire?--we shall be grubbing in the hard
+ground for ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty,
+Comrade Adair. A Boy's Crossroads."
+
+"Then you won't play?"
+
+"No," said Mike.
+
+"Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+
+Adair turned, and walked on.
+
+Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+same question.
+
+"Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+
+It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a
+general resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable
+bullfinch.
+
+"I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We
+want keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy
+to be keen."
+
+"We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+
+"Excellent."
+
+"On archaeology."
+
+Mr. Downing--for it was no less a celebrity--started, as one who
+perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+
+"Archaeology!"
+
+"We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we
+went singing about the house."
+
+"I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently.
+"I don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to
+interfere with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly
+that in my opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets
+him into idle, loafing habits."
+
+"I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the
+principle of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other
+boys, not wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and
+going into low public houses."
+
+"A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+Psmith, shaking his head.
+
+"If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in
+my opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+
+He stumped off.
+
+"Now _he's_ cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+getting ourselves disliked here."
+
+"Good job, too."
+
+"At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of
+a lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+
+
+
+8
+
+MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+
+
+There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings
+for a Kindergarten _v_. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun
+shone, and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and
+heard the "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to
+Adair and shouting, "I _will_ be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three
+years, and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to
+the nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+
+But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+
+What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once
+or twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the
+game which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do
+not make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers
+more likely, by the law of averages.
+
+Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a
+Burgess, but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three
+years' experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He
+was a long way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the
+others who had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+
+The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth--not unlike
+what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy--but he knew how to keep balls
+out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+
+Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+
+There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+
+Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star
+at Wrykyn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+repeat the experiment.
+
+It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the
+scent of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This
+is the real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of
+the game.
+
+Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+
+He went up to Adair.
+
+"May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+manner was offensively abrupt.
+
+Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This
+net," it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+
+"What?" he said.
+
+Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+embarrassment.
+
+"This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge
+over there."
+
+"Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+
+Mike walked away without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with
+them the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a
+poor substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction
+shouting to him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them
+hugely, but Mike almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always
+possible to slip away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked
+upon them as among the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+
+Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er
+with the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the
+pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him
+round the garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research
+struck a new note in the history of that neglected science. He was
+amiable, but patronizing. He patronized fossils, and he patronized
+ruins. If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would have
+patronized that.
+
+He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+
+That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+
+"Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may
+lie on his back for a bit."
+
+Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+strolled away down the hill.
+
+Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+
+"A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement,
+I can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+
+They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound
+over pebbles.
+
+"Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to
+the music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to
+say, I rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these
+naps by the wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And
+Psmith, heaving the comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has
+earned rest, lay down, with his head against a mossy tree stump, and
+closed his eyes.
+
+Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making
+centuries in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up,
+jumped the brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+
+He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+
+Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when
+you meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in
+order that you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread
+his way back through the trees.
+
+He was too late.
+
+"Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+
+In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on,
+and trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity
+in the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+
+"I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look
+round."
+
+"The dickens you--Why, you're Jackson!"
+
+Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair
+moustache. Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could
+not place him.
+
+"I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing
+you seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my
+nesting pheasants."
+
+"I'm frightfully sorry."
+
+"That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+
+"Of course--I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made fifty-eight
+not out."
+
+"Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was
+that you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+
+"You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+
+"Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+are you doing down here?"
+
+"I've left Wrykyn."
+
+Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to
+inquire the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+
+"I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of
+puttering about."
+
+"Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+
+"Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you
+off for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+
+Mike's heart leaped.
+
+"Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+
+And he told how matters stood with him.
+
+"So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+things"--Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague--"but I
+could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+get onto my bike--I've got it down here--and meet you anywhere you
+liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my hands
+off a bat."
+
+"I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+Lower Borlock--that's the name of the place--and I'll meet you on the
+ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off the
+London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+Saturday?"
+
+"Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want
+to bring mine."
+
+"I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+
+"I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and
+told the news.
+
+"I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+play for the school."
+
+"My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports.
+I'll borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a
+newcomer to the team, M. Jackson.
+
+
+
+9
+
+THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+
+
+Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+substitute.
+
+The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with,
+proved more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+
+They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it
+grew with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a
+master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his
+official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes.
+To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for
+the school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should
+be implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the
+healthy boy.
+
+The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+"overtime."
+
+One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that
+it was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to
+do with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+
+It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple
+of his eye.
+
+Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem
+of Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe
+passport to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket
+was good, but to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+
+The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+
+Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+
+The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+
+At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+
+Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye,
+Sammy was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat,
+an engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which
+was a happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a
+tenor voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+
+Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+two minutes' acquaintance.
+
+In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during
+French lessons.
+
+We will now proceed to the painful details.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading
+of the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+for the disturbing of the peace.
+
+Today they were in very fair form.
+
+As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+House, held up his hand.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+
+"A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+
+"Red, with green stripes, sir."
+
+Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+
+"Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+
+"One moment, Stone."
+
+"Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+right."
+
+A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard,
+and the meeting had divided.
+
+Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+
+"Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+Stone, sit down--Wilson, get back to your place."
+
+"Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+
+"Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+
+"Please, sir--"
+
+"Si-_lence!_ The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the question."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"Be _quiet!_ Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a
+show of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said
+Robinson.
+
+"I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+
+The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+
+Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"But, sir, the danger!"
+
+"Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+
+The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+
+"Silence!"
+
+"Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+that are likely to fall on our heads."
+
+Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+
+"Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+
+"Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps
+like the first fifteen have? They--"
+
+"Wilson, leave the room!"
+
+"Sir, _please_, sir!"
+
+"This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+lines."
+
+A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+
+Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not
+right! If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of
+this flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be
+keen. I...? What is that noise?"
+
+From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling
+from a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were
+being prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The
+sufferer appeared to have a high voice.
+
+There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the
+opposite wall.
+
+"May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+
+"Very well--be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+
+Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+Downing.
+
+The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+
+"What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+
+"Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+
+"I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+
+"A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+
+"Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+
+"Are you making that whining noise?"
+
+"Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+
+"What _sort_ of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had asked
+before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just such a
+case as this.
+
+"I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+
+"They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+"Perhaps that's it."
+
+"It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+sometimes."
+
+"Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+
+"Silence! Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+
+"Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like
+an excited kangaroo.
+
+Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between
+the two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in
+time to see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin
+worrying it.
+
+Chaos reigned.
+
+"A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+
+The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+stirring, bustling scene.
+
+Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+
+The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all
+the other noises till in time they gave up the competition and
+died away.
+
+Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of
+a Bren gun.
+
+"Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain.
+_Quietly_, I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that
+abominable way."
+
+Crash!
+
+"Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement
+of your hand--one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+
+The meeting dispersed.
+
+"Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+
+Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat--"
+
+"What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+
+"Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk,
+so I came in--"
+
+"And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+"the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came
+in, too."
+
+"I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+
+"I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to
+let him go, and he came in after the rat."
+
+It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr.
+Downing liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade,
+frivolous at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept
+wicket for the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society,
+and had refused to play cricket.
+
+Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+
+"One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+
+Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun,
+and paid very little for it.
+
+Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend
+their time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen
+school; this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time.
+That will do, Jackson."
+
+And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+has a habit of getting the last word.
+
+
+
+10
+
+ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+
+
+They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+
+When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and
+borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as
+something of a blow.
+
+"What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+
+"I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody.
+The fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+
+"Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a
+quid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have
+got, so don't be shy about paying it back."
+
+Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+gratitude.
+
+Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+Jellicoe--why on earth did the man want all that?--meant that, unless a
+carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the desired
+effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+
+In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had
+made a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a
+sufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be
+stated at once, he did, by return of post.)
+
+Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter--he was
+never a very ready writer--when Stone and Robinson burst into the room.
+
+Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+
+But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+Robinson was laughing.
+
+"You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+
+"What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+
+They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair.
+Mike's heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was
+a thing of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius
+Caesar. He felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and
+appreciate one another.
+
+There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain.
+They had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits.
+They looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones
+and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about,
+loud and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to
+other people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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 father 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 teacup.
+
+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 Lower 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. Tomorrow'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's 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
+naught 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 tomorrow?"
+
+"Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+
+
+
+11
+
+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 noncricketing 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 imperiling 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 today. 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
+groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. 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 changing 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 wicket. 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
+today, 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 facts in Mike's case had gone around 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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when
+delivered, was billed to break from leg, but the program 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. Halfway 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-cakewalk, 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 installment system by helpers from other games,
+and the bowler began his maneuvers 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 vigor. 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 neighborhood 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 lunchtime 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.
+
+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 tomorrow?" 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 favoritism.
+And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely
+individuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other
+houses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, 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 Scot, 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 toward 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 gray 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 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
+gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+
+It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+
+He walked in that direction.
+
+Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members
+of Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of
+acute illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy
+in the event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get
+jumpy beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with
+MacPhee, as a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct
+and legitimate result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three
+doughnuts, two ices, an apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the
+lot down with tea. But Mr. Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of
+some deadly scourge which would sweep through and decimate the house. He
+had dispatched Adair for the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes
+prowling restlessly about his room, was now standing at his front gate,
+waiting for Adair's return.
+
+It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction
+of home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by
+being hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you,
+Adair?" The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+
+Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow--a
+flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and,
+if Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in
+the first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept
+ahead. At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards.
+The procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for
+the pavilion.
+
+As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he
+was accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of
+it which had ever illumined his life.
+
+It was this.
+
+One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at
+Sedleigh, had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into
+the school officially--in speeches from the dais--by the headmaster, and
+unofficially--in earnest private conversations--by Mr. Downing, that at
+the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every member
+of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way, and
+make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the
+school had its orders--to get out into the open at once.
+
+Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this
+feat. Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board
+to the effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that
+day. Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the
+occasion when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had
+said, "My house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which
+the Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened
+the hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr.
+Downing having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and
+poured a stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty
+to turn his attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was
+his private study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in
+a miniature lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for
+realism, and fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most
+part, of "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes,
+kept in the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the
+dormitory would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other
+end being fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using
+his elbows as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and
+these two, standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the
+rest of the dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except
+to their digestions.
+
+After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken
+a rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient
+unto the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to
+ring at night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine
+alarm of fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+
+So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+
+The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up
+the wall.
+
+Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash
+that his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his
+pursuer off for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the
+rope and tug it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them,
+and in the subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+
+The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in
+the Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded
+the pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put
+all he knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the
+effort. He worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike
+reached the gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+
+As far as Mike could judge--he was not in a condition to make nice
+calculations--he had about four seconds in which to get busy with that
+bell rope.
+
+Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+than he did then.
+
+The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+housemaster.
+
+And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum,
+as if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+
+The school was awake.
+
+
+
+17
+
+THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at
+Outwood's--since Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had
+been received as brothers by the center of disorder, so that even
+Spiller was compelled to look on the hatchet as buried--and gave his
+views on the events of the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning,
+for it was nearer one than twelve when peace had once more fallen on
+the school.
+
+"Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got
+so accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort
+of affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants
+can give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind
+is likely to take place?"
+
+"I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+
+"I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+
+Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath
+against the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood.
+He hobbled about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+
+"It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over
+matter. He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a
+Boneless Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+
+"I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+
+Stone gurgled.
+
+"So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag,
+I began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+
+"I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+
+"It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing
+a thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved
+again, time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say
+Comrade Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency
+to which he has brought us. At any rate I hope--"
+
+There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+
+"I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+
+"Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+
+"You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+Sam! Sam!"
+
+A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+
+"Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed
+in a corner.
+
+Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and
+wagging his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular
+dog, and was always well received when he visited any of the houses, but
+he had never before met with enthusiasm like this.
+
+"Good old Sammy!"
+
+"What on earth's been happening to him?"
+
+"Who did it?"
+
+Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+
+"I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems
+to have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up
+like that!"
+
+Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+
+"Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+
+"It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through
+his eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either
+have to skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great
+Healer. In a year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why
+you shouldn't have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of
+distinction to the place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see
+him. By charging a small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think
+I'll suggest it to Comrade Downing."
+
+"There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+
+"Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+soon. It's a quarter to."
+
+There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing
+to his ankle.
+
+"I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right."
+
+"No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+
+"Jolly nearly."
+
+"It _was_ you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+
+"All right. But, I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"What's the matter now?"
+
+"I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+He'll be frightfully sick."
+
+"Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+course."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+
+Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+18
+
+MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+
+
+There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his
+reason for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+
+Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+
+"Who--" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+
+"Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+
+"Please, sir, he came in like that."
+
+"Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+
+A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+
+The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+
+While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open,
+escaped and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all
+and sundry. You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to
+your own premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this
+becomes out of the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private
+trouble into a row. Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction
+that Sammy had taken, only, instead of running about the road, he went
+straight to the headmaster.
+
+The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his
+pajamas and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a
+cold in the head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in
+spite of his strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous
+night in order to test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves
+in the event of fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed
+as the latter related the events which had led up to the ringing of
+the bell.
+
+"Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school,
+you think?"
+
+"I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Was he wearing a school cap?"
+
+"He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+
+"No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+
+"Very big."
+
+"You did not see his face?"
+
+"It was dark and he never looked back--he was in front of me all the
+time."
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+"There is another matter ..."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the
+bell--he had painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He--he--_what_, Mr.
+Downing?"
+
+"He painted my dog red--bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of
+a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to
+ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+
+The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his
+dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there
+was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+
+"It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the
+boy who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall
+after chapel."
+
+Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal
+to come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the
+school, with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly
+reminded of Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a
+wild screech of laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+
+The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr.
+Downing was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal
+discovered, he would have to discover him for himself.
+
+The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and
+Fate, feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing,
+gave him a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a
+needle in a haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of
+being set to find it in a mere truss of straw.
+
+It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at
+close on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+attempting to get into his house _via_ the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded
+politeness and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some
+reflections on the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed
+it on to Mr. Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+
+"Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+
+"Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant
+that he interrupted him before--"
+
+"I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+
+"But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+
+"He had broken out."
+
+"Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+asleep--all of them."
+
+Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed
+excitement and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his
+colleague's slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had
+narrowed itself down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively
+easy. Perhaps Sergeant Collard had actually recognized the boy. On
+reflection he dismissed this as unlikely, for the sergeant would
+scarcely have kept a thing like that to himself; but he might very well
+have seen more of him than he, Downing, had seen. It was only with an
+effort that he could keep himself from rushing to the sergeant then and
+there, and leaving the house lunch to look after itself. He resolved to
+go the moment that meal was at an end.
+
+Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+helping, found himself at liberty.
+
+Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+
+Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions
+in the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr.
+Downing arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+
+The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+ensure privacy.
+
+Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+
+"Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a
+boy endeavoring to enter his house."
+
+The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did,
+sir--spotted 'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of
+Connaught, he used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to
+say, ''e's feeflee good at spottin'.'"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+there?'"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+
+"But you didn't catch him?"
+
+"No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+
+"Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+
+"No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+
+"Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+
+"'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him--feeflee fast
+'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+
+"You noticed nothing else?"
+
+"'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+
+"It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+
+"So do I, sir."
+
+"You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you
+think?"
+
+"Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+
+Mr. Downing rose to go.
+
+"Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house."
+
+"Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+
+"Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+
+"Good afternoon to you, sir."
+
+"Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+
+The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything
+of the kind.
+
+"I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+
+"Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+
+"I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+
+And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant
+Collard, having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a
+walk at once, and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the
+'ead, if he persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over
+his face, rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+
+
+
+19
+
+THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+
+
+For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock
+Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must be, to a very
+large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue
+from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got
+to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a
+label attached.
+
+The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a
+patronizing manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator,
+but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We
+should not even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard
+bungler. We should simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes,
+how...?" and all the rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+
+It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the
+humdrum round of life without having to measure footprints and smile
+quiet, tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he
+thinks naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+
+Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and
+had thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but,
+now that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled
+to admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of
+Watson's inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard,
+he thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant
+Collard, to detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the
+crime. As he brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor
+Watson increased with every minute, and he began to feel a certain
+resentment against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir
+Arthur to be so shrewd and infallible about tracing a mystery to its
+source, but he knew perfectly well who had done the thing before
+he started!
+
+Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a
+boy and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at
+twelve o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie--I
+was out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you.
+It is practically stalemate.
+
+All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+down the cricket field that afternoon.
+
+What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+
+What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard
+thinking, Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once
+more intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of
+his house.
+
+Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something
+particularly shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his
+bicycle from the shed.
+
+"Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him
+irritable. "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+
+Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason
+as a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he
+wanted his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+
+Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+Sunday afternoons during the term.
+
+He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+
+Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+
+A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+
+Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it
+was. What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy
+soul and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The
+greater part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea
+of red paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in
+the middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+
+"Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+
+Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+
+"Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+
+Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle
+from the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt,
+leaving Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the
+detective, to lock the door and resume his perambulation of the
+cricket field.
+
+Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+professional sleuth might have envied.
+
+Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+had done the deed of decoration.
+
+Yoicks!
+
+There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been
+giving a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring
+box at the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was
+the direct outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled
+into him.) In that case the footmark might be his.
+
+_Note one_: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+
+In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor
+for the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair
+went into it.
+
+_Note two_: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to the
+house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+
+Things were moving.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+from him.
+
+Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his
+house in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the
+time for reading in deck chairs.
+
+"Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if
+you found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house
+last night."
+
+"Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+
+"I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened
+to tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes
+this morning?"
+
+"No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+go into the shed at all."
+
+"I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+Markby live?"
+
+"I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a
+second. It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the
+right as you turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is
+the first you come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+
+"Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to
+Markby for a moment on a small matter."
+
+A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+
+"Oh, Markby!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion
+last night after the match?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So
+I thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+Marylebone come down."
+
+"Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the
+pot of paint when you had finished?"
+
+"Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+
+"On the floor?"
+
+"On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+
+"Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+
+"Do you want it, sir?"
+
+"No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the
+floor, with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had
+better get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I
+wished to know."
+
+Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he
+had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house--the idea of searching a
+fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+exist as a man capable of resenting liberties--find the paint-splashed
+shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster. There
+could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in Mr. Outwood's
+house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint without showing
+some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that the shoe would
+not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This really was
+beginning to be something like business.
+
+Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+fast as he could walk.
+
+
+
+20
+
+A CHECK
+
+
+The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+other. Psmith--for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend--was
+wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+the effort to nothing.
+
+"Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of
+leisure. Hello!"
+
+He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+
+"What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+bought the place?"
+
+"Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he
+may sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to
+them. Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair
+and book?"
+
+"I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+ground."
+
+"'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+
+Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+who has lost his bearings.
+
+"A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+
+"Er--Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I--er--wish to go round the dormitories."
+
+It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything,
+so he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+
+"I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the
+rooms are."
+
+"With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+sir?"
+
+"Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron
+being out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined
+the master.
+
+"Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Downing nodded.
+
+"Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy,
+I understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all
+to himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a
+cubic foot of air in vain. He argues justly--"
+
+He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in
+silence. Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+
+"Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think
+he's out in the field."
+
+Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+the exercise.
+
+"Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+
+"This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+awed whisper, "is where _I_ sleep!"
+
+Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+
+"Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+remarks to yourself."
+
+"I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+They moved on up the passage.
+
+Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+
+"The studies, Smith," he cried.
+
+"Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+Here we have--"
+
+Mr. Downing stopped short.
+
+"Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+
+"Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This
+is Barnes's."
+
+Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+
+"Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+
+"This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+
+"What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+
+"I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to
+our general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+
+Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+window attracted his attention.
+
+"Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+
+"There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+
+Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+
+"A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+distant hills ..."
+
+Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe
+at the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen
+climbing the pipe must have been making for this study.
+
+He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+
+"Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+
+"Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+
+"Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Nobody else comes into it?"
+
+"If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+
+"Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+
+"Not at all, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just
+about Jackson's size and build!
+
+Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in
+his life.
+
+"Smith!" he said excitedly.
+
+"On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+
+"Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+
+There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+
+"His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just
+now."
+
+"Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+
+"Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I
+should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket,
+downstairs. Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I
+believe, at early dawn."
+
+"Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+
+"If I know Edmund, sir--no."
+
+"Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+basket to me here."
+
+Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly
+was at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did
+not know. But that there was something, and that that something was
+directed in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with
+last night's wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on
+leaving his bed at the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe
+were alone in the room. That might mean that Mike had gone out through
+the door when the bell sounded, or it might mean that he had been out
+all the time. It began to look as if the latter solution were the
+correct one.
+
+He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while
+that it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study
+floor. Mr. Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the
+wall, and straightened out the damaged garment.
+
+"We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various
+bootings."
+
+Mr. Downing looked up.
+
+"You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+
+"Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside
+the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+
+At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+
+"Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+
+The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn
+on being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered
+footgear, whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as
+he did so.
+
+"That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+
+"Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+here. You can carry it back when you return."
+
+"Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+
+"Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+
+"Shall I carry it, sir?"
+
+Mr. Downing reflected.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+
+It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+
+Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+him.
+
+Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+
+He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but
+when a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on
+the following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint
+splashed shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name
+inside the shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was
+only a few miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was
+Mike's shoe.
+
+"Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith looked at it again.
+
+"No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+
+"Come with me, then."
+
+Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+
+The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+
+The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+
+"Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+Mr. Outwood's house?"
+
+"I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You have the shoe?"
+
+"Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+look at--This, you say, is the--? Just so. Just so. Just ... But, er,
+Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+sufficient care, but--Can _you_ point out to me exactly where this paint
+is that you speak of?"
+
+Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and
+entirely innocent.
+
+
+
+21
+
+THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+
+
+The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of
+some kind.
+
+Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+
+"There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there
+was a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in
+this. Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+
+"Paint, sir?"
+
+"What! Do you mean to tell me that you did _not_ see it?"
+
+"No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+
+"This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+across the toe."
+
+The headmaster interposed.
+
+"You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace
+of paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy,
+not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you--"
+
+"I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably
+subject--"
+
+"It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+
+"It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+
+"A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+
+The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+
+"What did you say, Smith?"
+
+"Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly
+out of a trance.
+
+Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+
+"You had better be careful, Smith."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+
+"Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On
+one occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I
+can assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic
+cleaning before all traces are removed."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+
+"Certainly Smith."
+
+Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+
+"My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects,
+he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+mistake...."
+
+"Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+"Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the
+only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really
+smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of
+a few minutes."
+
+"You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I
+go now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+Cicero's speech _De senectute_."
+
+"I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith.
+It is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+
+"I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+
+"If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+
+The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith
+without a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly
+smile, left the garden.
+
+Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road
+between the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw
+what, if they had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle
+of Psmith running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified
+walk. He believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+
+On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease
+of his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's
+gate, bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+
+On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the
+top of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair
+and panted.
+
+"Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+
+He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+
+He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage,
+and Mr. Downing appeared.
+
+The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it
+had occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's
+garden. Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse
+would be to do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling
+aggrieved with himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too,
+hurried over to Outwood's.
+
+Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+
+"I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh,
+laid down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+
+"Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your
+help."
+
+Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers,
+and watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+
+The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+
+"Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+
+"That thing, sir?"
+
+"Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+
+"Why, sir?"
+
+"Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+
+"I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+complaint.
+
+"Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+
+"I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+
+"Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+
+"May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+
+"Yes, read if you like."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly
+irritated, pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+
+He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the
+second search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as
+certain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence
+was somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank
+where it was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with
+evasive answers was quite out of the common.
+
+His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even
+for so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be
+acquitted, on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+
+Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+that there was the place to look.
+
+"Smith!" he said.
+
+Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What is in this cupboard?"
+
+"That cupboard, sir?"
+
+"Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+
+"Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+
+"Open it."
+
+"I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+
+"Unlock it."
+
+"But where is the key, sir?"
+
+"Have you not got the key?"
+
+"If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+take a long search to find it."
+
+"Where did you see it last?"
+
+"It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+
+"Where is Jackson?"
+
+"Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+from me. I shall break open the door."
+
+Psmith got up.
+
+"I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+
+"Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+
+"Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard
+happens to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his
+permission. He is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am
+only the acting manager."
+
+Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule
+did not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were
+limits to the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house
+without his permission and search it to a certain extent was all very
+well. But when it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+
+On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the
+room, he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+
+He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring
+into vacancy.
+
+Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at
+all? If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that
+the cupboard was not tampered with.
+
+"Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good
+enough to come here for a moment."
+
+
+
+22
+
+MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+
+
+"Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+making any movement in the direction of the door.
+
+"_Quick_, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+conundrum.
+
+"Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+
+Psmith still made no move.
+
+"Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if
+at any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+stripling!"
+
+It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he
+said did not keep up the standard of docility.
+
+"I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a
+master. In--'"
+
+"This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+
+Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+
+"If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for
+the Empire that the jibboom spanker _should_ be spliced at that
+particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my
+case. If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand,
+and come back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him
+to be good enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad
+to go and find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+
+"Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+
+Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+
+"Very well, Smith."
+
+"I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+
+Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+
+"But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+
+He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+
+His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened
+to the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to
+this, and let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had
+stopped swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+
+He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+
+As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it
+up the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening
+his hand.
+
+The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and
+washed off the soot.
+
+When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr.
+Outwood, the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+intellectual pressure of the situation.
+
+"Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+
+"I have been washing my hands, sir."
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+
+"Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+
+"My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it
+perfectly clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+
+"I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes
+in a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+good-gracious-has-the-man-_no_-sense look on the other's face, "Why he
+should not do so if he wishes it."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+
+"If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+"He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+
+"I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+
+Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if
+he had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+
+"So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any
+objection?"
+
+Mr. Outwood started.
+
+"Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, _what_
+is it you wish to do?"
+
+"This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the
+rest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing
+seized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door.
+The wood splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard,
+with any skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+place.
+
+"I told you," he said. "I told you."
+
+"I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+for it for days."
+
+Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+surprise and wrath.
+
+"This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+the shoe."
+
+"It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free
+from paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+sideways," he added helpfully.
+
+"Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+
+"I must have done. Then, when I lost the key--"
+
+"Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+"or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+
+The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good,
+hard knock.
+
+The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr.
+Outwood's set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had
+caught sight of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to
+inspect it.
+
+"Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It
+should have been done before."
+
+Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+
+Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+
+He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon
+his hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his
+fingers had closed upon what he was seeking.
+
+"Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough,
+after all, Smith."
+
+"No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+
+"You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this
+trouble. You have done yourself no good by it."
+
+"It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+
+"Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+opinion of what constitutes--"
+
+His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+
+"Did--you--put--that--shoe--there, Smith?" he asked slowly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then what did you _MEAN_ by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+
+"Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"WHAT?"
+
+"Animal spirits, sir."
+
+What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+
+"My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way
+to my room."
+
+In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against
+the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear
+up against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language
+of the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+
+"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+
+"Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+
+"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+
+His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+
+"You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more
+of it."
+
+Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+towels, soap, and sponges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a
+successfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man
+of refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it
+had been worth it.
+
+The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a
+lot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary
+implements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to
+do so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the
+madding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs
+there would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+
+His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place
+the shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+
+Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up
+to the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at
+about the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody
+would think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable that
+Mr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The
+odds were that he had forgotten about it already.
+
+Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling
+that he had done a good day's work.
+
+
+
+23
+
+ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+
+
+The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most
+adroit plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to
+the rule. He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's
+happenings.
+
+It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where
+there is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain
+unrevealed. There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling
+Mike. He forgot what the consequences might be if he did not.
+
+So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+
+Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion
+why only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the
+subject. He seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow
+can understand.
+
+"'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike
+might be satisfied with a compromise.
+
+"One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+school in one shoe."
+
+Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much
+as to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+understand sound reasoning."
+
+"Well, what am I to do? Where _is_ the other shoe?"
+
+"Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+
+"Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off
+in the gym shoes he stood in.
+
+It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which
+one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize
+how strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for
+instance, where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark
+blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most
+respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a
+mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if he had
+sandbagged the headmaster. So in the case of shoes. School rules decree
+that a boy shall go to his form room in shoes. There is no real reason
+why, if the day is fine, he should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer
+them. But, if he does, the thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say,
+"Great Scott, what _have_ you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, _what_ are
+you wearing on your feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the
+assembling of the form for call-over and the arrival of the form master,
+some wag is sure either to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act
+with some satirical remark, or else to pull one of them off, and
+inaugurate an impromptu game of football with it. There was once a boy
+who went to school one morning in elastic-sided boots.
+
+Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike
+with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to
+undergo at Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who
+gave trouble.
+
+There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a
+boy in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind,
+just as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with
+them. They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+
+Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention--every weapon was employed by him
+in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he
+felt shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in
+the first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten
+minutes to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked
+Like Loafers--which broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one
+occasion, when a particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of
+fare, Dunster had entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath
+slippers, of a vivid crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including
+his journey over to the house to change the heelless atrocities, had
+seen him through very nearly to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+
+Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+
+"Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+
+"_What_ are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+
+"Gym shoes, sir."
+
+"You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+
+The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+comfortably for the address from the throne.
+
+"I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+
+A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+translating.
+
+Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction,
+the form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+
+Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said,
+"Wal, sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so
+did Mr. Downing feel at that moment.
+
+When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+sped to the headmaster.
+
+
+
+24
+
+THE ADAIR METHOD
+
+
+It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop,
+came to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the
+Adair administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt
+was early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket
+keenness. Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious
+interest in life, had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his
+first term at Wrykyn. And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm
+attachment to the game, compared with Mike's.
+
+As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose
+to be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their
+comfortable beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and
+had caught catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air,
+had stung like adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really
+got to work, it is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the
+experiment was only equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of
+the type which likes to undergo hardships for the common good. They
+played well enough when on the field, but neither cared greatly whether
+the school had a good season or not. They played the games entirely for
+their own sakes.
+
+The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate
+as to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+today's must be avoided.
+
+"It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for
+the team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd
+better find somebody else."
+
+"Yes."
+
+At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+
+"Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+
+"Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+
+"Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+
+Stone was the first to recover.
+
+"I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C.
+with a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village
+Jackson plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+
+"All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+
+Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The
+majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain
+runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the
+team or not, then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless
+he is a man of action, practically helpless.
+
+Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that
+they would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The
+bowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the
+chance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are
+runs, wherever and however made.
+
+The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+there were no signs.
+
+Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond
+the fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great
+help. Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+
+At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right,
+was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with
+that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper
+before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of
+his reading to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen
+the paper, usually formed an interested and appreciative audience.
+Today, however, though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of
+excitement at the news that Sheppard had made a century against
+Gloucestershire, and that a butter famine was expected in the United
+States, these world-shaking news items seemed to leave Adair cold. He
+champed his bread and marmalade with an abstracted air.
+
+He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+
+Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe
+and convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of
+person who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He
+never shirked anything, physical or moral.
+
+He resolved to interview the absentees.
+
+It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He
+went across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day
+room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and
+marking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided
+with a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance
+and stagger backward against the captain.
+
+"Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+
+"Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this
+morning?"
+
+Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+spoke.
+
+"We didn't turn up," he said.
+
+"I know you didn't. Why not?"
+
+Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the
+coolness which comes from rehearsal.
+
+"We decided not to."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+fielding."
+
+Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+
+"You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+
+"That's just the word."
+
+"Sorry it bored you."
+
+"It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+
+Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+
+"What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+
+"There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking
+of something."
+
+"I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+
+Stone intervened.
+
+"It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't
+do anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like,
+but we don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or
+Saturday for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the
+school team aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go
+chucking people out of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+
+"You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+
+"What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll
+play for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn
+out for fielding practice before breakfast."
+
+"You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going
+to tomorrow morning."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Six sharp. Don't be late."
+
+"Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+
+"That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+
+"You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+
+"That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+
+"No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any
+deep conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for
+his comfort.
+
+"You've quite made up your minds?"
+
+"Yes," said Stone.
+
+"Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+
+He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+standing in the middle of the open space.
+
+"You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+
+"Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+
+Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than
+Stone, but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game.
+His blow was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his
+opponent's. At the end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+
+He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+
+"Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a
+minute or two."
+
+Stone made no reply.
+
+"Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+
+"All right," said Stone.
+
+"Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+
+Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make
+up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances
+he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than
+ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must
+end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match
+even for Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one
+minute. It seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was
+likely to come from an encounter with Adair.
+
+"All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+
+"Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+is Jackson's study."
+
+Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which
+precluded anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied
+that Mike's study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor
+at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+
+"He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+still there."
+
+"I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he
+isn't busy."
+
+
+
+25
+
+ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+
+
+Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going
+on below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that
+morning from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket
+captaincy which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a
+lugubrious strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with
+Wrykyn. A broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments
+with a day boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of
+Dunstable, the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a
+side out. Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone
+wrong. The M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three
+first-class cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty
+runs. Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs,
+with a team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch--not a
+well-known man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing
+for the club for nearly half a century--had got home by two wickets. In
+fact, it was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was
+about the most hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition
+of itself on the school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off,
+owing to an outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and
+athletics--the second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said
+Strachan, was hard lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for
+Wrykyn, as it had saved them from what would probably have been a record
+hammering, Ripton having eight of their last year's team left, including
+Dixon, the fast bowler, against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had
+been able to make runs in the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had
+struck a bad patch.
+
+Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one
+good batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may
+take a weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the
+importance of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+
+As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days,
+returned with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of
+personal injury which had made him hate his new school on the first
+day of term.
+
+And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered
+the room.
+
+There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+
+Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial
+story in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room,
+made the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand,
+and went on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was
+sitting, and contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+
+Psmith was the first to speak.
+
+"If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I
+seem to see the consommé splashing about his ankles. He's had a note
+telling him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just
+off there at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher,
+is waiting there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair?
+Or don't you take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+
+"Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+
+"What do you want?" said Mike.
+
+He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made
+this a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of
+no other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+afternoon calls.
+
+"I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+
+"That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We
+must be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We--"
+
+"Buck up," said Mike.
+
+"Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+
+"An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+
+"We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but
+it was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the
+first round."
+
+Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this
+was about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner.
+For some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was
+looking for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be
+a privilege to see that he got it.
+
+Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+
+"Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been
+_brawling_ with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you
+and he were like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too.
+Leave us, Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of
+thee.' Shakespeare."
+
+Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+
+"I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+
+"Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice,"
+said Adair, turning to Mike.
+
+Mike said nothing.
+
+"I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn
+out at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out.
+He's going to all right. So is Robinson."
+
+Mike remained silent.
+
+"So are you," said Adair.
+
+"I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+
+Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in
+the study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+
+"Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"I don't think. I know."
+
+"Any special reason for my turning out?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+want you to get some practice."
+
+"I wonder how you got that idea!"
+
+"Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+
+"Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+
+"I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+
+Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+
+"What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+curiously.
+
+"I'm going to make you."
+
+Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+
+"Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+
+For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+
+"Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+
+Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+
+"My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you _will_ let your angry
+passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose you
+must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the midst
+of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If you
+really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know
+a bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road,
+where you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on
+there? Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+
+
+
+26
+
+CLEARING THE AIR
+
+
+Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+the National Sporting Club.
+
+"The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is
+down will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades
+Adair and Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+
+After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up
+to its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been
+cautious sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds,
+as if it had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights,
+when they do occur--which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you
+count junior school scuffles--are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent.
+Up to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly
+attached to him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume
+that attitude of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates
+the other.
+
+So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the
+present battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted
+was to get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together
+as if they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+
+It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves,
+with his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have
+lasted three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while
+Mike had never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used
+his head, nothing could have prevented his winning.
+
+As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did
+at the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was
+the same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength,
+and, thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet
+with an unscientific but powerful righthander.
+
+This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The
+Irish blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him
+merely energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned
+all attempt at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile
+form, and as unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a
+swift exchange of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow,
+coming into contact with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which
+kept it tingling for the rest of the day; and then Adair went down in
+a heap.
+
+He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+
+In the excitement of a fight--which is, after all, about the most
+exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life--it
+is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would
+have seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a
+fraction of an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked
+out. Mike could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on
+his feet again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength;
+and this time Adair went down and stayed down.
+
+"Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be
+sitting up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go
+on with the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to
+be continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+alterations and repairs first."
+
+"Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts
+before in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one
+on his own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+
+"_He's_ all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be skipping
+about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+pick flowers."
+
+Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking
+that Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his
+point of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much.
+At the same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten
+him. The feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in
+a fresh and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and
+had carried it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the
+deliverer of knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new
+acquaintance a man to be respected.
+
+The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized
+Mike's view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of
+him. Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive
+dignity, he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched
+kid. There had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of
+refusing to identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+
+It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass
+of himself.
+
+He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+entered the study.
+
+"How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting.
+He's not a bad cove."
+
+"He's all right," said Mike.
+
+There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way.
+I'm not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but
+everyone to his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get
+overwhelmingly attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems
+to have done it. He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up.
+It's not a bad idea in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him.
+Apparently he's been sweating since early childhood to buck the school
+up. And as he's leaving at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly
+scheme to give him a bit of a send-off, if possible, by making the
+cricket season a bit of a banger. As a start, why not drop him a line to
+say that you'll play against the M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+
+Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade
+Adair, to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to
+understand that you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your
+village team. You didn't, of course?"
+
+"Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+
+"I told him he didn't know the old _noblesse oblige_ spirit of the
+Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon
+by not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return
+to the point under discussion, why not?"
+
+"I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+
+"If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+unworthy company--"
+
+"Don't be an ass."
+
+"--Dismiss it. _I_ am playing."
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"You're _what? You_?"
+
+"I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+handkerchief.
+
+"Can you play cricket?"
+
+"You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+
+"You're rotting."
+
+"You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Then why haven't you played?"
+
+"Why haven't you?"
+
+"Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+
+"The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such
+shock to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing
+of that sort takes years off my life."
+
+"No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+cricket?"
+
+"Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season
+came, where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in
+the night."
+
+"But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked
+watching it."
+
+"Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have
+to overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a
+habit. Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little
+by little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against
+it, but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and
+drifted with the stream. Last year in a house match"--Psmith's voice
+took on a deeper tone of melancholy--"I took seven for thirteen in the
+second innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I
+had found a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow.
+What Comrade Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest
+archaeological disciple has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+
+Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole
+face of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the
+recalcitrant, wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here
+was Psmith, the last person whom he would have expected to be a player,
+stating calmly that he had been in the running for a place in the
+Eton eleven.
+
+Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of
+his place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off,
+each in his own way--Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to
+their respective natures--on Sedleigh.
+
+If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+stop Mike doing so, as--at the bottom of his heart--he wanted to do.
+
+"By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+Adair now. But, I say"--he stopped--"I'm hanged if I'm going to turn out
+and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+
+"That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+
+
+
+27
+
+IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+
+
+"Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+
+"During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your
+elbow was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't
+know. Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the
+game tomorrow."
+
+"I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+
+"Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see
+anybody downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to
+the shop, ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell
+the man to chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at
+tea is all right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to
+commit suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+
+On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+went out of the house.
+
+A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in
+earnest. Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At
+this rate," he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all
+tomorrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show
+what it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When
+Mike woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping.
+Leaden-colored clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace
+of blue to be seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle,
+determined way rain has when it means to make a day of it.
+
+It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin
+boots, crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+
+Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+gate.
+
+These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped--he could hardly walk
+on as if nothing had happened--and looked down at his feet.
+
+"Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+
+"Right ho!" said Adair.
+
+They walked on in silence.
+
+"It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+
+Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born
+of nervousness.
+
+"About nine to."
+
+"Good. We've got plenty of time."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I hate having to hurry over to school."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+
+"Yes. So do I."
+
+"Beastly nuisance when one does."
+
+"Beastly."
+
+"It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+should think, shouldn't you?"
+
+"Not much more. Might be three."
+
+"Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"Beastly day," said Adair.
+
+"Rotten."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+wrist."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+
+"Does it hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+
+"I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+smashed me anyhow."
+
+"Oh, rot."
+
+"I bet you anything you like you would."
+
+"I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+
+"Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+
+"Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+
+Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+
+"I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+
+"Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+
+"Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+
+"Good."
+
+"Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+season."
+
+"Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+
+"Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+
+"He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+year."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the time?" asked Mike.
+
+Adair produced his watch once more.
+
+"Five to."
+
+"We've heaps of time."
+
+"Yes, heaps."
+
+"Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+
+"Right ho!"
+
+Mike cleared his throat.
+
+"I say."
+
+"Hello?"
+
+"I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the--"
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower
+Borlock if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+
+"He never even asked me to get him a place."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+like getting other fellows away from the team."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+
+"Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+
+The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect
+on Mike's mind--shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He
+might have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had
+said, "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have
+led his hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little
+hole, isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived
+that the words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese
+principle. When a Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by
+belittling himself and his belongings.
+
+He eluded the pitfall.
+
+"What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+after the way you've sweated."
+
+Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+
+"I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't
+suppose I've done anything much."
+
+"You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+that's any comfort to you."
+
+"I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+aches."
+
+For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began
+to laugh.
+
+"What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+
+"_You_ were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky
+at present."
+
+"It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+interval, and hang about in case."
+
+"All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got
+math till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which
+won't hurt me."
+
+"He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+
+"I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing
+or a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're
+crocked, I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years
+to get the match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+
+"I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain,
+with you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending
+down much of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out,
+we've got a jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way
+through, and the bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this
+M.C.C. lot a really good hammering, it might have been easier to get
+some good fixtures for next season. You see, it's all right for a school
+like Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can't get the
+best teams to give you a match till you've done something to show that
+you aren't absolute rotters at the game. As for the schools, they're
+worse. They'd simply laugh at you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn
+last year. What would you have done if you'd had a challenge from
+Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or else had a
+fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+
+Mike stopped.
+
+"By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+
+"What! They wouldn't play us."
+
+"Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date.
+Shall I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they
+aren't strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+
+Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+
+"By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+
+
+
+28
+
+MR. DOWNING MOVES
+
+
+The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that
+there should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the
+first Sedleigh _v_. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+
+Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as
+soon as he was changed.
+
+"What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+
+The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+glad if Mike would step across.
+
+"A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A
+meal on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against
+your return."
+
+Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of
+simple pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle
+which had been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize
+for a solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed
+Mike with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+abusive comments on its inventor.
+
+He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+
+Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was
+agitated.
+
+"I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+"but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type.
+You come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies
+round the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+
+"The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+
+"Me, do you mean?"
+
+"What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+
+"You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+
+"I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+
+"What _are_ you talking about?"
+
+"That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+
+"Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type?
+What has he been doing to you?"
+
+"He's off his nut."
+
+"I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump
+at you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he
+say he was a teapot?"
+
+Mike sat down.
+
+"You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+
+"As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+
+"He thinks I did it."
+
+"Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+
+"The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as
+asked me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage
+later on if I behaved sensibly."
+
+"Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master
+wants you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't
+enough evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+stand-off."
+
+"Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for
+all he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain
+that I painted Sammy."
+
+"_Did_ you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+
+"No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+prove that I did."
+
+"Such as what?"
+
+"It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+
+"It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag
+you into it?"
+
+"He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+
+"Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining
+him. But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+
+"He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who
+hasn't got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know
+where the dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs,
+but one's being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym
+shoes. That's how he spotted me."
+
+Psmith sighed.
+
+"Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows
+the folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to
+save you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud,
+right in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you
+aren't, just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"What the dickens are you talking about?"
+
+"Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+
+"I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender
+and groping, "but--_Hello_!"
+
+"Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+
+Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+
+"It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+
+"It _is_," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+
+Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+
+"How on earth did--By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+must have been the paint pot."
+
+"Then you were out that night?"
+
+"Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell
+you now--"
+
+"Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+
+"Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up
+to his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+
+"This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's
+why he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+
+"Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+
+"And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're
+_absolutely_ certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any
+chance, in a moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No?
+No, I suppose not. I wonder who did!"
+
+"It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was
+why I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the
+chap he chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the
+same. I shall get landed both ways."
+
+Psmith pondered.
+
+"It _is_ a tightish place," he admitted.
+
+"I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it
+with disfavor.
+
+"Not for a pretty considerable time."
+
+"I suppose not. I say, I _am_ in the cart. If I can't produce this shoe,
+they're bound to guess why."
+
+"What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you
+and Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass
+rags? Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+
+"Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot,
+and I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said
+very well, then, he must take steps, and--well, that was about all."
+
+"Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+
+"I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+
+"Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his
+move will be?"
+
+"I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+
+"_He'll_ want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on confession.
+The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about the time
+the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing Round-and-round-the-
+mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs thought. You had
+better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the dandelions
+growing. I will think over the matter."
+
+"Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+
+"Possibly. You never know."
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+"See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a
+panel. Come in."
+
+A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+answered the invitation.
+
+"Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you
+he wants to see you."
+
+"I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+
+"Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+
+Mike got up.
+
+"All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you
+today." He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr.
+Jackson will be with him in a moment."
+
+The emissary departed.
+
+"_You're_ all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+
+With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+
+He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in
+his chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a
+moment straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his
+hat and moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at
+the same dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at
+Downing's front gate.
+
+The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight
+of him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+professional manner, passed away.
+
+"Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+
+He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+
+"An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+toward the painting.
+
+"Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+about?"
+
+"It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+his knee.
+
+
+
+29
+
+THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+
+
+The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not
+lead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between
+accuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a
+feeling that the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and
+conversation showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened
+brightly enough, with a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had
+laid before him, but after that a massive silence had been the order of
+the day. There is nothing in this world quite so stolid and
+uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mind to be stolid and
+uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat and looked at Mike, who
+sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt awkward. It was a scene
+which needed either a dramatic interruption or a neat exit speech. As it
+happened, what it got was the dramatic interruption.
+
+The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."--which was practically
+going back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knock
+at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," and
+the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+
+"I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but--"
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+
+"I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+Jackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."
+
+Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling
+of relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+wearing game to play--the headmaster with astonishment.
+
+"Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+
+"No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+
+Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog
+with red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They
+had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but
+anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it
+funny at first. After the first surprise, their feeling had been that it
+was a rotten thing to have done and beastly rough luck on the poor
+brute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply
+did not believe it.
+
+"Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy
+himself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+
+Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was
+done for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy
+it meant that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was
+not likely that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at
+Sedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if
+possible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar
+occasion. It seemed as if Fate had a special grudge against his best
+friends. He did not make friends very quickly or easily, though he had
+always had scores of acquaintances--and with Wyatt and Psmith he had
+found himself at home from the first moment he had met them.
+
+He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+
+Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+
+"Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er--if you are
+going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+
+"Come in," said the headmaster.
+
+It was Adair.
+
+"Yes, Adair?"
+
+Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+
+"It was about Sammy--Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+
+"Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+
+"It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+
+"No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing--"
+
+"It was Dunster, sir."
+
+Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to
+their fullest extent.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform
+him, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's
+confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal
+was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words
+of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted
+for his brain a side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people?
+Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas.
+And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that
+he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? He concentrated his mind
+on Adair as the only person who could save him from impending
+brain fever.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What--_what_ do you mean?"
+
+"It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes ago,
+in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog, sir, for a
+rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here to get into a
+row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at once. I tried to
+find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met Smith outside
+the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to see
+you, sir."
+
+"Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+Dunster?"
+
+"I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+
+"And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+
+"He laughed, sir."
+
+"_Laughed_!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+
+"Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+
+Mr. Downing snorted.
+
+"But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+
+"He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+night in the village."
+
+"And that was the night the--it happened?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to
+any boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if
+any boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to
+do it."
+
+"The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+
+"Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+write to him."
+
+"If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I
+cannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not
+do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his
+own accord and deliberately confessing?"
+
+"To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that
+I should like to see him."
+
+"If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+
+"In the hall!"
+
+"Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+
+"H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the
+room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of
+rain could be heard outside the window.
+
+Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+opened.
+
+"Mr. Smith, sir."
+
+The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with
+a gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+
+"It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+
+"Sit down, Smith."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided
+in favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself
+time has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+
+Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+
+"Smith."
+
+Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+
+"Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It was absolutely untrue?"
+
+"I am afraid so, sir."
+
+"But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+
+Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+
+"... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+
+Psmith sighed softly.
+
+"The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the
+present age."
+
+"What!" replied the headmaster.
+
+"It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has
+been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it
+is out of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of
+the most interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted.
+Human nature--"
+
+The headmaster interrupted.
+
+"Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+
+He made a motion toward the door.
+
+When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot
+on the floor.
+
+"Er ... Smith."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+again. Then he went on.
+
+"Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ...
+er ... severe illness? Any ... er ... _mental_ illness?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"There is no--forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject--there is
+no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+er ... have described?"
+
+"There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+
+"Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+mean to suggest--quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+impulse which you cannot explain?"
+
+"Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+
+Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+
+"Well, Smith?"
+
+"I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+
+"I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+
+"I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+
+"I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+existing between boy and--Well, never mind that for the present. We can
+return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say. I
+shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+
+"Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's
+dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it.
+That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain
+amount of confusion."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+"but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+"Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to
+time and cultivate him."
+
+Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+
+"Well?" said Mike.
+
+"You _are_ the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+
+"Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+
+"Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+
+"Not a thing."
+
+"Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+
+Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+
+"By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+
+"What's that?" asked Psmith.
+
+"Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+"They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+
+"Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+
+"And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what
+it is."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+you'd done it?"
+
+"The craving for--"
+
+"Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+
+Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+
+"My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe.
+I'm surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from
+Michael Jackson."
+
+"Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+was jolly good of you, too."
+
+Psmith moaned.
+
+
+
+30
+
+SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led
+on the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+
+Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be
+influenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more
+school matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type of
+school batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets his
+imagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,
+Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the most
+azure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adair had
+announced on the notice board that on Saturday, July the twentieth,
+Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on the jump. It was
+useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, on Mike's
+authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on their present
+form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but were not
+comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but then Wrykyn
+cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that this probably
+meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--there was a very
+firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh first eleven that the
+other school was quite strong enough to knock the cover off _them_.
+Experience counts enormously in school matches. Sedleigh had never been
+proved. The teams they played were the sort of sides which the Wrykyn
+second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, from time immemorial, had been
+beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters teams and M.C.C. teams packed
+with county men and sending men to Oxford and Cambridge who got their
+blues as freshmen.
+
+Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+
+It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and
+the wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during
+the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+
+Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the
+surroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes
+magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse
+almost invariably ensues.
+
+Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was
+expected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had
+played inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been
+caught at short slip off his second ball.
+
+That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed
+them to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out
+at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to
+half volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not
+equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven
+wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+
+Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he
+was undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total
+to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+seventy-nine.
+
+Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+thirty-one.
+
+This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team
+had looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair
+and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially
+Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with
+the tail.
+
+It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the
+game out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,
+having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their
+nervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in
+the first innings.
+
+It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if
+they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in
+the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so
+bad then that they easily might.
+
+So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.
+The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was
+bowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated
+all the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper
+frame of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the
+rest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a
+hundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one
+to Strachan at cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+
+As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+
+Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during
+which to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and
+go for a win on the first innings.
+
+At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he
+hit into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two
+runs later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over
+with a c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen
+for three, with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too
+dangerous. So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with
+caution, and the collapse ceased.
+
+This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter
+opened. Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the
+hands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had
+been tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's
+defence. They were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at
+the bad.
+
+A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which
+altered the game completely.
+
+"Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot.
+You can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+
+Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball
+from him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The
+next moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five.
+Adair was absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first
+ball right on the worn patch.
+
+Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion,
+while the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+
+There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic
+and without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground.
+There were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down.
+Sedleigh was on top again.
+
+The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+
+Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to
+the right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+
+After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+minutes in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+
+"When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at
+the shop."
+
+"He bowled awfully well."
+
+"Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this
+joyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give
+Sedleigh a fixture again next year?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+swamp them."
+
+"I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the
+thing started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten
+Wrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and
+work up to playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's
+all right, you see."
+
+"And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it
+would be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall
+we stagger?"
+
+They staggered.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***
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+    <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" name="linkgenerator" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      Mike and Psmith, by P.G. Wodehouse
+    </title>
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+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; }
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+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***</div>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MIKE AND PSMITH
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By P.G. Wodehouse
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      1909
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CONTENTS
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>&nbsp;</td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> 1 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> 2 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> 3 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PSMITH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> 4 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> 5 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          GUERRILLA WARFARE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> 6 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> 7 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> 8 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> 9 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> 10 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> 11 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> 12 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> 13 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> 14 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> 15 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ... AND FULFILLS IT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> 16 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PURSUIT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> 17 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> 18 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> 19 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> 20 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          A CHECK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> 21 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> 22 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> 23 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> 24 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ADAIR METHOD
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> 25 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> 26 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          CLEARING THE AIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> 27 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> 28 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING MOVES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> 29 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> 30 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In Evelyn Waugh's book <i>Decline and Fall</i> his hero, applying for a
+      post as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+      grades&mdash;leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+      Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+      class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one of
+      those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to put the
+      word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster qualified to
+      attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is a few more
+      Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted, that even at a
+      "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only drawback is that it
+      does not play the leading schools or the first-rate schools or even the
+      good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from Wrykyn (a "first-rate
+      school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading school") Sedleigh
+      naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike some time to adjust
+      himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher, accepted the change of
+      conditions with his customary equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books, <i>Psmith
+      in the City</i> and <i>Psmith, Journalist</i>, before becoming happily
+      married in <i>Leave It to Psmith</i>, but I have always thought that he
+      was most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play
+      to his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+      with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+      English school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous characters
+      to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton with the son
+      of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas,
+      and one night he told me about this peculiar schoolboy who dressed
+      fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one of the masters inquired
+      after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah and thinnah." It was all
+      the information I required in order to start building him in a star part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life, I
+      can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+      prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally prosperous
+      counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like Perry, in
+      appearing for the defense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must apologize, as I did in the preface to <i>Mike at Wrykyn,</i> for
+      all the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+      quite so much of it this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P.G. Wodehouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      1 &mdash; MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he might
+      have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr. Jackson
+      opened the envelope containing his school report and read the contents,
+      that the document in question was not exactly a paean of praise from
+      beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was late for
+      breakfast in the holidays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+      Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+      Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+      resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for the
+      jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in a
+      detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are&mdash;I've
+      been keeping everything hot for you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+      round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she always
+      did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing thoroughly.
+      She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they made centuries in
+      first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She would field out in the
+      deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at the net in the paddock,
+      though for the others, even for Joe, who had played in all five Test
+      Matches in the previous summer, she would do it only as a favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+      table and watched Mike eat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+      interested. "What did it say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't see&mdash;I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the
+      envelope. Father didn't say anything."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+      was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+      you were in his form."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any more
+      tea in that pot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+      you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+      make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He didn't mean it really, I <i>know</i> he didn't! He couldn't! You're
+      the best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i>. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+      first term you were there&mdash;even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good
+      as that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+      year or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off the
+      first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out at
+      the net now. Let's go and see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+      put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs retired
+      as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+      match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+      considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons now,
+      and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had filled
+      out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had the
+      strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple to him.
+      It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was beginning to find
+      his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own special invention, was
+      delighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+      Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+      returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+      prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+      responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+      fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the wrong
+      men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no light
+      thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+      hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+      information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with that
+      bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant nature.
+      Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his sons as
+      companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to ruffle the
+      placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was an unfailing
+      wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's sarcastic resume of
+      Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term, there had been
+      something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion that Mr. Jackson
+      had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike from Wrykyn unless
+      the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I want
+      to speak to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+      emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+      had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge that
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out&mdash;may
+      I bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen to
+      this report."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+      interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+      more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+      extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't anything really. I only happened&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+      cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+      several occasions, he paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'French bad; conduct disgraceful&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody rags in French."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody does much work in Math."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term&mdash;all speeches and
+      doubtful readings, and cruxes and things&mdash;beastly hard! Everybody
+      says so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+      declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire in
+      him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the same
+      effect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted a
+      public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+      understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him thrills
+      of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his habit to
+      regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an unbiased
+      eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as near the
+      extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in a clear
+      firm hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+      said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in its
+      envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall abide by what I said."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart thumped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+      somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+      their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment
+      the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+      to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+      when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+      normally easygoing man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason he
+      said very little now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name&mdash;one of
+      those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+      when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+      Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What had
+      Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they play?
+      What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps they didn't
+      even <i>play</i> cricket!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+      plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+      and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide his
+      sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+      Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit&mdash;boys work there. Young
+      Barlitt won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was
+      the vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+      into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+      much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+      of conversation were not Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he would
+      have liked to have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      2 &mdash; SEDLEIGH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+      pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up, opened
+      the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic and
+      vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if he
+      hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that Sedleigh
+      station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+      had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike was
+      feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And, so far
+      from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+      deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+      had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously incompetent
+      than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to the handle of
+      the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage van. He disliked
+      his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair. Also the boots he
+      wore. He hated the station, and the man who took his ticket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from Mike's
+      <i>distrait</i> air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up in
+      the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a goodish step, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here you are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+      was it you was going to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Outwood's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+      it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Worse luck," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+      absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a place
+      where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven, and
+      played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of arriving at
+      Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the bitter part of
+      it. He had never been in command. For the last two seasons he had been the
+      star man, going in first, and heading the averages easily at the end of
+      the season; and the three captains under whom he had played during his
+      career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby, and Henfrey, had always been
+      sportsmen to him. But it was not the same thing. He had meant to do such a
+      lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He had had an entirely new system of
+      coaching in his mind. Now it might never be used. He had handed it on in a
+      letter to Strachan, who would be captain in his place; but probably
+      Strachan would have some scheme of his own. There is nobody who could not
+      edit a paper in the ideal way; and there is nobody who has not a theory of
+      his own about cricket coaching at school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+      Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few overs,
+      might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended upon. There
+      was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn would have a
+      bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched athletic year for
+      the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless, and had lost both the
+      Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points. Sheen's victory in the
+      light weights at Aldershot had been their one success. And now, on top of
+      all this, the captain of cricket was removed during the Easter holidays.
+      Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and
+      all its works with a great loathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set in
+      a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country, but
+      almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and past
+      fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he caught
+      sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore an
+      unmistakably schoollike look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This must be Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+      directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by a
+      cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+      in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+      reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+      Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+      he reminded Mike of Smee in <i>Peter Pan</i>. He had the same eyebrows and
+      pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson?" he said mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a cup
+      of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You come
+      from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near Brindleford? It
+      is a part of the country which I have always wished to visit. I dare say
+      you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose at
+      Brindleford?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed him
+      one on a tray, said he had not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad to
+      have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England, and
+      it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose. A
+      deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+      1133-40&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+      after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+      visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+      Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+      unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful preservation.
+      It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and two and a half
+      wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the apse wall. It
+      will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present, Jackson, good-bye."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+      deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+      hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+      journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a little
+      hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+      he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+      Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had come
+      by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+      leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+      left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and fixed
+      it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he inspected Mike
+      in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible speck of dust
+      from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in a tired voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+      bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever sitting
+      down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these chairs as
+      mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That sort of idea.
+      My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      3 &mdash; PSMITH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led Astray
+      and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I don't
+      know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The boy&mdash;what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes! Why, are you new?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+      yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+      way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion to
+      write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+      P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for Smythe.
+      My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but I've
+      decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty. The
+      resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on the back
+      of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert (though I
+      hope you won't), or simply Smith, the <i>P</i> not being sounded. Compare
+      the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar miss-in-balk. See?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+      courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but a
+      babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse to
+      keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of the
+      first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+      boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+      bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze
+      on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. I was superannuated last term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bad luck."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+      scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a Balliol&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+      told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+      here to get a Balliol too. Do <i>you</i> know Barlitt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+      that I was sent here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you come from Crofton?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+      brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+      human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+      The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+      his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+      at least be tolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+      painful story. Now tell me yours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad reports."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+      every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen of it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+      will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to
+      be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+      collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+      companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+      Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+      Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+      and things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of a
+      stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+      grounds&mdash;he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man&mdash;and
+      I hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+      country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+      Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+      half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+      generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark you,
+      laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off cricket.
+      To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser leg, "was the
+      dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A noble game, but
+      a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field out at the nets
+      till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you are a blood at the
+      game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and so on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+      fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+      business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+      for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of pleasure.
+      To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were, was one way
+      of treating the situation, and one not without its meed of comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith approved the resolve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will search
+      the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive fossil
+      together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus improve our
+      minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't wonder if one
+      mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a bit of rabbit
+      shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade Outwood during our
+      brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the lynx-eyed contingent.
+      With tact we ought to be able to slip away from the merry throng of fossil
+      chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used to
+      break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+      interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+      nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+      Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+      and look."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+      either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This'll do us well," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+      couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung on a
+      nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You aren't going to collar it!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+      straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+      claims. This is practical socialism."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to pig
+      it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be alone.
+      It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a fatiguing day.
+      And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help me fetch up my box
+      from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various things in it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      4 &mdash; STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+      rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he preferred
+      to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that the wooden
+      bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was Mike who
+      wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who abstracted the key
+      from the door of the next study, though the idea was Psmith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what we
+      chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door unlocked
+      in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody comes
+      right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think with a
+      little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+      comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think you
+      could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks. We make
+      progress. We make progress."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+      tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+      turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+      insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the evening
+      meal?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something to
+      be at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+      dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+      this, I wonder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+      that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed, and
+      a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+      turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+      to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things to
+      say on the subject."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+      smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On his
+      face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+      stateliness to do the honors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues after
+      our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths. Let me
+      introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in appearance,
+      perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will doubtless come up
+      in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and harangued
+      Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these: 'It
+      might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+      yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+      might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said huskily,
+      'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and said,
+      'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to know what&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+      and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected by
+      his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival, you
+      find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not Spiller."
+      Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of tea. Spiller's
+      sad case had moved him greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it's beastly cheek."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went straight
+      to the root of the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller evaded the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+      studies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+      prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual and
+      the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place bagging
+      studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption that it is
+      impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a lesson to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here, I tell you what it&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if you
+      trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He said, 'I
+      couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the accelerator.' 'But
+      suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.'
+      So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot brake
+      after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I
+      give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and
+      the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realized the
+      possibility of somebody someday collaring your study, you might have
+      thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is,
+      you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as a surprise. The cry goes
+      round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He cannot cope with the
+      situation.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can't I! I'll&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+      Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's my
+      study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man of
+      Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you intend
+      to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade Jackson before
+      you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an insignificant-looking
+      little weed. And you <i>are</i> an insignificant-looking little weed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+      myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well all
+      go together."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined, Mike
+      sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he walked, and
+      now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by the wayside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently the
+      leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you have
+      already made friends."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+      study-claimer's shoulder&mdash;a proceeding violently resented by Spiller&mdash;"is
+      a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands before one
+      like some beautiful flower."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+      gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys
+      in my house friendly toward one another."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is the
+      heart of a little child."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak to
+      you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" began Spiller
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological Society
+      in the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+      disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+      chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+      be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+      induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over the
+      School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support. Boys
+      came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at times,
+      not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact that it
+      provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+      opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+      main, earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society. I&mdash;er&mdash;in
+      a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become a member?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+      down your name at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And Jackson's, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted. This
+      is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to join."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+      Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+      from the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be there, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Capital!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+      you could spare the time, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+      study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+      evenings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. Quite so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+      list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should have
+      spoken before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+      Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study. He
+      would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+      formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+      comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On Saturday, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+      "is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one of
+      these afternoons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      5 &mdash; GUERRILLA WARFARE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+      position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study with
+      the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than sitting
+      under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on Spiller; he
+      would not have appreciated it properly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you in
+      a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+      other before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+      permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we are
+      now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood is not
+      going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Made it jolly hot for them!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+      an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+      are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+      gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a reasonable
+      number of assailants in defense of the home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+      though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all right
+      while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+      admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at us
+      through the door, and we can lock that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And jam a chair against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>And</i>, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of
+      the nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+      cart."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the man,
+      Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind&mdash;such foresight!
+      such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+      rooms we're done&mdash;we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not the matron&mdash;Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+      there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+      afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+      followed a knocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+      parley with the man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+      vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood giggling
+      with his hands in his pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+      light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+      eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I <i>do</i> wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+      description&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mine is Psmith&mdash;P-s-m-i-t-h&mdash;one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The
+      object on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything downstairs.
+      You <i>are</i> chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his study? He's
+      making no end of a row about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of human
+      nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say that he
+      would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the glad throng?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. <i>I</i>
+      think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How many <i>will</i> there be, then?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+      don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+      has been bagged."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+      virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only thing
+      is we must get into the same dormitory."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+      come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with, say,
+      about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five&mdash;there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+      chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+      Outwood and stake out another claim."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+      he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must apologize for disturbing you, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to me
+      when they wish for my advice or help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+      Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+      very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling Jellicoe
+      kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson, Jellicoe and
+      myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it&mdash;I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And we can have the room, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly&mdash;certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that we
+      are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade Jellicoe for
+      his valuable assistance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The handle began to revolve again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+      one's leisure cruelly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+      come down," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The senior day room chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They want us to speak to them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+      down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as the
+      messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door open, I
+      think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what can we do
+      for you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+      the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+      black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll risk it," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+      to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been watching.
+      He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against the advancing
+      crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the weight and impetus
+      of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back, and Mike, stepping
+      into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at the
+      looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the first
+      shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body crashed against the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+      quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+      repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+      instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+      through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+      in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+      have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm and a
+      leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+      windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the flowerbed below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+      guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had pressed
+      against the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson. I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+      always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+      in the corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody hammered on the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bell rang in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+      "There's no harm in going out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+      evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+      attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was plain
+      that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's face
+      was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of garden mold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element. His
+      demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+      condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to Mike.
+      It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as you can."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+      been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky you
+      two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you into
+      the senior day room and scrag you there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but it
+      can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+      term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+      life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My nerves
+      are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce them to
+      hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign&mdash;the thing must
+      be settled at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it as
+      tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will try to
+      corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could fake up some
+      sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all the trouble
+      over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I don't propose to
+      be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose that we let them
+      come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this meeting with me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As a matter of fact&mdash;if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at all;
+      he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we have our
+      little wooden <i>châlet</i> to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+      Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+      moral support, but otherwise, <i>ne pas</i>. And now, as there won't be
+      anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write home
+      and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      6 &mdash; UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements of
+      the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for Dormitory
+      One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The rest of the
+      opposing forces were distributed among other and more distant rooms. It
+      was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be the rendezvous. As to
+      the time when an attack might be expected, it was unlikely that it would
+      occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went the round of the
+      dormitories at eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+      conducted in a subdued and <i>sotto voce</i> manner, or may we let
+      ourselves go a bit here and there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you&mdash;he sleeps miles
+      away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often rag
+      half the night and nothing happens."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment. What
+      would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of these
+      reckless youths!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+      stopping the show before it's half started."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up&mdash;I can hear it sizzling. I
+      quite agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as
+      well to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody
+      else who might interfere with our gambols?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is Barnes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Head of the house&mdash;a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson;
+      they rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+      pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+      vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again, closing the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+      they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+      following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+      would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+      his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+      by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+      directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated imitation
+      of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He would then&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of the
+      steps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson, the
+      man with the big brain!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+      three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+      examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+      made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+      across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+      Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+      finest purlers in the world's history."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they've got a torch&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then they'll
+      charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire into the
+      brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade Jellicoe's
+      jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not be amiss&mdash;we
+      will enmesh the enemy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will retire
+      to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe like an
+      asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at the top of
+      the steps, listening."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying experience,
+      especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential. Mike was tired
+      after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was jerked back to
+      wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle; the faintest
+      rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight giggle, succeeded by
+      a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe, too, had heard the noise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+      movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened the
+      door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic; he was
+      flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the true
+      artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+      enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard had
+      reached the second step.... In another moment&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CRASH!
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+      he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+      contents had got to the right address.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+      before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on the
+      nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he ran
+      amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but his left
+      went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick freed his
+      ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a sudden increase
+      in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good work that was
+      being put in by Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+      caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual kind
+      of housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+      over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+      each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+      secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+      that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+      rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that made
+      itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+      light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other dormitories,
+      roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport. They had
+      switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+      enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+      the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a gingerly
+      fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In the direction
+      of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord of a dressing
+      gown, was engaging the remaining three with a patient smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+      cord acutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+      to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having seized
+      and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again with the
+      cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the spectators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+      everywhere&mdash;on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+      passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+      inadvertently trod), on the floor&mdash;he ranged the room, sowing
+      destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this was
+      to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the garrison
+      armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a final rush
+      sent them through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+      in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood alone
+      in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had pitchforked him
+      so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time since his father had
+      given him his views upon school reports that morning in the Easter
+      holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped, outnumbered as he was,
+      that the enemy would come on again and not give the thing up in disgust;
+      he wanted more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+      action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+      combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+      forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back along
+      the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some clouded
+      cane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+      called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+      the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+      poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+      Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's&mdash;Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+      words; where you pick them up I can't think&mdash;not from me. Well, well,
+      I suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+      night, good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+      whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  <i>Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease.</i>
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      7 &mdash; ADAIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+      three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and wiry,
+      light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to running.
+      Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced eye saw that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was that
+      rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or the
+      passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected to
+      lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very different
+      thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that comes to the
+      top by sheer force of character and determination. He was not naturally
+      clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged resolution which had
+      carried him up the school, and landed him high in the Sixth. As a
+      cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had given him a good
+      eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had triumphed over her
+      failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of more trouble than most
+      people give to their life work he had made himself into a bowler. He read
+      the authorities, and watched first-class players, and thought the thing
+      out on his own account, and he divided the art of bowling into three
+      sections. First, and most important&mdash;pitch. Second on the list&mdash;break.
+      Third&mdash;pace. He set himself to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling
+      at his own pace and without any attempt at break, he could now drop the
+      ball on an envelope seven times out of ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+      expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could get
+      all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything but a
+      plumb wicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+      style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+      elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+      sprints and all the rest of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+      school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a small
+      school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him.
+      There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of them in
+      all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been influenced by
+      Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the effects of his
+      work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature to want to get
+      something which somebody else obviously values very much; and when it was
+      observed by members of his form that Adair was going to great trouble and
+      inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or fifteen, they
+      naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in those teams. The
+      consequence was that his form always played hard. This made other forms
+      play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair succeeded to the
+      captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year, Sedleigh, as Mr.
+      Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach to a cricket master
+      that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying, was a keen school. As
+      a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All it wanted now was opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness for
+      his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which really
+      is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average public-school boy
+      <i>likes</i> his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at Rugger and
+      Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry to leave, and
+      he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for any passionate,
+      deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather bad form than
+      otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the back, and cried,
+      "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old school, Jenkins! The
+      dear old school! The old place you love so!" he would feel seriously ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was the exception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead; his
+      guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia at one
+      end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant times Adair
+      had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to Sedleigh. The place
+      had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike, violently transplanted from
+      Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not to be mentioned in the same
+      breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the future, saw a colossal
+      establishment, a public school among public schools, a lump of human
+      radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars year after year without
+      ceasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+      not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+      want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+      keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+      should take its rank among <i>the</i> schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+      should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's in
+      the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years running. He
+      would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained his wrist. And
+      he plays fives jolly well!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+      from that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+      hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+      little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with his
+      form master during morning school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+      replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+      self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+      into the man's head; and when I <i>had</i> driven it in, he sent me out of
+      the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+      me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+      persecuted by scoundrels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+      pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+      mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+      all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Haven't you <i>ever</i> played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+      qualities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this afternoon
+      and seeing what you can do with a hard ball&mdash;if you can manage
+      without your little sister."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+      hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+      This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+      smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+      myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+      National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the Young
+      Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are being
+      carried back to the pavilion after your century against Loamshire&mdash;do
+      you play Loamshire?&mdash;we shall be grubbing in the hard ground for
+      ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty, Comrade Adair. A
+      Boy's Crossroads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+      brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair turned, and walked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+      same question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a general
+      resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable bullfinch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+      new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We want
+      keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy to be
+      keen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excellent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On archaeology."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing&mdash;for it was no less a celebrity&mdash;started, as one who
+      perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+      passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we went
+      singing about the house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently. "I
+      don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to interfere
+      with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly that in my
+      opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets him into
+      idle, loafing habits."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the principle
+      of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other boys, not
+      wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and going into low
+      public houses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+      Psmith, shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in my
+      opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stumped off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now <i>he's</i> cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+      getting ourselves disliked here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good job, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of a
+      lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      8 &mdash; MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+      Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+      with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+      of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+      resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+      And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings for
+      a Kindergarten <i>v</i>. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+      Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun shone,
+      and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and heard the
+      "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to Adair and
+      shouting, "I <i>will</i> be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three years,
+      and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to the
+      nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once or
+      twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the game
+      which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do not
+      make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers more
+      likely, by the law of averages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+      Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a Burgess,
+      but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three years'
+      experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He was a long
+      way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the others who
+      had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+      Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+      Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth&mdash;not
+      unlike what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy&mdash;but he knew how to
+      keep balls out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+      Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+      batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star at
+      Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+      repeat the experiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+      freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the scent
+      of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This is the
+      real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went up to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+      nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+      manner was offensively abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This net,"
+      it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+      embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge over
+      there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+      corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+      if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked away without a word.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with them
+      the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a poor
+      substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction shouting to
+      him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them hugely, but Mike
+      almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always possible to slip
+      away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked upon them as among
+      the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er with
+      the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the pleased
+      and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him round the
+      garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research struck a new note
+      in the history of that neglected science. He was amiable, but patronizing.
+      He patronized fossils, and he patronized ruins. If he had been confronted
+      with the Great Pyramid, he would have patronized that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+      expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+      old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+      let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+      absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+      putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may lie
+      on his back for a bit."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+      since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+      strolled away down the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+      Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+      Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+      are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement, I
+      can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+      there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound over
+      pebbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+      sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to the
+      music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to say, I
+      rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these naps by the
+      wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And Psmith, heaving the
+      comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has earned rest, lay down, with
+      his head against a mossy tree stump, and closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making centuries
+      in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up, jumped the
+      brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+      undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when you
+      meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in order that
+      you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread his way back
+      through the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on, and
+      trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity in
+      the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The dickens you&mdash;Why, you're Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair moustache.
+      Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could not place
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing you
+      seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my nesting
+      pheasants."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm frightfully sorry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course&mdash;I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made
+      fifty-eight not out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was that
+      you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+      are you doing down here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've left Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+      that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to inquire
+      the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of puttering
+      about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you off
+      for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart leaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he told how matters stood with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+      things"&mdash;Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague&mdash;"but
+      I could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+      get onto my bike&mdash;I've got it down here&mdash;and meet you anywhere
+      you liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my
+      hands off a bat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+      Lower Borlock&mdash;that's the name of the place&mdash;and I'll meet you
+      on the ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off
+      the London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+      Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want to
+      bring mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+      wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and told
+      the news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+      soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+      play for the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+      but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports. I'll
+      borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+      Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a newcomer
+      to the team, M. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      9 &mdash; THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+      position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+      gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+      fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+      it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+      substitute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+      Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+      arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with, proved
+      more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it grew
+      with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a master
+      ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his official
+      dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes. To Mr.
+      Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for the
+      school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should be
+      implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the healthy
+      boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+      by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+      unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+      "overtime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that it
+      was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to do
+      with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+      Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple of his
+      eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem of
+      Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe passport
+      to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket was good, but
+      to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+      of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+      vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+      Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+      the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+      members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+      seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+      Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+      Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye, Sammy
+      was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat, an
+      engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which was a
+      happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a tenor
+      voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+      Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+      two minutes' acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during French
+      lessons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We will now proceed to the painful details.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+      form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading of
+      the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+      according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+      for the disturbing of the peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today they were in very fair form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+      House, held up his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Red, with green stripes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Stone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+      right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard, and
+      the meeting had divided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+      Stone, sit down&mdash;Wilson, get back to your place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Si-<i>lence!</i> The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the
+      question."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be <i>quiet!</i> Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+      needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+      disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a show
+      of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+      out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+      are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, sir, the danger!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+      man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+      the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+      expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+      that are likely to fall on our heads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps like
+      the first fifteen have? They&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wilson, leave the room!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, <i>please</i>, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+      lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+      spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not right!
+      If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of this
+      flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be keen.
+      I...? What is that noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling from
+      a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were being
+      prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The sufferer
+      appeared to have a high voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+      near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+      rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the opposite
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well&mdash;be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+      Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you making that whining noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>sort</i> of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had
+      asked before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just
+      such a case as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+      can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+      "Perhaps that's it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+      sometimes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence! Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+      shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like an
+      excited kangaroo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+      to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between the
+      two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in time to
+      see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin worrying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chaos reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+      dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+      Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+      stirring, bustling scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+      standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all the
+      other noises till in time they gave up the competition and died away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of a
+      Bren gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+      punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+      same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+      will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+      end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain. <i>Quietly</i>,
+      I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that abominable way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crash!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement of
+      your hand&mdash;one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting dispersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+      conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk, so
+      I came in&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+      "the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came in,
+      too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to let
+      him go, and he came in after the rat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+      both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr. Downing
+      liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade, frivolous
+      at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept wicket for
+      the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society, and had
+      refused to play cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun, and
+      paid very little for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+      Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+      it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend their
+      time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen school;
+      this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time. That will
+      do, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+      has a habit of getting the last word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      10 &mdash; ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+      wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+      room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and borrowings
+      to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as something of a
+      blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody. The
+      fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a quid.
+      You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have got, so
+      don't be shy about paying it back."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+      gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+      meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+      Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+      ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+      was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+      Jellicoe&mdash;why on earth did the man want all that?&mdash;meant that,
+      unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the
+      desired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+      regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had made
+      a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a sufficiently
+      softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be stated at once, he
+      did, by return of post.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter&mdash;he was
+      never a very ready writer&mdash;when Stone and Robinson burst into the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+      the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+      Robinson was laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair. Mike's
+      heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was a thing
+      of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius Caesar. He
+      felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and appreciate one
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+      Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+      public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain. They
+      had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits. They
+      looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones and
+      Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about, loud
+      and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to other
+      people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out the
+      tea things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those Fire Brigade meetings," said Stone, "are a rag. You can do what you
+      like, and you never get more than a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you!" said Mike. "I got Saturday afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Wilson in too?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. He got a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What a beastly swindle!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'We are, above all, a keen school,'" quoted Stone. "Don't you ever play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have played a bit," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why on earth did you leave?" asked Stone. "Were you sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. My father took me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn?" said Robinson. "Are you any relation of the Jacksons there&mdash;J.W.
+      and the others?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brother."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, didn't you play at all there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and Robinson
+      nearly dropped his teacup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone broke the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But I mean to say&mdash;look here? What I mean is, why aren't you
+      playing? Why don't you play now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do. I play for a village near here. Place called Lower Borlock. A man
+      who played against Wrykyn for the Free Foresters captains them. He asked
+      me if I'd like some games for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why not for the school?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why should I? It's much better fun for the village. You don't get ordered
+      about by Adair, for a start."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair sticks on side," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough for six," agreed Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," said Stone, "I've got an idea. My word, what a rag!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's wrong now?" inquired Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, look here. Tomorrow'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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bat. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson rocked on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, old Downing fancies himself as a bowler. You <i>must</i> play, and
+      knock the cover off him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Masters don't play in house matches, surely?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This isn't a real house match. Only a friendly. Downing always turns out
+      on Mid-Term Service Day. I say, do play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Think of the rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the team's full," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The list isn't up yet. We'll nip across to Barnes's study, and make him
+      alter it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They dashed out of the room. From down the passage Mike heard yells of "<i>Barnes</i>!"
+      the closing of a door, and a murmur of excited conversation. Then
+      footsteps returning down the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes appeared, on his face the look of one who has seen visions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "is it true? Or is Stone rotting? About Wrykyn, I mean."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I was in the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his <i>Wisden</i>, and he
+      had an immense respect for Wrykyn cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the M. Jackson, then, who had an average of fifty-one point
+      naught three last year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes's manner became like that of a curate talking to a bishop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "then&mdash;er&mdash;will you play against Downing's
+      tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      11 &mdash; THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 noncricketing boy for nearly a month that (<i>a</i>) the school is
+      above all a keen school, (<i>b</i>) that all members of it should play
+      cricket, and (<i>c</i>) that by not playing cricket he is ruining his
+      chances in this world and imperiling 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing assumed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was walking to the field with Adair and another member of his team when
+      he came upon Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" he cried. "Our Jackson clad in suit of mail and armed for the
+      fray!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Mr. Downing's No. 2 manner&mdash;the playful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 today. It is the right spirit, sir,"
+      said Psmith earnestly. "I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed, Smith? You are not playing yourself, I notice. Your enthusiasm
+      has bounds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In our house, sir, competition is fierce, and the Selection Committee
+      unfortunately passed me over."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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 groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. The latter's reformation had dated from
+      that moment.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In stories of the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new boy,
+      who has been found crying in the changing 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;in his walk, in the way he took guard, in his stand at
+      the wicket. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike started cautiously. He was more than usually anxious to make runs
+      today, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first over was a maiden, six dangerous balls beautifully played. The
+      fieldsmen changed over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general interest had now settled on the match between Outwood's and
+      Downing's. The facts in Mike's case had gone around 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Off the first ball of the master's over a leg-bye was run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when delivered, was billed to
+      break from leg, but the program was subject to alterations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His treatment of Adair's next over was freer. He had got a sight of the
+      ball now. Halfway 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crowd was now reluctantly dispersing to its own games, but it stopped
+      as Mr. Downing started his minuet-cakewalk, in the hope that it might see
+      something more sensational.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time the hope was fulfilled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was returned on the installment system by helpers from other games, and
+      the bowler began his maneuvers 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get to them, Jenkins," said Mr. Downing irritably, as the ball came back
+      from the boundary. "Get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't talk in the field, Jenkins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor. He charged up to the wicket as a
+      wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea now was to bowl
+      fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be
+      batting, if you can manage it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And a shrill small voice, from the neighborhood of the pavilion, uttered
+      with painful distinctness the words, "Take him off!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was how the most sensational day's cricket began that Sedleigh had
+      known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 lunchtime with a score of eleven. Mike had
+      then made a hundred and three.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      As Mike was taking off his pads in the pavilion, Adair came up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why did you say you didn't play cricket?" he asked abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been bowling the whole morning, and bowling well, without the
+      slightest success, one is inclined to be abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike finished unfastening an obstinate strap. Then he looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was silent for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you play for us against the Old Sedleighans tomorrow?" he said at
+      length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tossed his pads into his bag and got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Above it, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not keeping you, am I?" said Mike, politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 favoritism. And the dislike
+      deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely individuals. On
+      occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other houses were
+      accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr. Downing distributed his
+      thunderbolts unequally, and the school noticed it. The result was that not
+      only he himself, but also&mdash;which was rather unfair&mdash;his house,
+      too, had acquired a good deal of unpopularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" said Robinson. "Great Scot, what on earth are you talking
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. "I never saw
+      such a chump."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?" suggested Barnes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I won't then," said Barnes unhappily. "Only you know they're rather
+      sick already."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you worry about that," said Stone with a wide grin. "They'll be a
+      lot sicker before we've finished."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are the things which mark epochs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>our</i>
+      innings." Some even began to edge toward the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gray dismay settled on the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score, too,
+      was mounting steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery," snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fifty
+      went up on the board. "Barnes!" he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is absurd. You must declare your innings closed. The game has become
+      a farce."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare! Sir, we can't unless Barnes does. He might be awfully annoyed if
+      we did anything like that without consulting him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Absurd."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's very touchy, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is perfect foolery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The writing on it was as follows:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  OUTWOOD'S <i>v</i>. DOWNING'S
+
+  <i>Outwood's. First innings</i>.
+
+  J.P. Barnes, <i>c</i>. Hammond, <i>b</i>. 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      12 &mdash; THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, leaning against the mantlepiece, discoursed in a desultory way on
+      the day's happenings&mdash;the score off Mr. Downing, the undeniable
+      annoyance of that battered bowler, and the probability of his venting his
+      annoyance on Mike next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't care," murmured Mike, shifting his aching limbs in the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't deserve to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith smoothed his hair at the glass and turned round again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This interested Mike, tired as he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Three quid!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Three crisp, crackling quid. He wanted four."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 <i>me</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I got some from my brother at Oxford."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you asleep, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe. I can't get to sleep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor can I. I'm stiff all over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll come over and sit on your bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking, and then a weight descended in the neighborhood of
+      Mike's toes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you&mdash;oh, nothing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All sorts of things. Especially my father. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I don't know. So would mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody's would, I expect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bed creaked, as Jellicoe digested these great thoughts. Then he spoke
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would be a jolly beastly thing to get sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?" he said. "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you'd say, 'Hello!' And then they'd say, 'What are you doing here?'
+      And you'd say&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About what would happen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Happen when?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When you got home. After being sacked, you know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's been sacked?" Mike's mind was still under a cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dozed off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello! What's the matter? Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I asked you if you'd got any sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose sisters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yours. I asked if you'd got any."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation was becoming too intricate for Jellicoe. He changed the
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, you don't know anyone who could lend me a pound, do you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" cried Mike, sitting up in bed and staring through the darkness in
+      the direction whence the numismatist's voice was proceeding. "Do <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, look out. You'll wake Psmith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say you wanted someone to lend you a quid?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Jellicoe eagerly. "Do you know anyone?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth do you want a pound for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want to tell anybody. But it's jolly serious. I shall get sacked
+      if I don't get it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bob's postal order which had arrived that evening, was reposing in the
+      breast pocket of his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a wrench, but, if the situation was so serious with Jellicoe, it
+      had to be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      13 &mdash; JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;who is that shuffling his feet? I will not have it, I <i>will</i>
+      have silence&mdash;you must hang back in order to make a more effective
+      entrance, like some wretched actor who&mdash;I will <i>not</i> have this
+      shuffling. I have spoken of this before. Macpherson, are you shuffling
+      your feet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Parsons?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's the noise of the draft under the door, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was through one of these batsmen that an accident occurred which had a
+      good deal of influence on Mike's affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When "Heads!" was called on the present occasion, Mike and Jellicoe
+      instantly assumed the crouching attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bright-blazered youth walked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry, you know. Hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was pressing the injured spot tenderly with his fingertips,
+      uttering sharp howls whenever, zeal outrunning discretion, he prodded
+      himself too energetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silly ass, Dunster," he groaned, "slamming about like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry. But I did yell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's swelling up rather," said Mike. "You'd better get over to the house
+      and have it looked at. Can you walk?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe tried, but sat down again with a loud "Ow!" At that moment the
+      bell rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall have to be going in," said Mike, "or I'd have helped you over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you a hand," said Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      14 &mdash; MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found Psmith
+      seated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Return of the exile," said Psmith. "A joyful occasion tinged with
+      melancholy. Have a cherry?&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is your name Jackson?" inquired Dunster, "because Jellicoe wants to see
+      you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas, poor Jellicoe!" said Psmith. "He is now prone on his bed in the
+      dormitory&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Smith and I," said Dunster, "were at prep school together. I'd no
+      idea I should find him here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You still jaw as much as ever, I notice," said the animal delineator,
+      fondling the beginnings of his moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "More," sighed Psmith, "more. Is anything irritating you?" he added,
+      eyeing the other's maneuvers with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You needn't be a funny ass, man," said Dunster, pained; "heaps of people
+      tell me I ought to have it waxed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What it really wants is top-dressing with guano. Hello! another man out.
+      Adair's bowling better today than he did yesterday."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;Adair's
+      bowling is perfectly simple if you go out to it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Dunster went out to it first ball," said Psmith to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What was it Jellicoe wanted?" asked Mike; "was it anything important?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He seemed to think so&mdash;he kept telling me to tell you to go and see
+      him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I fear Comrade Jellicoe is a bit of a weak-minded blitherer&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you ever hear of a rag we worked off on Jellicoe once?" asked
+      Dunster. "The man has absolutely no sense of humor&mdash;can't see when
+      he's being rotted. Well, it was like this&mdash;hello! We're all out&mdash;I
+      shall have to be going out to field again, I suppose, dash it! I'll tell
+      you when I see you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall count the minutes," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stretched himself; the sun was very soothing after his two hours in
+      the detention room; he felt disinclined for exertion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;don't interrupt
+      too much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tilted his hat over his eyes and abandoned Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike found him in a condition bordering on collapse. "I say, you might
+      have come before!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up? I didn't know there was such a hurry about it&mdash;what did
+      you want?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good now," said Jellicoe gloomily; "it's too late, I shall get
+      sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about? What's the row?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's about that money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had to pay it to a man today, or he said he'd write to the Head&mdash;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&mdash;it's too late now!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's face fell. "Oh, hang it!" he said, "I'm awfully sorry. I'd no idea
+      it was anything like that&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It doesn't matter," said Jellicoe miserably; "it can't be helped."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it can," said Mike. "I know what I'll do&mdash;it's all right. I'll
+      get out of the house after lights-out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe sat up. "You can't! You'd get sacked if you were caught."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe's face.
+      "I say, do you think you could, really?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course I can! It'll be rather a rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, it's frightfully decent of you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What absolute rot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But look here, are you certain&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall be all right. Where do you want me to go?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lower Borlock?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, do you know it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather! I've been playing cricket for them all the term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you? Do you know a man called Barley?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barley? Rather&mdash;he runs the White Boar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's the chap I owe the money to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Barley!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall bike there, I think," he said, "if I can get into the shed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school's bicycles were stored in a shed by the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Got it on you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith's got it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll get it from him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't tell Smith why you want it, will you? I don't want anybody to know&mdash;if
+      a thing once starts getting about it's all over the place in no time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right, I won't tell him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, thanks most awfully! I don't know what I should have done, I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      15 &mdash; ... AND FULFILLS IT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mike pedaled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job done without
+      delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a
+      certain number of hours' sleep a day&mdash;I cannot recall for the moment
+      how many&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;standing
+      out black and mysterious against the light sky&mdash;and the rows of
+      silent cottages, until he came to the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out&mdash;it was
+      sometime past eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Mike had waited for a few minutes there was a rattling of chains and
+      a shooting of bolts and the door opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said the boots, appearing in his shirt sleeves. "Why, 'ello!
+      Mr. Jackson, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to see Mr. Barley, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's bin' in bed this half hour back, Mr. Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must see him. Can you get him down?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boots looked doubtful. "Roust the guv'nor outer bed?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike quite admitted the gravity of the task. The landlord of the White
+      Boar was one of those men who need a beauty sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish you would&mdash;it's a thing that can't wait. I've got some money
+      to give to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, if it's <i>that</i> ..." said the boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes later mine host appeared in person, looking more than usually
+      portly in a check dressing gown and red bedroom slippers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can pop off, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exit boots to his slumbers once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Mr. Jackson, what's it all about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jellicoe asked me to come and bring you the money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The money? What money?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What he owes you; the five pounds, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The five&mdash;" 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh dear!" he said, "Oh dear! The five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You might tell us the joke."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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
+      ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was reading the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear Mr. Barley," it ran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was some more to the same effect; it was signed "T.G. Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's it all about?" said Mike, finishing this curious
+      document.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she's the worst of the two, always up to it, she is&mdash;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&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded to scale this water pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had got about halfway up when a voice from somewhere below cried,
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      16 &mdash; PURSUIT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was the exact remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereby Mike recognized him as the school sergeant. "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was
+      that militant gentleman's habitual way of beginning a conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the sound of footsteps returning, this time at a walk. They passed
+      the gate and went on down the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pursuer had given the thing up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;twelve, he supposed&mdash;on
+      the school clock. He would wait till a quarter past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other appeared startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who the dickens is that?" he asked. "Is that you, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here. Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you, if it comes to that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was adjusting his front light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going for the doctor. One of the chaps in our house is bad."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just been for a stroll."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be getting back?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose you think you're doing something tremendously brave and
+      dashing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be going to the doctor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you want to know what I think&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't. So long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+      for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+      hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked in that direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+      news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members of
+      Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of acute
+      illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy in the
+      event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get jumpy
+      beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with MacPhee, as
+      a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct and legitimate
+      result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three doughnuts, two ices, an
+      apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the lot down with tea. But Mr.
+      Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of some deadly scourge which
+      would sweep through and decimate the house. He had dispatched Adair for
+      the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes prowling restlessly about
+      his room, was now standing at his front gate, waiting for Adair's return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction of
+      home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by being
+      hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you, Adair?"
+      The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow&mdash;a
+      flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+      grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+      Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+      an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+      sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and, if
+      Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in the
+      first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept ahead.
+      At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards. The
+      procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he was
+      accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of it
+      which had ever illumined his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at Sedleigh,
+      had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into the school
+      officially&mdash;in speeches from the dais&mdash;by the headmaster, and
+      unofficially&mdash;in earnest private conversations&mdash;by Mr. Downing,
+      that at the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every
+      member of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way,
+      and make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+      it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the school
+      had its orders&mdash;to get out into the open at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this feat.
+      Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board to the
+      effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that day.
+      Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the occasion
+      when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had said, "My
+      house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which the
+      Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened the
+      hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr. Downing
+      having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and poured a
+      stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty to turn his
+      attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was his private
+      study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in a miniature
+      lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for realism, and
+      fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most part, of
+      "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes, kept in
+      the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the dormitory
+      would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other end being
+      fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using his elbows
+      as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and these two,
+      standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the rest of the
+      dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except to their
+      digestions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken a
+      rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+      among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+      to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+      headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+      the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient unto
+      the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to ring at
+      night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine alarm of
+      fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+      end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up the
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash that
+      his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his pursuer off
+      for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the rope and tug
+      it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them, and in the
+      subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+      chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+      strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+      length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+      Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in the
+      Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded the
+      pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put all he
+      knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the effort. He
+      worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike reached the
+      gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As far as Mike could judge&mdash;he was not in a condition to make nice
+      calculations&mdash;he had about four seconds in which to get busy with
+      that bell rope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+      than he did then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+      first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+      from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+      on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+      housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum, as
+      if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school was awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      17 &mdash; THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at Outwood's&mdash;since
+      Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had been received as
+      brothers by the center of disorder, so that even Spiller was compelled to
+      look on the hatchet as buried&mdash;and gave his views on the events of
+      the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning, for it was nearer one
+      than twelve when peace had once more fallen on the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+      surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+      unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+      in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+      school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got so
+      accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort of
+      affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants can
+      give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind is
+      likely to take place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+      meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+      had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+      the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath against
+      the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood. He hobbled
+      about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+      Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over matter.
+      He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a Boneless
+      Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone gurgled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag, I
+      began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+      about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+      particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+      the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+      knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing a
+      thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved again,
+      time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say Comrade
+      Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency to which
+      he has brought us. At any rate I hope&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+      member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+      Sam! Sam!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+      Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed in a
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+      covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+      was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+      weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and wagging
+      his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular dog, and was
+      always well received when he visited any of the houses, but he had never
+      before met with enthusiasm like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's been happening to him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who did it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems to
+      have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up like
+      that!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+      scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+      wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through his
+      eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either have to
+      skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great Healer. In a
+      year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why you shouldn't
+      have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of distinction to the
+      place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see him. By charging a
+      small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think I'll suggest it to
+      Comrade Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+      philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+      soon. It's a quarter to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+      going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing to
+      his ankle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+      frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jolly nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+      somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. But, I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the matter now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+      He'll be frightfully sick."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+      What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+      course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      18 &mdash; MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+      junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+      boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+      seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+      the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his reason
+      for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who&mdash;" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, he came in like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+      find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+      Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+      Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+      As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+      impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+      difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open, escaped
+      and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all and sundry.
+      You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to your own
+      premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this becomes out of
+      the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private trouble into a row.
+      Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction that Sammy had taken,
+      only, instead of running about the road, he went straight to the
+      headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his pajamas
+      and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a cold in the
+      head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in spite of his
+      strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous night in order to
+      test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves in the event of
+      fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed as the latter
+      related the events which had led up to the ringing of the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school, you
+      think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Was he wearing a school cap?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+      hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very big."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You did not see his face?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was dark and he never looked back&mdash;he was in front of me all the
+      time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is another matter ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the bell&mdash;he
+      had painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He&mdash;he&mdash;<i>what</i>,
+      Mr. Downing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted my dog red&mdash;bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+      anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+      wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+      shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of a
+      malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to ridicule
+      to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his dog,
+      he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there was
+      something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the boy
+      who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall after
+      chapel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal to
+      come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the school,
+      with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly reminded of
+      Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a wild screech of
+      laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr. Downing
+      was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal discovered,
+      he would have to discover him for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and Fate,
+      feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing, gave him
+      a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a needle in a
+      haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of being set to
+      find it in a mere truss of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+      archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at close
+      on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+      attempting to get into his house <i>via</i> the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+      whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+      cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded politeness
+      and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some reflections on
+      the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed it on to Mr.
+      Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant that
+      he interrupted him before&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He had broken out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+      dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+      asleep&mdash;all of them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
+      and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his colleague's
+      slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had narrowed itself
+      down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively easy. Perhaps Sergeant
+      Collard had actually recognized the boy. On reflection he dismissed this
+      as unlikely, for the sergeant would scarcely have kept a thing like that
+      to himself; but he might very well have seen more of him than he, Downing,
+      had seen. It was only with an effort that he could keep himself from
+      rushing to the sergeant then and there, and leaving the house lunch to
+      look after itself. He resolved to go the moment that meal was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+      functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+      snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+      still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+      helping, found himself at liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions in
+      the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr. Downing
+      arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+      were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+      ensure privacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+      unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a boy
+      endeavoring to enter his house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did, sir&mdash;spotted
+      'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of Connaught, he
+      used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to say, ''e's feeflee
+      good at spottin'.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+      there?'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you didn't catch him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him&mdash;feeflee
+      fast 'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You noticed nothing else?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+      caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+      feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+      considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon to you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything of
+      the kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+      pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant Collard,
+      having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a walk at once,
+      and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the 'ead, if he
+      persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over his face,
+      rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      19 &mdash; THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses,
+      success in the province of detective work must be, to a very large extent,
+      the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of
+      straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got to have it taken
+      out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a label attached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing
+      manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator, but, as a
+      matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not
+      even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard bungler. We should
+      simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes, how...?" and all the
+      rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+      do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the humdrum
+      round of life without having to measure footprints and smile quiet,
+      tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he thinks
+      naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and had
+      thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but, now
+      that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled to
+      admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of Watson's
+      inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard, he
+      thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant Collard, to
+      detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the crime. As he
+      brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor Watson increased
+      with every minute, and he began to feel a certain resentment against Sir
+      Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir Arthur to be so shrewd
+      and infallible about tracing a mystery to its source, but he knew
+      perfectly well who had done the thing before he started!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+      the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+      problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+      got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+      Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+      thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+      been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a boy
+      and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at twelve
+      o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie&mdash;I was
+      out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+      animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you. It
+      is practically stalemate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+      down the cricket field that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+      is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+      lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard thinking,
+      Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once more
+      intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of his
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+      they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+      air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something particularly
+      shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his bicycle from the
+      shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him irritable.
+      "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+      blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason as
+      a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he wanted
+      his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+      miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+      Sunday afternoons during the term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+      shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it was.
+      What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy soul
+      and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The greater
+      part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea of red
+      paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in the
+      middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+      footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+      plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+      Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle from
+      the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt, leaving
+      Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the detective, to
+      lock the door and resume his perambulation of the cricket field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+      Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+      professional sleuth might have envied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+      decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+      had done the deed of decoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yoicks!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+      must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+      upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been giving
+      a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring box at
+      the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was the direct
+      outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled into him.) In
+      that case the footmark might be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note one</i>: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+      contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor for
+      the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+      contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair went
+      into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note two</i>: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to
+      the house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Things were moving.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+      from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+      watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his house
+      in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the time for
+      reading in deck chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if you
+      found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house last night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+      and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+      You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened to
+      tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+      go into the shed at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+      Markby live?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a second.
+      It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the right as you
+      turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is the first you
+      come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to Markby
+      for a moment on a small matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+      the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+      blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Markby!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion last
+      night after the match?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+      scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So I
+      thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+      Marylebone come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the pot
+      of paint when you had finished?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+      whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you want it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+      business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the floor,
+      with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had better
+      get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I wished to know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+      the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+      successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he had
+      to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house&mdash;the idea of searching a
+      fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+      somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+      exist as a man capable of resenting liberties&mdash;find the
+      paint-splashed shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the
+      headmaster. There could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in
+      Mr. Outwood's house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint
+      without showing some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that
+      the shoe would not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This
+      really was beginning to be something like business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+      fast as he could walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      20 &mdash; A CHECK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+      were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+      the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+      other. Psmith&mdash;for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend&mdash;was
+      wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+      keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+      tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+      Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+      the effort to nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+      window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+      philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of leisure. Hello!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+      bought the place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+      this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he may
+      sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to them.
+      Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair and book?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+      ground."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+      his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+      who has lost his bearings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I&mdash;er&mdash;wish to go round the dormitories."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything, so
+      he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the rooms
+      are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+      sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron being
+      out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined the
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+      An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy, I
+      understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all to
+      himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a cubic
+      foot of air in vain. He argues justly&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in silence.
+      Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think he's
+      out in the field."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+      the exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+      awed whisper, "is where <i>I</i> sleep!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+      remarks to yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They moved on up the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+      waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The studies, Smith," he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+      unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+      Here we have&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This is
+      Barnes's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+      gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to our
+      general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+      window attracted his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+      distant hills ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe at
+      the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen climbing
+      the pipe must have been making for this study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+      Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+      not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+      unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody else comes into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+      precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+      And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just about
+      Jackson's size and build!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+      the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in his
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+      causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+      moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+      achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+      and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I should
+      say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket, downstairs.
+      Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I believe, at early
+      dawn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I know Edmund, sir&mdash;no."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+      basket to me here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly was
+      at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did not
+      know. But that there was something, and that that something was directed
+      in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with last night's
+      wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on leaving his bed at
+      the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe were alone in the room.
+      That might mean that Mike had gone out through the door when the bell
+      sounded, or it might mean that he had been out all the time. It began to
+      look as if the latter solution were the correct one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while that
+      it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study floor. Mr.
+      Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the wall, and
+      straightened out the damaged garment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various bootings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+      task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside the
+      basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+      feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn on
+      being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered footgear,
+      whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as he did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+      here. You can carry it back when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I carry it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing reflected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+      on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+      undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but when
+      a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on the
+      following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint splashed
+      shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name inside the
+      shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was only a few
+      miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was Mike's shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come with me, then."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+      shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+      certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+      You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+      Mr. Outwood's house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have the shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+      look at&mdash;This, you say, is the&mdash;? Just so. Just so. Just ...
+      But, er, Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+      sufficient care, but&mdash;Can <i>you</i> point out to me exactly where
+      this paint is that you speak of?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+      suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and entirely
+      innocent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      21 &mdash; THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+      Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+      is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+      expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+      affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of some
+      kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there was
+      a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in this.
+      Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Do you mean to tell me that you did <i>not</i> see it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+      across the toe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace of
+      paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy, not
+      uncommon. Any doctor will tell you&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably subject&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+      positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you say, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly out
+      of a trance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You had better be careful, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+      Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On one
+      occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I can
+      assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic cleaning
+      before all traces are removed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+      effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+      the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+      momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects, he
+      did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+      consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+      moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+      mistake...."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the only
+      explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared
+      with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few
+      minutes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I go
+      now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+      Cicero's speech <i>De senectute</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith. It
+      is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+      Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith without
+      a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly smile,
+      left the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road between
+      the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw what, if they
+      had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle of Psmith
+      running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified walk. He
+      believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease of
+      his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's gate,
+      bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the top
+      of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+      bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair and
+      panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+      matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+      time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+      and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+      shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+      two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage, and
+      Mr. Downing appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+      another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it had
+      occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's garden.
+      Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse would be to
+      do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling aggrieved with
+      himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too, hurried over to
+      Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh, laid
+      down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers, and
+      watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That thing, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+      eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+      his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+      shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+      complaint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, read if you like."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly irritated,
+      pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the second
+      search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as certain
+      as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence was
+      somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank where it
+      was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with evasive
+      answers was quite out of the common.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even for
+      so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be acquitted,
+      on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+      that there was the place to look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is in this cupboard?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That cupboard, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+      perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Open it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Unlock it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But where is the key, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you not got the key?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+      take a long search to find it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where did you see it last?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+      thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+      from me. I shall break open the door."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard happens
+      to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his permission. He
+      is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am only the acting
+      manager."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule did
+      not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were limits to
+      the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house without his
+      permission and search it to a certain extent was all very well. But when
+      it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+      study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+      house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+      alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the room,
+      he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+      thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+      convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+      standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring into
+      vacancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at all?
+      If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that the
+      cupboard was not tampered with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good enough
+      to come here for a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      22 &mdash; MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+      making any movement in the direction of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Quick</i>, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+      conundrum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith still made no move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+      was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if at
+      any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+      stripling!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+      almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he said
+      did not keep up the standard of docility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+      Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a master. In&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+      place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+      your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+      Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+      ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+      cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+      cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+      garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+      crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for the
+      Empire that the jibboom spanker <i>should</i> be spliced at that
+      particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+      matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my case.
+      If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand, and come
+      back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him to be good
+      enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad to go and
+      find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+      cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+      did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+      shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+      Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+      end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+      the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+      bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+      pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened to
+      the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to this, and
+      let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had stopped
+      swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it up
+      the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and washed
+      off the soot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr. Outwood,
+      the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+      intellectual pressure of the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have been washing my hands, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+      cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it perfectly
+      clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes in
+      a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+      good-gracious-has-the-man-<i>no</i>-sense look on the other's face, "Why
+      he should not do so if he wishes it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+      attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+      painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+      shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+      to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+      sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if he
+      had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+      propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any objection?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, <i>what</i>
+      is it you wish to do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+      used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the rest
+      of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing seized one
+      of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door. The wood
+      splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard, with any
+      skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you," he said. "I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+      for it for days."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+      surprise and wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+      the shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free from
+      paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+      sideways," he added helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must have done. Then, when I lost the key&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+      "or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+      made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+      little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good, hard
+      knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+      working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr. Outwood's
+      set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had caught sight
+      of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to inspect it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It should
+      have been done before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+      earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+      went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+      know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+      thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+      and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon his
+      hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his fingers had
+      closed upon what he was seeking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough, after
+      all, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this trouble.
+      You have done yourself no good by it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+      opinion of what constitutes&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+      looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+      and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+      hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+      looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did&mdash;you&mdash;put&mdash;that&mdash;shoe&mdash;there, Smith?" he
+      asked slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what did you <i>MEAN</i> by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      "WHAT?"
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+      can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+      catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+      soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+      you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way to my
+      room."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+      point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against the
+      slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear up
+      against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language of
+      the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more of
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+      towels, soap, and sponges.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+      He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a successfully
+      conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man of refinement,
+      and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it had been worth it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a lot
+      of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary implements
+      for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to do so.
+      Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the madding
+      crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs there
+      would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+      that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place the
+      shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up to
+      the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at about the
+      same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody would think of
+      looking there a second time, and it was improbable that Mr. Outwood really
+      would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The odds were that he had
+      forgotten about it already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling that
+      he had done a good day's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      23 &mdash; ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most adroit
+      plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to the rule.
+      He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's happenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+      like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where there
+      is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain unrevealed.
+      There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling Mike. He forgot
+      what the consequences might be if he did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+      school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion why
+      only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the subject. He
+      seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow can
+      understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike might
+      be satisfied with a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+      school in one shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much as
+      to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+      understand sound reasoning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, what am I to do? Where <i>is</i> the other shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off in
+      the gym shoes he stood in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which one
+      observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize how
+      strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for instance,
+      where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark blue are to be
+      worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most respectable and
+      unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a mixture of awe and
+      repulsion, which would be excessive if he had sandbagged the headmaster.
+      So in the case of shoes. School rules decree that a boy shall go to his
+      form room in shoes. There is no real reason why, if the day is fine, he
+      should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer them. But, if he does, the
+      thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say, "Great Scott, what <i>have</i>
+      you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, <i>what</i> are you wearing on your
+      feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the assembling of the form
+      for call-over and the arrival of the form master, some wag is sure either
+      to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act with some satirical
+      remark, or else to pull one of them off, and inaugurate an impromptu game
+      of football with it. There was once a boy who went to school one morning
+      in elastic-sided boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+      form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+      since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike with
+      respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to undergo at
+      Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who gave trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a boy
+      in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind, just
+      as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them.
+      They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+      list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+      shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention&mdash;every weapon was employed by
+      him in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+      always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he felt
+      shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in the
+      first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten minutes
+      to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked Like Loafers&mdash;which
+      broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one occasion, when a
+      particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of fare, Dunster had
+      entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath slippers, of a vivid
+      crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including his journey over to the
+      house to change the heelless atrocities, had seen him through very nearly
+      to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+      Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>What</i> are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gym shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+      proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+      comfortably for the address from the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+      moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+      translating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+      unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+      floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction, the
+      form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+      mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+      seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+      appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+      completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+      harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said, "Wal,
+      sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so did Mr.
+      Downing feel at that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+      sped to the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      24 &mdash; THE ADAIR METHOD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+      the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop, came
+      to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the Adair
+      administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt was
+      early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket keenness.
+      Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious interest in life,
+      had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his first term at Wrykyn.
+      And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm attachment to the game, compared
+      with Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+      after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+      been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+      match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose to
+      be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their comfortable
+      beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and had caught
+      catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air, had stung like
+      adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really got to work, it
+      is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the experiment was only
+      equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of the type which likes
+      to undergo hardships for the common good. They played well enough when on
+      the field, but neither cared greatly whether the school had a good season
+      or not. They played the games entirely for their own sakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+      never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate as
+      to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+      today's must be avoided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+      before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+      Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for the
+      team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd better find
+      somebody else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+      passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was the first to recover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+      can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+      kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C. with
+      a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village Jackson
+      plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+      autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+      keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+      being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The majority,
+      consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain runs up
+      against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the team or not,
+      then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless he is a man of
+      action, practically helpless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that they
+      would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The bowling
+      of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the chance of
+      making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are runs,
+      wherever and however made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+      morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+      those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+      there were no signs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond the
+      fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great help.
+      Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+      Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right, was
+      accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with that
+      of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper before the
+      bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of his reading
+      to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen the paper,
+      usually formed an interested and appreciative audience. Today, however,
+      though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of excitement at the
+      news that Sheppard had made a century against Gloucestershire, and that a
+      butter famine was expected in the United States, these world-shaking news
+      items seemed to leave Adair cold. He champed his bread and marmalade with
+      an abstracted air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+      that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe and
+      convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of person
+      who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He never
+      shirked anything, physical or moral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resolved to interview the absentees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He went
+      across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day room,
+      engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and marking the
+      height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided with a record
+      effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance and stagger
+      backward against the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+      spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We didn't turn up," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know you didn't. Why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the coolness
+      which comes from rehearsal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We decided not to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+      fielding."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just the word."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry it bored you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking of
+      something."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't do
+      anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like, but we
+      don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or Saturday
+      for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the school team
+      aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go chucking people out
+      of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll play
+      for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn out for
+      fielding practice before breakfast."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going to
+      tomorrow morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Six sharp. Don't be late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+      six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any deep
+      conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for his
+      comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've quite made up your minds?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+      standing in the middle of the open space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+      seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+      tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than Stone,
+      but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game. His blow
+      was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his opponent's. At the
+      end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a minute
+      or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+      maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make up
+      his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances he
+      might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than ordinarily
+      courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must end in his
+      destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match even for
+      Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one minute. It
+      seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was likely to come
+      from an encounter with Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+      is Jackson's study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which precluded
+      anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied that Mike's
+      study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor at the top of
+      the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+      still there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he isn't
+      busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      25 &mdash; ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going on
+      below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that morning
+      from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket captaincy
+      which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a lugubrious
+      strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with Wrykyn. A
+      broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments with a day
+      boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of Dunstable,
+      the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a side out.
+      Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone wrong. The
+      M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three first-class
+      cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty runs.
+      Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs, with a
+      team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch&mdash;not a well-known
+      man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing for the club
+      for nearly half a century&mdash;had got home by two wickets. In fact, it
+      was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was about the most
+      hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition of itself on the
+      school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off, owing to an
+      outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and athletics&mdash;the
+      second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said Strachan, was hard
+      lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for Wrykyn, as it had saved
+      them from what would probably have been a record hammering, Ripton having
+      eight of their last year's team left, including Dixon, the fast bowler,
+      against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had been able to make runs in
+      the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had struck a bad patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+      to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one good
+      batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may take a
+      weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the importance
+      of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+      against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days, returned
+      with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of personal injury
+      which had made him hate his new school on the first day of term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+      Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+      biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial story
+      in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room, made
+      the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand, and went
+      on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was sitting, and
+      contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+      should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I seem
+      to see the consommé splashing about his ankles. He's had a note telling
+      him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just off there
+      at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher, is waiting
+      there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair? Or don't you
+      take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+      Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+      school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made this
+      a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of no
+      other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+      afternoon calls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+      present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We must
+      be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Buck up," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but it
+      was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the first round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this was
+      about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner. For
+      some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was looking
+      for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be a
+      privilege to see that he got it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been <i>brawling</i>
+      with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you and he were
+      like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too. Leave us,
+      Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of thee.'
+      Shakespeare."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+      himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+      are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+      life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice," said
+      Adair, turning to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn out
+      at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out. He's
+      going to all right. So is Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So are you," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+      dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in the
+      study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think. I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any special reason for my turning out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+      want you to get some practice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder how you got that idea!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+      he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+      curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to make you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+      beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+      Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you <i>will</i> let your
+      angry passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose
+      you must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the
+      midst of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If
+      you really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+      there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know a
+      bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road, where
+      you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on there?
+      Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      26 &mdash; CLEARING THE AIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+      touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+      enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+      occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+      unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+      the National Sporting Club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+      into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+      three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is down
+      will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades Adair and
+      Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up to
+      its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been cautious
+      sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds, as if it
+      had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights, when they
+      do occur&mdash;which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you count
+      junior school scuffles&mdash;are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+      blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+      however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent. Up
+      to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly attached to
+      him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume that attitude
+      of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the present
+      battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted was to
+      get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together as if
+      they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves, with
+      his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have lasted
+      three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while Mike had
+      never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used his head,
+      nothing could have prevented his winning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did at
+      the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was the
+      same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength, and,
+      thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet with an
+      unscientific but powerful righthander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+      science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The Irish
+      blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him merely
+      energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned all attempt
+      at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile form, and as
+      unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a swift exchange
+      of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow, coming into contact
+      with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which kept it tingling for the
+      rest of the day; and then Adair went down in a heap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+      vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the excitement of a fight&mdash;which is, after all, about the most
+      exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life&mdash;it
+      is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+      spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+      only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+      chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would have
+      seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a fraction of
+      an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked out. Mike
+      could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on his feet
+      again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength; and this
+      time Adair went down and stayed down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+      think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+      at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be sitting
+      up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go on with
+      the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to be
+      continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+      alterations and repairs first."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts before
+      in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one on his
+      own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He's</i> all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be
+      skipping about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+      pick flowers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+      perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+      curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking that
+      Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his point
+      of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much. At the
+      same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten him. The
+      feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in a fresh
+      and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and had carried
+      it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the deliverer of
+      knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new acquaintance a
+      man to be respected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+      fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized Mike's
+      view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of him.
+      Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive dignity,
+      he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched kid. There
+      had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of refusing to
+      identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+      stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+      attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass of
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting. He's
+      not a bad cove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's all right," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+      seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+      afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+      comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way. I'm
+      not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but everyone to
+      his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get overwhelmingly
+      attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems to have done it.
+      He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up. It's not a bad idea
+      in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him. Apparently he's been
+      sweating since early childhood to buck the school up. And as he's leaving
+      at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly scheme to give him a bit of
+      a send-off, if possible, by making the cricket season a bit of a banger.
+      As a start, why not drop him a line to say that you'll play against the
+      M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+      and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+      prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+      giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+      improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade Adair,
+      to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to understand that
+      you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your village team. You
+      didn't, of course?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told him he didn't know the old <i>noblesse oblige</i> spirit of the
+      Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon by
+      not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return to
+      the point under discussion, why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+      unworthy company&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "&mdash;Dismiss it. <i>I</i> am playing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're <i>what? You</i>?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+      handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you play cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're rotting."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then why haven't you played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why haven't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+      by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such shock
+      to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing of that
+      sort takes years off my life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+      cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+      year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season came,
+      where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked watching
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have to
+      overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a habit.
+      Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little by
+      little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against it,
+      but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and drifted
+      with the stream. Last year in a house match"&mdash;Psmith's voice took on
+      a deeper tone of melancholy&mdash;"I took seven for thirteen in the second
+      innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I had found
+      a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow. What Comrade
+      Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest archaeological disciple
+      has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole face
+      of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the recalcitrant,
+      wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here was Psmith, the
+      last person whom he would have expected to be a player, stating calmly
+      that he had been in the running for a place in the Eton eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+      read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+      acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+      the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of his
+      place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off, each in
+      his own way&mdash;Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to their
+      respective natures&mdash;on Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+      renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+      stop Mike doing so, as&mdash;at the bottom of his heart&mdash;he wanted to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+      Adair now. But, I say"&mdash;he stopped&mdash;"I'm hanged if I'm going to
+      turn out and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+      not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      27 &mdash; IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+      instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your elbow
+      was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't know.
+      Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the game
+      tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see anybody
+      downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to the shop,
+      ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell the man to
+      chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at tea is all
+      right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to commit
+      suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+      his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+      willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+      went out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+      patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in earnest.
+      Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At this rate,"
+      he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show what
+      it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When Mike
+      woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping. Leaden-colored
+      clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace of blue to be
+      seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle, determined way rain
+      has when it means to make a day of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+      depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin boots,
+      crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped&mdash;he could hardly
+      walk on as if nothing had happened&mdash;and looked down at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked on in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born of
+      nervousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About nine to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. We've got plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hate having to hurry over to school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly nuisance when one does."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+      should think, shouldn't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not much more. Might be three."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly day," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+      wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does it hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+      smashed me anyhow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you anything you like you would."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+      season."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+      year."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the time?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair produced his watch once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We've heaps of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, heaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+      promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+      couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+      It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower Borlock
+      if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He never even asked me to get him a place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+      like getting other fellows away from the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+      going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect on
+      Mike's mind&mdash;shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+      in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He might
+      have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+      Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had said,
+      "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have led his
+      hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little hole,
+      isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived that the
+      words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese principle. When a
+      Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by belittling himself
+      and his belongings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He eluded the pitfall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+      ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+      after the way you've sweated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't suppose
+      I've done anything much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+      that's any comfort to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+      aches."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+      humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began to
+      laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You</i> were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+      gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+      doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+      about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky at
+      present."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+      interval, and hang about in case."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got math
+      till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which won't
+      hurt me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing or
+      a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+      black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+      then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're crocked,
+      I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years to get the
+      match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain, with
+      you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending down much
+      of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out, we've got a
+      jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way through, and the
+      bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this M.C.C. lot a really
+      good hammering, it might have been easier to get some good fixtures for
+      next season. You see, it's all right for a school like Wrykyn, but with a
+      small place like this you simply can't get the best teams to give you a
+      match till you've done something to show that you aren't absolute rotters
+      at the game. As for the schools, they're worse. They'd simply laugh at
+      you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn last year. What would you have
+      done if you'd had a challenge from Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed
+      till you were sick, or else had a fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+      thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! They wouldn't play us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+      from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+      had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date. Shall
+      I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they aren't
+      strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      28 &mdash; MR. DOWNING MOVES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+      hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+      the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+      the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+      considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+      to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that there
+      should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the first
+      Sedleigh <i>v</i>. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+      from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as soon
+      as he was changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+      him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+      glad if Mike would step across.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+      worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A meal
+      on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against your
+      return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of simple
+      pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle which had
+      been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize for a
+      solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed Mike
+      with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+      Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+      abusive comments on its inventor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+      "but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type. You
+      come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies round
+      the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me, do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+      old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type? What
+      has he been doing to you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump at
+      you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he say he
+      was a teapot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He thinks I did it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as asked
+      me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage later on if
+      I behaved sensibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master wants
+      you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't enough
+      evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+      stand-off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+      ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+      see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for all
+      he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain that I
+      painted Sammy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Did</i> you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+      almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+      prove that I did."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Such as what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+      you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+      pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag you
+      into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining him.
+      But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+      and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who hasn't
+      got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know where the
+      dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs, but one's
+      being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym shoes. That's
+      how he spotted me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows the
+      folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to save
+      you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud, right
+      in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you aren't,
+      just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender and
+      groping, "but&mdash;<i>Hello</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i>," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+      the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How on earth did&mdash;By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+      something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+      must have been the paint pot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you were out that night?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell you
+      now&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up to
+      his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+      opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's why
+      he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're <i>absolutely</i>
+      certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any chance, in a
+      moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No? No, I suppose
+      not. I wonder who did!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was why
+      I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the chap he
+      chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the same. I
+      shall get landed both ways."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i> a tightish place," he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it with
+      disfavor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not for a pretty considerable time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose not. I say, I <i>am</i> in the cart. If I can't produce this
+      shoe, they're bound to guess why."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you and
+      Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass rags?
+      Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot, and
+      I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said very
+      well, then, he must take steps, and&mdash;well, that was about all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+      he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+      round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his move
+      will be?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He'll</i> want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on
+      confession. The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about
+      the time the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing
+      Round-and-round-the- mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs
+      thought. You had better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the
+      dandelions growing. I will think over the matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly. You never know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+      entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a panel.
+      Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+      answered the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you he
+      wants to see you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you today."
+      He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr. Jackson
+      will be with him in a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emissary departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You're</i> all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+      saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+      airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in his
+      chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a moment
+      straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his hat and
+      moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at the same
+      dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at Downing's front
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+      conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+      postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight of
+      him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+      professional manner, passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+      the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+      Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+      toward the painting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+      his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      29 &mdash; THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+      line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not lead
+      to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between accuser
+      and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a feeling that
+      the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and conversation
+      showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened brightly enough, with
+      a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had laid before him, but after
+      that a massive silence had been the order of the day. There is nothing in
+      this world quite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up
+      his mind to be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat
+      and looked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt
+      awkward. It was a scene which needed either a dramatic interruption or a
+      neat exit speech. As it happened, what it got was the dramatic
+      interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+      Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."&mdash;which was practically
+      going back to the beginning and starting again&mdash;when there was a
+      knock at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir,"
+      and the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+      Jackson, who committed the&mdash;who painted my dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling of
+      relief&mdash;for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+      wearing game to play&mdash;the headmaster with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+      nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+      of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+      merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+      rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+      imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog with
+      red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They had both
+      been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but anybody, except
+      possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it funny at first. After
+      the first surprise, their feeling had been that it was a rotten thing to
+      have done and beastly rough luck on the poor brute. It was a kid's trick.
+      As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply did not believe it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy himself
+      came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+      in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+      was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was done
+      for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy it meant
+      that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was not likely
+      that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at Sedleigh than
+      at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if possible, worse than he
+      had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar occasion. It seemed as if
+      Fate had a special grudge against his best friends. He did not make
+      friends very quickly or easily, though he had always had scores of
+      acquaintances&mdash;and with Wyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home
+      from the first moment he had met them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+      hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+      rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er&mdash;if you
+      are going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in," said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Adair?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was about Sammy&mdash;Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was Dunster, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+      astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to their
+      fullest extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+      suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+      despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+      perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform him,
+      two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's confession, that
+      Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal was Dunster&mdash;it
+      was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words of an American
+      author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted for his brain a
+      side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people? Dunster, who, he
+      remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas. And why, if Dunster
+      had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that he himself was the
+      culprit? Why&mdash;why anything? He concentrated his mind on Adair as the
+      only person who could save him from impending brain fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What&mdash;<i>what</i> do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes
+      ago, in which he said that he had painted Sammy&mdash;Sampson, the dog,
+      sir, for a rag&mdash;for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here
+      to get into a row&mdash;be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at
+      once. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met
+      Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to
+      see you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+      Dunster?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He laughed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Laughed</i>!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing snorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+      could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+      night in the village."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that was the night the&mdash;it happened?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to any
+      boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+      foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if any
+      boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+      attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+      write to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I cannot
+      understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not do it,
+      what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his own accord
+      and deliberately confessing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+      thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+      appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that I
+      should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the hall!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+      wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+      was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+      seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the room
+      to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of rain
+      could be heard outside the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+      opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Smith, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+      moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+      gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+      some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with a
+      gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided in
+      favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+      fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself time
+      has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+      you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was absolutely untrue?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am afraid so, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+      offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the present
+      age."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" replied the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+      of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has been
+      committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it is out
+      of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of the most
+      interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted. Human
+      nature&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+      Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a motion toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+      comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot on
+      the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+      again. Then he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+      er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ... er
+      ... severe illness? Any ... er ... <i>mental</i> illness?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no&mdash;forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject&mdash;there
+      is no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+      er ... have described?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+      mean to suggest&mdash;quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+      confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+      impulse which you cannot explain?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+      disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+      existing between boy and&mdash;Well, never mind that for the present. We
+      can return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say.
+      I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+      that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's dog,
+      and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+      wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it. That
+      was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain amount
+      of confusion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+      "but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+      downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to time
+      and cultivate him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+      Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?" asked Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+      "They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+      love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what it is."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+      you'd done it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craving for&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+      simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe. I'm
+      surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from Michael
+      Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+      was jolly good of you, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      30 &mdash; SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+      Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+      Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led on
+      the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be influenced
+      by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more school matches
+      than good play ever won. There is a certain type of school batsman who is
+      a gift to any bowler when he once lets his imagination run away with him.
+      Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair, Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon
+      this match in a state of the most azure funk. Ever since Mike had received
+      Strachan's answer and Adair had announced on the notice board that on
+      Saturday, July the twentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had
+      been all on the jump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did
+      repeatedly, on Mike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and
+      that on their present form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team
+      listened, but were not comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual
+      strength, but then Wrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard
+      that this probably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be&mdash;for
+      them&mdash;there was a very firm impression among the members of the
+      Sedleigh first eleven that the other school was quite strong enough to
+      knock the cover off <i>them</i>. Experience counts enormously in school
+      matches. Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the
+      sort of sides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn,
+      from time immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters
+      teams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men to Oxford
+      and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+      to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and the
+      wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during the
+      day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+      itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+      nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the surroundings
+      lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes magnified.
+      Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse almost
+      invariably ensues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+      side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+      whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was expected&mdash;Mike,
+      going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had played inside one
+      from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been caught at short slip off
+      his second ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+      others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed them
+      to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out at
+      anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to half
+      volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not equal to
+      his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven wickets were
+      down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he was
+      undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+      reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+      full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+      had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total to
+      seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+      minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+      seventy-nine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+      finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+      thirty-one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team had
+      looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair and
+      Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially Psmith, who
+      had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with the tail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the game
+      out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate, having
+      another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their nervousness had
+      vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in the first
+      innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+      the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if they
+      could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+      sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in the
+      second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so bad then
+      that they easily might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit. The
+      deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was bowled,
+      and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated all the
+      bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper frame of
+      mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the rest, it
+      looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a hundred and
+      twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one to Strachan at
+      cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+      make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during which
+      to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and go for
+      a win on the first innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+      forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he hit
+      into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two runs
+      later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over with a
+      c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen for three,
+      with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too dangerous. So
+      Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with caution, and the
+      collapse ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter opened.
+      Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the hands of the
+      clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had been tried,
+      but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's defence. They
+      were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at the bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which altered
+      the game completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+      crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot. You
+      can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+      breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball from
+      him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+      suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The next
+      moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five. Adair was
+      absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first ball right
+      on the worn patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion, while
+      the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+      atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic and
+      without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground. There
+      were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down. Sedleigh was
+      on top again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+      walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+      out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+      feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to the
+      right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+      next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+      collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+      minutes in hand.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+      general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+      playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+      jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+      sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at the
+      shop."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He bowled awfully well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this joyful
+      occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give Sedleigh a
+      fixture again next year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+      left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+      swamp them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the thing
+      started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten Wrykyn,
+      he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and work up to
+      playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's all right,
+      you see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+      always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+      and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+      Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it would
+      be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall we stagger?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They staggered.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10586 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10586)
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***
+
+
+
+
+MIKE AND PSMITH
+
+By P.G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+MEREDITH PRESS / NEW YORK
+
+Copyright 1909 by A. & C. Black
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+  1.  MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+  2.  SEDLEIGH
+  3.  PSMITH
+  4.  STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+  5.  GUERRILLA WARFARE
+  6.  UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+  7.  ADAIR
+  8.  MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+  9.  THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+ 10.  ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+ 11.  THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+ 12.  THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+ 13.  JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+ 14.  MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+ 15.  ... AND FULFILLS IT
+ 16.  PURSUIT
+ 17.  THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+ 18.  MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+ 19.  THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+ 20.  A CHECK
+ 21.  THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+ 22.  MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+ 23.  ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+ 24.  THE ADAIR METHOD
+ 25.  ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+ 26.  CLEARING THE AIR
+ 27.  IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+ 28.  MR. DOWNING MOVES
+ 29.  THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+ 30.  SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In Evelyn Waugh's book _Decline and Fall_ his hero, applying for a post
+as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+grades--leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one
+of those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to
+put the word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster
+qualified to attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is
+a few more Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted,
+that even at a "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only
+drawback is that it does not play the leading schools or the first-rate
+schools or even the good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from
+Wrykyn (a "first-rate school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading
+school") Sedleigh naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike
+some time to adjust himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher,
+accepted the change of conditions with his customary equanimity.
+
+This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books,
+_Psmith in the City_ and _Psmith, Journalist_, before becoming happily
+married in _Leave It to Psmith_, but I have always thought that he was
+most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play to
+his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+English school.
+
+Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous
+characters to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton
+with the son of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and
+Sullivan operettas, and one night he told me about this peculiar
+schoolboy who dressed fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one
+of the masters inquired after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah
+and thinnah." It was all the information I required in order to start
+building him in a star part.
+
+If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life,
+I can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally
+prosperous counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like
+Perry, in appearing for the defense.
+
+I must apologize, as I did in the preface to _Mike at Wrykyn,_ for all
+the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+quite so much of it this time.
+
+P.G. Wodehouse.
+
+
+
+1
+
+MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+
+
+If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he
+might have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr.
+Jackson opened the envelope containing his school report and read the
+contents, that the document in question was not exactly a paean of
+praise from beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was
+late for breakfast in the holidays.
+
+When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for
+the jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in
+a detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+
+"Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are--I've
+been keeping everything hot for you."
+
+"Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+
+Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she
+always did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing
+thoroughly. She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they
+made centuries in first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She
+would field out in the deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at
+the net in the paddock, though for the others, even for Joe, who had
+played in all five Test Matches in the previous summer, she would do it
+only as a favor.
+
+Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+table and watched Mike eat.
+
+"Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+
+The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+interested. "What did it say?"
+
+"I didn't see--I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the envelope.
+Father didn't say anything."
+
+Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+
+"It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+you were in his form."
+
+"No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any
+more tea in that pot?"
+
+"I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+
+"Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+
+"He didn't mean it really, I _know_ he didn't! He couldn't! You're the
+best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+
+"What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+
+"You _are_. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+first term you were there--even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good as
+that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+year or two."
+
+"Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off
+the first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out
+at the net now. Let's go and see."
+
+Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs
+retired as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+
+She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons
+now, and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had
+filled out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had
+the strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple
+to him. It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was
+beginning to find his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own
+special invention, was delighted.
+
+"If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+
+"I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+
+Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the
+wrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no
+light thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+
+As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+
+Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with
+that bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+
+Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant
+nature. Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his
+sons as companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to
+ruffle the placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was
+an unfailing wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's
+sarcastic resume of Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term,
+there had been something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion
+that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike
+from Wrykyn unless the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson
+was a man of his word.
+
+It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+entered the study.
+
+"Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I
+want to speak to you."
+
+Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+
+There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge
+that morning.
+
+"It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out--may I
+bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show--"
+
+"Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen
+to this report."
+
+"Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+
+"It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+
+"Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+
+"'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+
+"It wasn't anything really. I only happened--"
+
+Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+several occasions, he paused.
+
+"'French bad; conduct disgraceful--'"
+
+"Everybody rags in French."
+
+"'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+
+"Nobody does much work in Math."
+
+"'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+
+"We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term--all speeches and
+doubtful readings, and cruxes and things--beastly hard! Everybody
+says so."
+
+"Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+
+Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+
+"'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire
+in him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the
+same effect."
+
+Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted
+a public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him
+thrills of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his
+habit to regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an
+unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as
+near the extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in
+a clear firm hand.
+
+"You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in
+its envelope.
+
+Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+
+"I shall abide by what I said."
+
+Mike's heart thumped.
+
+"You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+
+Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that
+moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of
+the earth.
+
+The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+normally easygoing man.
+
+Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason
+he said very little now.
+
+"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+
+Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name--one of
+those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What
+had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they
+play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps
+they didn't even _play_ cricket!
+
+"But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+
+Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide
+his sympathy.
+
+"It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit--boys work there. Young Barlitt
+won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was the
+vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+of conversation were not Mike's.
+
+"Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+
+Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he
+would have liked to have said.
+
+
+
+2
+
+SEDLEIGH
+
+
+The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up,
+opened the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic
+and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+
+"For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if
+he hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that
+Sedleigh station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+
+Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike
+was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And,
+so far from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously
+incompetent than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to
+the handle of the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage
+van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair.
+Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, and the man who took
+his ticket.
+
+"Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from
+Mike's _distrait_ air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up
+in the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+
+"I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+
+"It's a goodish step, sir."
+
+"Here you are."
+
+"Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+was it you was going to?"
+
+"Outwood's."
+
+"Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+it, sir."
+
+"Worse luck," said Mike.
+
+He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a
+place where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven,
+and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of
+arriving at Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the
+bitter part of it. He had never been in command. For the last two
+seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading the
+averages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains under
+whom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby,
+and Henfrey, had always been sportsmen to him. But it was not the same
+thing. He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He
+had had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind. Now it might
+never be used. He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who would be
+captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some scheme of
+his own. There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the ideal way;
+and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own about cricket
+coaching at school.
+
+Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few
+overs, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended
+upon. There was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn
+would have a bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched
+athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless,
+and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points.
+Sheen's victory in the light weights at Aldershot had been their one
+success. And now, on top of all this, the captain of cricket was removed
+during the Easter holidays. Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found
+himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works with a great loathing.
+
+The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set
+in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country,
+but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and
+past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he
+caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore
+an unmistakably schoollike look.
+
+This must be Sedleigh.
+
+Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+
+There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by
+a cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+
+Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+
+He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+
+There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+he reminded Mike of Smee in _Peter Pan_. He had the same eyebrows and
+pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+
+"Jackson?" he said mildly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a
+cup of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You
+come from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near
+Brindleford? It is a part of the country which I have always wished to
+visit. I dare say you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St.
+Ambrose at Brindleford?"
+
+Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed
+him one on a tray, said he had not.
+
+"Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad
+to have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England,
+and it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose.
+A deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+1133-40--"
+
+"Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+
+"What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful
+preservation. It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and
+two and a half wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the
+apse wall. It will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present,
+Jackson, good-bye."
+
+Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a
+little hard.
+
+He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had
+come by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+
+A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and
+fixed it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he
+inspected Mike in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible
+speck of dust from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+
+"Hello," he said.
+
+He spoke in a tired voice.
+
+"Hello," said Mike.
+
+"Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever
+sitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these
+chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That
+sort of idea. My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+
+
+
+3
+
+PSMITH
+
+
+"Jackson," said Mike.
+
+"Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led
+Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+
+"The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I
+don't know."
+
+"The boy--what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+
+"Yes! Why, are you new?"
+
+"Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion
+to write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for
+Smythe. My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but
+I've decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty.
+The resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on
+the back of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert
+(though I hope you won't), or simply Smith, the _P_ not being sounded.
+Compare the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar
+miss-in-balk. See?"
+
+Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+courtesy.
+
+"Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but
+a babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse
+to keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of
+the first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like
+gaze on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+
+"No?" said Mike.
+
+"No. I was superannuated last term."
+
+"Bad luck."
+
+"For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+
+"But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+
+"This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a
+Balliol--"
+
+"Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+
+"That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+here to get a Balliol too. Do _you_ know Barlitt?"
+
+"His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+that I was sent here."
+
+"Do you come from Crofton?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+
+Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+at least be tolerable.
+
+"Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+painful story. Now tell me yours."
+
+"Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad
+reports."
+
+"My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen
+of it?"
+
+"Rotten."
+
+"I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought
+to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+
+"He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+and things."
+
+"And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of
+a stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+grounds--he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man--and I
+hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark
+you, laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off
+cricket. To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser
+leg, "was the dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A
+noble game, but a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field
+out at the nets till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you
+are a blood at the game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and
+so on."
+
+"I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+
+He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of
+pleasure. To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were,
+was one way of treating the situation, and one not without its meed
+of comfort.
+
+Psmith approved the resolve.
+
+"Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will
+search the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive
+fossil together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus
+improve our minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't
+wonder if one mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a
+bit of rabbit shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade
+Outwood during our brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the
+lynx-eyed contingent. With tact we ought to be able to slip away from
+the merry throng of fossil chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+
+"Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used
+to break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+
+"It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+
+"I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+
+"Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+and look."
+
+They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+
+"This'll do us well," he said.
+
+It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung
+on a nail.
+
+"Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+
+"I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+
+"Not now."
+
+"You aren't going to collar it!"
+
+"That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+claims. This is practical socialism."
+
+"But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+
+"His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to
+pig it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be
+alone. It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a
+fatiguing day. And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help
+me fetch up my box from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various
+things in it."
+
+
+
+4
+
+STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+
+
+Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he
+preferred to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that
+the wooden bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was
+Mike who wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who
+abstracted the key from the door of the next study, though the idea
+was Psmith's.
+
+"Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what
+we chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door
+unlocked in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody
+comes right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think
+with a little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think
+you could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks.
+We make progress. We make progress."
+
+"We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the
+evening meal?"
+
+"Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something
+to be at Wrykyn."
+
+"These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+this, I wonder."
+
+A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed,
+and a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+
+"Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+
+"The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things
+to say on the subject."
+
+Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On
+his face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+
+Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+stateliness to do the honors.
+
+"What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+
+"We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues
+after our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths.
+Let me introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in
+appearance, perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will
+doubtless come up in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+
+"My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and
+harangued Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+
+"Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these:
+'It might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said
+huskily, 'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and
+said, 'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters--"
+
+"I want to know what--"
+
+"Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected
+by his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival,
+you find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not
+Spiller." Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of
+tea. Spiller's sad case had moved him greatly.
+
+The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+
+"It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+
+"The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+
+"Well, it's beastly cheek."
+
+Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went
+straight to the root of the matter.
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+
+Spiller evaded the question.
+
+"It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+studies."
+
+"But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual
+and the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place
+bagging studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption
+that it is impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a
+lesson to you."
+
+"Look here, I tell you what it--"
+
+"I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if
+you trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He
+said, 'I couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the
+accelerator.' 'But suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now
+we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out
+to be the foot brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a
+ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never
+confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you
+had only realized the possibility of somebody someday collaring your
+study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing
+with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as
+a surprise. The cry goes round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He
+cannot cope with the situation.'"
+
+"Can't I! I'll--"
+
+"What _are_ you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+
+"All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's
+my study."
+
+"But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man
+of Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you
+intend to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade
+Jackson before you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an
+insignificant-looking little weed. And you _are_ an
+insignificant-looking little weed."
+
+"We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+
+"Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well
+all go together."
+
+The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined,
+Mike sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he
+walked, and now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by
+the wayside.
+
+Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently
+the leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+
+"Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you
+have already made friends."
+
+"Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+study-claimer's shoulder--a proceeding violently resented by
+Spiller--"is a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands
+before one like some beautiful flower."
+
+Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+
+"Er--quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys in
+my house friendly toward one another."
+
+"There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is
+the heart of a little child."
+
+"Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I--"
+
+"But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak
+to you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+
+"Please, sir--" began Spiller
+
+"I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological
+Society in the school."
+
+Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over
+the School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support.
+Boys came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at
+times, not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact
+that it provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+main, earnest.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society.
+I--er--in a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become
+a member?"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+
+"Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+
+"Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+down your name at once."
+
+"And Jackson's, sir."
+
+"Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted.
+This is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+
+"Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to
+join."
+
+"Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+
+"Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+from the school."
+
+"We shall be there, sir."
+
+"Capital!"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+you could spare the time, sir."
+
+"Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+
+"Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+study?"
+
+"By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+
+"Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+evenings."
+
+"Quite so. Quite so."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+
+"Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+
+"I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should
+have spoken before."
+
+"But sir--"
+
+Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+
+"This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+
+He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+
+"We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study.
+He would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+
+"Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+
+"On Saturday, sir."
+
+"All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+"is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one
+of these afternoons."
+
+
+
+5
+
+GUERRILLA WARFARE
+
+
+"There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study
+with the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than
+sitting under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on
+Spiller; he would not have appreciated it properly."
+
+Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you
+in a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+other before."
+
+"The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we
+are now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood
+is not going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+
+"What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+
+"What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+
+"Made it jolly hot for them!"
+
+"So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a
+reasonable number of assailants in defense of the home."
+
+Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all
+right while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+
+"That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at
+us through the door, and we can lock that."
+
+"And jam a chair against it."
+
+"_And_, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of the
+nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+
+"Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+cart."
+
+Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the
+man, Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind--such foresight!
+such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+rooms we're done--we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of
+the night."
+
+"We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+
+"Not the matron--Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+
+As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+followed a knocking.
+
+"This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+parley with the man."
+
+Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood
+giggling with his hands in his pockets.
+
+"I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+
+"If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+
+The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+
+"I _do_ wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+description--"
+
+"My name's Jellicoe."
+
+"Mine is Psmith--P-s-m-i-t-h--one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The object
+on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything
+downstairs. You _are_ chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his
+study? He's making no end of a row about it."
+
+"Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+
+"What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+
+"He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+
+"As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of
+human nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say
+that he would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the
+glad throng?"
+
+"Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. _I_
+think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"How many _will_ there be, then?" asked Mike.
+
+"He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+has been bagged."
+
+"Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+
+"We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only
+thing is we must get into the same dormitory."
+
+"This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with,
+say, about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+
+"Five--there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+chaps."
+
+"I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+Outwood and stake out another claim."
+
+Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+he said.
+
+"We must apologize for disturbing you, sir--"
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to
+me when they wish for my advice or help."
+
+"We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling
+Jellicoe kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself."
+
+"You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it--I like to see it."
+
+"And we can have the room, sir?"
+
+"Certainly--certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+
+"And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that
+we are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade
+Jellicoe for his valuable assistance."
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+
+The handle began to revolve again.
+
+"That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+one's leisure cruelly."
+
+This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+come down," he said.
+
+Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The senior day room chaps."
+
+"Spiller?"
+
+"Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+
+"They want us to speak to them?"
+
+"They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+
+"Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as
+the messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door
+open, I think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what
+can we do for you?"
+
+Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+the doorway.
+
+"Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+
+"After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+
+"You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+
+"We'll risk it," said Mike.
+
+Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+
+"Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+
+There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been
+watching. He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against
+the advancing crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the
+weight and impetus of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back,
+and Mike, stepping into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+
+"A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at
+the looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the
+first shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+
+A heavy body crashed against the door.
+
+"They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+
+"We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+
+There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm
+and a leg.
+
+Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the
+flowerbed below.
+
+Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had
+pressed against the wall.
+
+"Robinson. I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+
+Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+in the corridor.
+
+Somebody hammered on the door.
+
+"Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+
+"You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you
+don't."
+
+"Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+
+A bell rang in the distance.
+
+"Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+
+"They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+"There's no harm in going out."
+
+The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+
+In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was
+plain that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's
+face was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of
+garden mold.
+
+Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element.
+His demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+
+Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to
+Mike. It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as
+you can."
+
+Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky
+you two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you
+into the senior day room and scrag you there."
+
+"This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but
+it can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My
+nerves are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce
+them to hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign--the thing
+must be settled at once."
+
+"Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+
+"No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it
+as tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will
+try to corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could
+fake up some sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all
+the trouble over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I
+don't propose to be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose
+that we let them come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this
+meeting with me?"
+
+"I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+
+"As a matter of fact--if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+
+"Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at
+all; he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we
+have our little wooden _châlet_ to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+moral support, but otherwise, _ne pas_. And now, as there won't be
+anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write
+home and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+
+
+
+6
+
+UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+
+
+Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements
+of the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for
+Dormitory One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The
+rest of the opposing forces were distributed among other and more
+distant rooms. It was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be
+the rendezvous. As to the time when an attack might be expected, it was
+unlikely that it would occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went
+the round of the dormitories at eleven.
+
+"And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+conducted in a subdued and _sotto voce_ manner, or may we let ourselves
+go a bit here and there?"
+
+"I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you--he sleeps miles
+away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often
+rag half the night and nothing happens."
+
+"This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment.
+What would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of
+these reckless youths!"
+
+"All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+stopping the show before it's half started."
+
+"Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up--I can hear it sizzling. I quite
+agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as well
+to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody else
+who might interfere with our gambols?"
+
+"Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+
+"Who is Barnes?"
+
+"Head of the house--a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson; they
+rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+
+"Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+
+Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again,
+closing the door.
+
+"How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+
+"Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated
+imitation of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He
+would then--"
+
+"I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of
+the steps?"
+
+"Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson,
+the man with the big brain!"
+
+The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+
+"Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+finest purlers in the world's history."
+
+"If they've got a torch--"
+
+"They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then
+they'll charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire
+into the brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade
+Jellicoe's jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not
+be amiss--we will enmesh the enemy!"
+
+"Right ho!" said Mike.
+
+"These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will
+retire to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe
+like an asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at
+the top of the steps, listening."
+
+"You _are_ a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+
+Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying
+experience, especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential.
+Mike was tired after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was
+jerked back to wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle;
+the faintest rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight
+giggle, succeeded by a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe,
+too, had heard the noise.
+
+There was a creaking sound.
+
+It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened
+the door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic;
+he was flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the
+true artist.
+
+The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard
+had reached the second step.... In another moment--
+
+CRASH!
+
+And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+
+A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+contents had got to the right address.
+
+Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on
+the nose.
+
+Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he
+ran amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but
+his left went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick
+freed his ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a
+sudden increase in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good
+work that was being put in by Psmith.
+
+Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual
+kind of housemaster.
+
+He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that
+made itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+
+All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other
+dormitories, roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport.
+They had switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+
+By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a
+gingerly fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In
+the direction of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord
+of a dressing gown, was engaging the remaining three with a
+patient smile.
+
+They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+cord acutely.
+
+The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having
+seized and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again
+with the cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the
+spectators.
+
+Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+everywhere--on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+inadvertently trod), on the floor--he ranged the room, sowing
+destruction.
+
+The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this
+was to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the
+garrison armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a
+final rush sent them through.
+
+"Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+in the doorway.
+
+It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood
+alone in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had
+pitchforked him so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time
+since his father had given him his views upon school reports that
+morning in the Easter holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped,
+outnumbered as he was, that the enemy would come on again and not give
+the thing up in disgust; he wanted more.
+
+On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+
+Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+
+It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back
+along the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some
+clouded cane.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's--Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+words; where you pick them up I can't think--not from me. Well, well, I
+suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+night, good night."
+
+The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+
+Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+
+On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  _Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease._
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+7
+
+ADAIR
+
+
+On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+
+He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+
+"That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+
+His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+
+"Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+
+Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and
+wiry, light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to
+running. Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced
+eye saw that.
+
+As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was
+that rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or
+the passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected
+to lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very
+different thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that
+comes to the top by sheer force of character and determination. He was
+not naturally clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged
+resolution which had carried him up the school, and landed him high in
+the Sixth. As a cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had
+given him a good eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had
+triumphed over her failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of
+more trouble than most people give to their life work he had made
+himself into a bowler. He read the authorities, and watched first-class
+players, and thought the thing out on his own account, and he divided
+the art of bowling into three sections. First, and most
+important--pitch. Second on the list--break. Third--pace. He set himself
+to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling at his own pace and without
+any attempt at break, he could now drop the ball on an envelope seven
+times out of ten.
+
+Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could
+get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything
+but a plumb wicket.
+
+Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+sprints and all the rest of it.
+
+Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+
+A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a
+small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before
+him. There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of
+them in all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been
+influenced by Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the
+effects of his work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature
+to want to get something which somebody else obviously values very much;
+and when it was observed by members of his form that Adair was going to
+great trouble and inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or
+fifteen, they naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in
+those teams. The consequence was that his form always played hard. This
+made other forms play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair
+succeeded to the captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year,
+Sedleigh, as Mr. Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach
+to a cricket master that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying,
+was a keen school. As a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+
+All it wanted now was opportunity.
+
+This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness
+for his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which
+really is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average
+public-school boy _likes_ his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at
+Rugger and Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry
+to leave, and he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for
+any passionate, deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather
+bad form than otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the
+back, and cried, "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old
+school, Jenkins! The dear old school! The old place you love so!" he
+would feel seriously ill.
+
+Adair was the exception.
+
+To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead;
+his guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia
+at one end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant
+times Adair had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to
+Sedleigh. The place had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike,
+violently transplanted from Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not
+to be mentioned in the same breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the
+future, saw a colossal establishment, a public school among public
+schools, a lump of human radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars
+year after year without ceasing.
+
+It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+should take its rank among _the_ schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+
+"He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's
+in the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years
+running. He would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained
+his wrist. And he plays fives jolly well!"
+
+"Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+from that moment.
+
+Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with
+his form master during morning school.
+
+"'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+into the man's head; and when I _had_ driven it in, he sent me out of
+the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+persecuted by scoundrels."
+
+"Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+
+They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+
+"Haven't you _ever_ played?"
+
+"My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+
+Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+qualities.
+
+"Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this
+afternoon and seeing what you can do with a hard ball--if you can manage
+without your little sister."
+
+"I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+
+Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+
+Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+
+"My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the
+Young Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are
+being carried back to the pavilion after your century against
+Loamshire--do you play Loamshire?--we shall be grubbing in the hard
+ground for ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty,
+Comrade Adair. A Boy's Crossroads."
+
+"Then you won't play?"
+
+"No," said Mike.
+
+"Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+
+Adair turned, and walked on.
+
+Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+same question.
+
+"Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+
+It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a
+general resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable
+bullfinch.
+
+"I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We
+want keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy
+to be keen."
+
+"We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+
+"Excellent."
+
+"On archaeology."
+
+Mr. Downing--for it was no less a celebrity--started, as one who
+perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+
+"Archaeology!"
+
+"We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we
+went singing about the house."
+
+"I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently.
+"I don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to
+interfere with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly
+that in my opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets
+him into idle, loafing habits."
+
+"I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the
+principle of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other
+boys, not wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and
+going into low public houses."
+
+"A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+Psmith, shaking his head.
+
+"If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in
+my opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+
+He stumped off.
+
+"Now _he's_ cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+getting ourselves disliked here."
+
+"Good job, too."
+
+"At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of
+a lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+
+
+
+8
+
+MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+
+
+There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings
+for a Kindergarten _v_. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun
+shone, and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and
+heard the "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to
+Adair and shouting, "I _will_ be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three
+years, and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to
+the nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+
+But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+
+What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once
+or twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the
+game which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do
+not make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers
+more likely, by the law of averages.
+
+Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a
+Burgess, but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three
+years' experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He
+was a long way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the
+others who had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+
+The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth--not unlike
+what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy--but he knew how to keep balls
+out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+
+Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+
+There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+
+Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star
+at Wrykyn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+repeat the experiment.
+
+It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the
+scent of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This
+is the real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of
+the game.
+
+Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+
+He went up to Adair.
+
+"May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+manner was offensively abrupt.
+
+Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This
+net," it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+
+"What?" he said.
+
+Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+embarrassment.
+
+"This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge
+over there."
+
+"Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+
+Mike walked away without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with
+them the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a
+poor substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction
+shouting to him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them
+hugely, but Mike almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always
+possible to slip away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked
+upon them as among the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+
+Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er
+with the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the
+pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him
+round the garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research
+struck a new note in the history of that neglected science. He was
+amiable, but patronizing. He patronized fossils, and he patronized
+ruins. If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would have
+patronized that.
+
+He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+
+That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+
+"Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may
+lie on his back for a bit."
+
+Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+strolled away down the hill.
+
+Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+
+"A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement,
+I can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+
+They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound
+over pebbles.
+
+"Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to
+the music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to
+say, I rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these
+naps by the wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And
+Psmith, heaving the comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has
+earned rest, lay down, with his head against a mossy tree stump, and
+closed his eyes.
+
+Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making
+centuries in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up,
+jumped the brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+
+He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+
+Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when
+you meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in
+order that you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread
+his way back through the trees.
+
+He was too late.
+
+"Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+
+In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on,
+and trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity
+in the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+
+"I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look
+round."
+
+"The dickens you--Why, you're Jackson!"
+
+Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair
+moustache. Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could
+not place him.
+
+"I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing
+you seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my
+nesting pheasants."
+
+"I'm frightfully sorry."
+
+"That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+
+"Of course--I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made fifty-eight
+not out."
+
+"Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was
+that you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+
+"You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+
+"Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+are you doing down here?"
+
+"I've left Wrykyn."
+
+Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to
+inquire the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+
+"I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of
+puttering about."
+
+"Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+
+"Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you
+off for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+
+Mike's heart leaped.
+
+"Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+
+And he told how matters stood with him.
+
+"So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+things"--Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague--"but I
+could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+get onto my bike--I've got it down here--and meet you anywhere you
+liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my hands
+off a bat."
+
+"I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+Lower Borlock--that's the name of the place--and I'll meet you on the
+ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off the
+London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+Saturday?"
+
+"Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want
+to bring mine."
+
+"I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+
+"I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and
+told the news.
+
+"I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+play for the school."
+
+"My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports.
+I'll borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a
+newcomer to the team, M. Jackson.
+
+
+
+9
+
+THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+
+
+Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+substitute.
+
+The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with,
+proved more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+
+They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it
+grew with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a
+master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his
+official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes.
+To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for
+the school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should
+be implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the
+healthy boy.
+
+The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+"overtime."
+
+One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that
+it was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to
+do with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+
+It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple
+of his eye.
+
+Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem
+of Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe
+passport to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket
+was good, but to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+
+The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+
+Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+
+The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+
+At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+
+Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye,
+Sammy was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat,
+an engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which
+was a happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a
+tenor voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+
+Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+two minutes' acquaintance.
+
+In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during
+French lessons.
+
+We will now proceed to the painful details.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading
+of the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+for the disturbing of the peace.
+
+Today they were in very fair form.
+
+As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+House, held up his hand.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+
+"A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+
+"Red, with green stripes, sir."
+
+Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+
+"Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+
+"One moment, Stone."
+
+"Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+right."
+
+A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard,
+and the meeting had divided.
+
+Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+
+"Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+Stone, sit down--Wilson, get back to your place."
+
+"Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+
+"Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+
+"Please, sir--"
+
+"Si-_lence!_ The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the question."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"Be _quiet!_ Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a
+show of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said
+Robinson.
+
+"I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+
+The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+
+Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"But, sir, the danger!"
+
+"Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+
+The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+
+"Silence!"
+
+"Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+that are likely to fall on our heads."
+
+Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+
+"Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+
+"Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps
+like the first fifteen have? They--"
+
+"Wilson, leave the room!"
+
+"Sir, _please_, sir!"
+
+"This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+lines."
+
+A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+
+Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not
+right! If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of
+this flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be
+keen. I...? What is that noise?"
+
+From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling
+from a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were
+being prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The
+sufferer appeared to have a high voice.
+
+There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the
+opposite wall.
+
+"May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+
+"Very well--be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+
+Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+Downing.
+
+The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+
+"What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+
+"Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+
+"I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+
+"A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+
+"Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+
+"Are you making that whining noise?"
+
+"Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+
+"What _sort_ of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had asked
+before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just such a
+case as this.
+
+"I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+
+"They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+"Perhaps that's it."
+
+"It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+sometimes."
+
+"Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+
+"Silence! Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+
+"Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like
+an excited kangaroo.
+
+Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between
+the two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in
+time to see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin
+worrying it.
+
+Chaos reigned.
+
+"A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+
+The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+stirring, bustling scene.
+
+Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+
+The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all
+the other noises till in time they gave up the competition and
+died away.
+
+Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of
+a Bren gun.
+
+"Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain.
+_Quietly_, I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that
+abominable way."
+
+Crash!
+
+"Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement
+of your hand--one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+
+The meeting dispersed.
+
+"Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+
+Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat--"
+
+"What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+
+"Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk,
+so I came in--"
+
+"And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+"the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came
+in, too."
+
+"I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+
+"I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to
+let him go, and he came in after the rat."
+
+It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr.
+Downing liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade,
+frivolous at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept
+wicket for the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society,
+and had refused to play cricket.
+
+Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+
+"One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+
+Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun,
+and paid very little for it.
+
+Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend
+their time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen
+school; this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time.
+That will do, Jackson."
+
+And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+has a habit of getting the last word.
+
+
+
+10
+
+ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+
+
+They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+
+When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and
+borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as
+something of a blow.
+
+"What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+
+"I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody.
+The fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+
+"Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a
+quid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have
+got, so don't be shy about paying it back."
+
+Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+gratitude.
+
+Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+Jellicoe--why on earth did the man want all that?--meant that, unless a
+carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the desired
+effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+
+In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had
+made a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a
+sufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be
+stated at once, he did, by return of post.)
+
+Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter--he was
+never a very ready writer--when Stone and Robinson burst into the room.
+
+Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+
+But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+Robinson was laughing.
+
+"You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+
+"What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+
+They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair.
+Mike's heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was
+a thing of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius
+Caesar. He felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and
+appreciate one another.
+
+There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain.
+They had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits.
+They looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones
+and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about,
+loud and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to
+other people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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 father 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 teacup.
+
+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 Lower 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. Tomorrow'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's 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
+naught 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 tomorrow?"
+
+"Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+
+
+
+11
+
+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 noncricketing 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 imperiling 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 today. 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
+groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. 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 changing 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 wicket. 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
+today, 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 facts in Mike's case had gone around 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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when
+delivered, was billed to break from leg, but the program 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. Halfway 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-cakewalk, 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 installment system by helpers from other games,
+and the bowler began his maneuvers 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 vigor. 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 neighborhood 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 lunchtime 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.
+
+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 tomorrow?" 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 favoritism.
+And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely
+individuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other
+houses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, 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 Scot, 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 toward 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 gray 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 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
+gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+
+It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+
+He walked in that direction.
+
+Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members
+of Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of
+acute illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy
+in the event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get
+jumpy beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with
+MacPhee, as a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct
+and legitimate result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three
+doughnuts, two ices, an apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the
+lot down with tea. But Mr. Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of
+some deadly scourge which would sweep through and decimate the house. He
+had dispatched Adair for the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes
+prowling restlessly about his room, was now standing at his front gate,
+waiting for Adair's return.
+
+It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction
+of home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by
+being hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you,
+Adair?" The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+
+Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow--a
+flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and,
+if Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in
+the first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept
+ahead. At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards.
+The procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for
+the pavilion.
+
+As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he
+was accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of
+it which had ever illumined his life.
+
+It was this.
+
+One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at
+Sedleigh, had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into
+the school officially--in speeches from the dais--by the headmaster, and
+unofficially--in earnest private conversations--by Mr. Downing, that at
+the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every member
+of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way, and
+make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the
+school had its orders--to get out into the open at once.
+
+Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this
+feat. Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board
+to the effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that
+day. Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the
+occasion when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had
+said, "My house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which
+the Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened
+the hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr.
+Downing having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and
+poured a stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty
+to turn his attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was
+his private study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in
+a miniature lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for
+realism, and fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most
+part, of "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes,
+kept in the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the
+dormitory would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other
+end being fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using
+his elbows as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and
+these two, standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the
+rest of the dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except
+to their digestions.
+
+After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken
+a rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient
+unto the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to
+ring at night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine
+alarm of fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+
+So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+
+The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up
+the wall.
+
+Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash
+that his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his
+pursuer off for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the
+rope and tug it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them,
+and in the subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+
+The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in
+the Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded
+the pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put
+all he knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the
+effort. He worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike
+reached the gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+
+As far as Mike could judge--he was not in a condition to make nice
+calculations--he had about four seconds in which to get busy with that
+bell rope.
+
+Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+than he did then.
+
+The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+housemaster.
+
+And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum,
+as if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+
+The school was awake.
+
+
+
+17
+
+THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at
+Outwood's--since Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had
+been received as brothers by the center of disorder, so that even
+Spiller was compelled to look on the hatchet as buried--and gave his
+views on the events of the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning,
+for it was nearer one than twelve when peace had once more fallen on
+the school.
+
+"Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got
+so accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort
+of affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants
+can give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind
+is likely to take place?"
+
+"I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+
+"I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+
+Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath
+against the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood.
+He hobbled about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+
+"It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over
+matter. He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a
+Boneless Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+
+"I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+
+Stone gurgled.
+
+"So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag,
+I began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+
+"I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+
+"It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing
+a thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved
+again, time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say
+Comrade Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency
+to which he has brought us. At any rate I hope--"
+
+There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+
+"I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+
+"Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+
+"You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+Sam! Sam!"
+
+A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+
+"Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed
+in a corner.
+
+Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and
+wagging his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular
+dog, and was always well received when he visited any of the houses, but
+he had never before met with enthusiasm like this.
+
+"Good old Sammy!"
+
+"What on earth's been happening to him?"
+
+"Who did it?"
+
+Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+
+"I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems
+to have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up
+like that!"
+
+Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+
+"Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+
+"It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through
+his eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either
+have to skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great
+Healer. In a year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why
+you shouldn't have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of
+distinction to the place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see
+him. By charging a small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think
+I'll suggest it to Comrade Downing."
+
+"There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+
+"Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+soon. It's a quarter to."
+
+There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing
+to his ankle.
+
+"I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right."
+
+"No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+
+"Jolly nearly."
+
+"It _was_ you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+
+"All right. But, I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"What's the matter now?"
+
+"I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+He'll be frightfully sick."
+
+"Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+course."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+
+Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+18
+
+MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+
+
+There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his
+reason for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+
+Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+
+"Who--" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+
+"Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+
+"Please, sir, he came in like that."
+
+"Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+
+A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+
+The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+
+While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open,
+escaped and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all
+and sundry. You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to
+your own premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this
+becomes out of the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private
+trouble into a row. Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction
+that Sammy had taken, only, instead of running about the road, he went
+straight to the headmaster.
+
+The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his
+pajamas and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a
+cold in the head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in
+spite of his strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous
+night in order to test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves
+in the event of fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed
+as the latter related the events which had led up to the ringing of
+the bell.
+
+"Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school,
+you think?"
+
+"I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Was he wearing a school cap?"
+
+"He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+
+"No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+
+"Very big."
+
+"You did not see his face?"
+
+"It was dark and he never looked back--he was in front of me all the
+time."
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+"There is another matter ..."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the
+bell--he had painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He--he--_what_, Mr.
+Downing?"
+
+"He painted my dog red--bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of
+a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to
+ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+
+The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his
+dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there
+was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+
+"It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the
+boy who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall
+after chapel."
+
+Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal
+to come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the
+school, with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly
+reminded of Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a
+wild screech of laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+
+The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr.
+Downing was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal
+discovered, he would have to discover him for himself.
+
+The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and
+Fate, feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing,
+gave him a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a
+needle in a haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of
+being set to find it in a mere truss of straw.
+
+It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at
+close on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+attempting to get into his house _via_ the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded
+politeness and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some
+reflections on the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed
+it on to Mr. Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+
+"Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+
+"Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant
+that he interrupted him before--"
+
+"I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+
+"But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+
+"He had broken out."
+
+"Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+asleep--all of them."
+
+Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed
+excitement and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his
+colleague's slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had
+narrowed itself down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively
+easy. Perhaps Sergeant Collard had actually recognized the boy. On
+reflection he dismissed this as unlikely, for the sergeant would
+scarcely have kept a thing like that to himself; but he might very well
+have seen more of him than he, Downing, had seen. It was only with an
+effort that he could keep himself from rushing to the sergeant then and
+there, and leaving the house lunch to look after itself. He resolved to
+go the moment that meal was at an end.
+
+Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+helping, found himself at liberty.
+
+Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+
+Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions
+in the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr.
+Downing arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+
+The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+ensure privacy.
+
+Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+
+"Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a
+boy endeavoring to enter his house."
+
+The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did,
+sir--spotted 'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of
+Connaught, he used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to
+say, ''e's feeflee good at spottin'.'"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+there?'"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+
+"But you didn't catch him?"
+
+"No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+
+"Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+
+"No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+
+"Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+
+"'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him--feeflee fast
+'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+
+"You noticed nothing else?"
+
+"'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+
+"It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+
+"So do I, sir."
+
+"You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you
+think?"
+
+"Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+
+Mr. Downing rose to go.
+
+"Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house."
+
+"Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+
+"Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+
+"Good afternoon to you, sir."
+
+"Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+
+The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything
+of the kind.
+
+"I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+
+"Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+
+"I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+
+And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant
+Collard, having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a
+walk at once, and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the
+'ead, if he persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over
+his face, rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+
+
+
+19
+
+THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+
+
+For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock
+Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must be, to a very
+large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue
+from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got
+to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a
+label attached.
+
+The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a
+patronizing manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator,
+but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We
+should not even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard
+bungler. We should simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes,
+how...?" and all the rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+
+It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the
+humdrum round of life without having to measure footprints and smile
+quiet, tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he
+thinks naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+
+Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and
+had thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but,
+now that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled
+to admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of
+Watson's inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard,
+he thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant
+Collard, to detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the
+crime. As he brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor
+Watson increased with every minute, and he began to feel a certain
+resentment against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir
+Arthur to be so shrewd and infallible about tracing a mystery to its
+source, but he knew perfectly well who had done the thing before
+he started!
+
+Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a
+boy and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at
+twelve o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie--I
+was out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you.
+It is practically stalemate.
+
+All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+down the cricket field that afternoon.
+
+What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+
+What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard
+thinking, Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once
+more intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of
+his house.
+
+Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something
+particularly shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his
+bicycle from the shed.
+
+"Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him
+irritable. "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+
+Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason
+as a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he
+wanted his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+
+Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+Sunday afternoons during the term.
+
+He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+
+Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+
+A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+
+Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it
+was. What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy
+soul and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The
+greater part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea
+of red paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in
+the middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+
+"Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+
+Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+
+"Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+
+Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle
+from the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt,
+leaving Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the
+detective, to lock the door and resume his perambulation of the
+cricket field.
+
+Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+professional sleuth might have envied.
+
+Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+had done the deed of decoration.
+
+Yoicks!
+
+There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been
+giving a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring
+box at the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was
+the direct outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled
+into him.) In that case the footmark might be his.
+
+_Note one_: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+
+In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor
+for the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair
+went into it.
+
+_Note two_: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to the
+house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+
+Things were moving.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+from him.
+
+Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his
+house in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the
+time for reading in deck chairs.
+
+"Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if
+you found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house
+last night."
+
+"Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+
+"I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened
+to tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes
+this morning?"
+
+"No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+go into the shed at all."
+
+"I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+Markby live?"
+
+"I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a
+second. It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the
+right as you turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is
+the first you come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+
+"Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to
+Markby for a moment on a small matter."
+
+A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+
+"Oh, Markby!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion
+last night after the match?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So
+I thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+Marylebone come down."
+
+"Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the
+pot of paint when you had finished?"
+
+"Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+
+"On the floor?"
+
+"On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+
+"Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+
+"Do you want it, sir?"
+
+"No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the
+floor, with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had
+better get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I
+wished to know."
+
+Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he
+had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house--the idea of searching a
+fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+exist as a man capable of resenting liberties--find the paint-splashed
+shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster. There
+could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in Mr. Outwood's
+house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint without showing
+some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that the shoe would
+not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This really was
+beginning to be something like business.
+
+Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+fast as he could walk.
+
+
+
+20
+
+A CHECK
+
+
+The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+other. Psmith--for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend--was
+wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+the effort to nothing.
+
+"Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of
+leisure. Hello!"
+
+He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+
+"What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+bought the place?"
+
+"Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he
+may sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to
+them. Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair
+and book?"
+
+"I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+ground."
+
+"'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+
+Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+who has lost his bearings.
+
+"A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+
+"Er--Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I--er--wish to go round the dormitories."
+
+It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything,
+so he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+
+"I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the
+rooms are."
+
+"With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+sir?"
+
+"Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron
+being out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined
+the master.
+
+"Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Downing nodded.
+
+"Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy,
+I understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all
+to himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a
+cubic foot of air in vain. He argues justly--"
+
+He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in
+silence. Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+
+"Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think
+he's out in the field."
+
+Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+the exercise.
+
+"Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+
+"This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+awed whisper, "is where _I_ sleep!"
+
+Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+
+"Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+remarks to yourself."
+
+"I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+They moved on up the passage.
+
+Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+
+"The studies, Smith," he cried.
+
+"Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+Here we have--"
+
+Mr. Downing stopped short.
+
+"Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+
+"Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This
+is Barnes's."
+
+Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+
+"Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+
+"This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+
+"What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+
+"I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to
+our general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+
+Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+window attracted his attention.
+
+"Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+
+"There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+
+Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+
+"A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+distant hills ..."
+
+Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe
+at the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen
+climbing the pipe must have been making for this study.
+
+He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+
+"Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+
+"Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+
+"Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Nobody else comes into it?"
+
+"If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+
+"Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+
+"Not at all, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just
+about Jackson's size and build!
+
+Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in
+his life.
+
+"Smith!" he said excitedly.
+
+"On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+
+"Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+
+There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+
+"His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just
+now."
+
+"Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+
+"Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I
+should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket,
+downstairs. Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I
+believe, at early dawn."
+
+"Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+
+"If I know Edmund, sir--no."
+
+"Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+basket to me here."
+
+Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly
+was at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did
+not know. But that there was something, and that that something was
+directed in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with
+last night's wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on
+leaving his bed at the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe
+were alone in the room. That might mean that Mike had gone out through
+the door when the bell sounded, or it might mean that he had been out
+all the time. It began to look as if the latter solution were the
+correct one.
+
+He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while
+that it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study
+floor. Mr. Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the
+wall, and straightened out the damaged garment.
+
+"We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various
+bootings."
+
+Mr. Downing looked up.
+
+"You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+
+"Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside
+the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+
+At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+
+"Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+
+The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn
+on being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered
+footgear, whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as
+he did so.
+
+"That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+
+"Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+here. You can carry it back when you return."
+
+"Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+
+"Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+
+"Shall I carry it, sir?"
+
+Mr. Downing reflected.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+
+It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+
+Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+him.
+
+Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+
+He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but
+when a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on
+the following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint
+splashed shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name
+inside the shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was
+only a few miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was
+Mike's shoe.
+
+"Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith looked at it again.
+
+"No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+
+"Come with me, then."
+
+Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+
+The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+
+The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+
+"Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+Mr. Outwood's house?"
+
+"I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You have the shoe?"
+
+"Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+look at--This, you say, is the--? Just so. Just so. Just ... But, er,
+Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+sufficient care, but--Can _you_ point out to me exactly where this paint
+is that you speak of?"
+
+Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and
+entirely innocent.
+
+
+
+21
+
+THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+
+
+The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of
+some kind.
+
+Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+
+"There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there
+was a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in
+this. Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+
+"Paint, sir?"
+
+"What! Do you mean to tell me that you did _not_ see it?"
+
+"No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+
+"This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+across the toe."
+
+The headmaster interposed.
+
+"You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace
+of paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy,
+not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you--"
+
+"I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably
+subject--"
+
+"It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+
+"It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+
+"A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+
+The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+
+"What did you say, Smith?"
+
+"Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly
+out of a trance.
+
+Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+
+"You had better be careful, Smith."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+
+"Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On
+one occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I
+can assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic
+cleaning before all traces are removed."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+
+"Certainly Smith."
+
+Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+
+"My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects,
+he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+mistake...."
+
+"Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+"Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the
+only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really
+smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of
+a few minutes."
+
+"You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I
+go now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+Cicero's speech _De senectute_."
+
+"I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith.
+It is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+
+"I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+
+"If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+
+The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith
+without a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly
+smile, left the garden.
+
+Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road
+between the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw
+what, if they had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle
+of Psmith running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified
+walk. He believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+
+On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease
+of his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's
+gate, bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+
+On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the
+top of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair
+and panted.
+
+"Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+
+He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+
+He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage,
+and Mr. Downing appeared.
+
+The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it
+had occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's
+garden. Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse
+would be to do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling
+aggrieved with himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too,
+hurried over to Outwood's.
+
+Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+
+"I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh,
+laid down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+
+"Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your
+help."
+
+Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers,
+and watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+
+The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+
+"Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+
+"That thing, sir?"
+
+"Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+
+"Why, sir?"
+
+"Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+
+"I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+complaint.
+
+"Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+
+"I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+
+"Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+
+"May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+
+"Yes, read if you like."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly
+irritated, pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+
+He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the
+second search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as
+certain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence
+was somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank
+where it was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with
+evasive answers was quite out of the common.
+
+His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even
+for so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be
+acquitted, on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+
+Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+that there was the place to look.
+
+"Smith!" he said.
+
+Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What is in this cupboard?"
+
+"That cupboard, sir?"
+
+"Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+
+"Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+
+"Open it."
+
+"I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+
+"Unlock it."
+
+"But where is the key, sir?"
+
+"Have you not got the key?"
+
+"If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+take a long search to find it."
+
+"Where did you see it last?"
+
+"It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+
+"Where is Jackson?"
+
+"Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+from me. I shall break open the door."
+
+Psmith got up.
+
+"I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+
+"Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+
+"Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard
+happens to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his
+permission. He is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am
+only the acting manager."
+
+Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule
+did not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were
+limits to the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house
+without his permission and search it to a certain extent was all very
+well. But when it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+
+On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the
+room, he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+
+He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring
+into vacancy.
+
+Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at
+all? If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that
+the cupboard was not tampered with.
+
+"Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good
+enough to come here for a moment."
+
+
+
+22
+
+MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+
+
+"Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+making any movement in the direction of the door.
+
+"_Quick_, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+conundrum.
+
+"Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+
+Psmith still made no move.
+
+"Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if
+at any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+stripling!"
+
+It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he
+said did not keep up the standard of docility.
+
+"I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a
+master. In--'"
+
+"This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+
+Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+
+"If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for
+the Empire that the jibboom spanker _should_ be spliced at that
+particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my
+case. If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand,
+and come back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him
+to be good enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad
+to go and find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+
+"Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+
+Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+
+"Very well, Smith."
+
+"I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+
+Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+
+"But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+
+He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+
+His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened
+to the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to
+this, and let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had
+stopped swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+
+He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+
+As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it
+up the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening
+his hand.
+
+The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and
+washed off the soot.
+
+When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr.
+Outwood, the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+intellectual pressure of the situation.
+
+"Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+
+"I have been washing my hands, sir."
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+
+"Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+
+"My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it
+perfectly clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+
+"I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes
+in a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+good-gracious-has-the-man-_no_-sense look on the other's face, "Why he
+should not do so if he wishes it."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+
+"If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+"He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+
+"I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+
+Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if
+he had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+
+"So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any
+objection?"
+
+Mr. Outwood started.
+
+"Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, _what_
+is it you wish to do?"
+
+"This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the
+rest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing
+seized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door.
+The wood splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard,
+with any skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+place.
+
+"I told you," he said. "I told you."
+
+"I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+for it for days."
+
+Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+surprise and wrath.
+
+"This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+the shoe."
+
+"It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free
+from paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+sideways," he added helpfully.
+
+"Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+
+"I must have done. Then, when I lost the key--"
+
+"Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+"or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+
+The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good,
+hard knock.
+
+The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr.
+Outwood's set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had
+caught sight of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to
+inspect it.
+
+"Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It
+should have been done before."
+
+Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+
+Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+
+He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon
+his hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his
+fingers had closed upon what he was seeking.
+
+"Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough,
+after all, Smith."
+
+"No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+
+"You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this
+trouble. You have done yourself no good by it."
+
+"It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+
+"Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+opinion of what constitutes--"
+
+His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+
+"Did--you--put--that--shoe--there, Smith?" he asked slowly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then what did you _MEAN_ by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+
+"Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"WHAT?"
+
+"Animal spirits, sir."
+
+What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+
+"My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way
+to my room."
+
+In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against
+the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear
+up against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language
+of the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+
+"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+
+"Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+
+"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+
+His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+
+"You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more
+of it."
+
+Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+towels, soap, and sponges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a
+successfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man
+of refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it
+had been worth it.
+
+The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a
+lot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary
+implements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to
+do so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the
+madding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs
+there would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+
+His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place
+the shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+
+Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up
+to the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at
+about the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody
+would think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable that
+Mr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The
+odds were that he had forgotten about it already.
+
+Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling
+that he had done a good day's work.
+
+
+
+23
+
+ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+
+
+The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most
+adroit plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to
+the rule. He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's
+happenings.
+
+It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where
+there is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain
+unrevealed. There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling
+Mike. He forgot what the consequences might be if he did not.
+
+So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+
+Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion
+why only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the
+subject. He seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow
+can understand.
+
+"'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike
+might be satisfied with a compromise.
+
+"One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+school in one shoe."
+
+Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much
+as to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+understand sound reasoning."
+
+"Well, what am I to do? Where _is_ the other shoe?"
+
+"Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+
+"Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off
+in the gym shoes he stood in.
+
+It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which
+one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize
+how strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for
+instance, where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark
+blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most
+respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a
+mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if he had
+sandbagged the headmaster. So in the case of shoes. School rules decree
+that a boy shall go to his form room in shoes. There is no real reason
+why, if the day is fine, he should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer
+them. But, if he does, the thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say,
+"Great Scott, what _have_ you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, _what_ are
+you wearing on your feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the
+assembling of the form for call-over and the arrival of the form master,
+some wag is sure either to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act
+with some satirical remark, or else to pull one of them off, and
+inaugurate an impromptu game of football with it. There was once a boy
+who went to school one morning in elastic-sided boots.
+
+Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike
+with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to
+undergo at Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who
+gave trouble.
+
+There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a
+boy in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind,
+just as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with
+them. They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+
+Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention--every weapon was employed by him
+in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he
+felt shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in
+the first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten
+minutes to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked
+Like Loafers--which broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one
+occasion, when a particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of
+fare, Dunster had entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath
+slippers, of a vivid crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including
+his journey over to the house to change the heelless atrocities, had
+seen him through very nearly to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+
+Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+
+"Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+
+"_What_ are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+
+"Gym shoes, sir."
+
+"You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+
+The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+comfortably for the address from the throne.
+
+"I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+
+A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+translating.
+
+Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction,
+the form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+
+Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said,
+"Wal, sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so
+did Mr. Downing feel at that moment.
+
+When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+sped to the headmaster.
+
+
+
+24
+
+THE ADAIR METHOD
+
+
+It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop,
+came to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the
+Adair administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt
+was early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket
+keenness. Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious
+interest in life, had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his
+first term at Wrykyn. And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm
+attachment to the game, compared with Mike's.
+
+As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose
+to be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their
+comfortable beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and
+had caught catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air,
+had stung like adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really
+got to work, it is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the
+experiment was only equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of
+the type which likes to undergo hardships for the common good. They
+played well enough when on the field, but neither cared greatly whether
+the school had a good season or not. They played the games entirely for
+their own sakes.
+
+The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate
+as to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+today's must be avoided.
+
+"It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for
+the team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd
+better find somebody else."
+
+"Yes."
+
+At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+
+"Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+
+"Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+
+"Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+
+Stone was the first to recover.
+
+"I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C.
+with a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village
+Jackson plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+
+"All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+
+Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The
+majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain
+runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the
+team or not, then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless
+he is a man of action, practically helpless.
+
+Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that
+they would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The
+bowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the
+chance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are
+runs, wherever and however made.
+
+The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+there were no signs.
+
+Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond
+the fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great
+help. Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+
+At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right,
+was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with
+that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper
+before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of
+his reading to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen
+the paper, usually formed an interested and appreciative audience.
+Today, however, though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of
+excitement at the news that Sheppard had made a century against
+Gloucestershire, and that a butter famine was expected in the United
+States, these world-shaking news items seemed to leave Adair cold. He
+champed his bread and marmalade with an abstracted air.
+
+He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+
+Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe
+and convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of
+person who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He
+never shirked anything, physical or moral.
+
+He resolved to interview the absentees.
+
+It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He
+went across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day
+room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and
+marking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided
+with a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance
+and stagger backward against the captain.
+
+"Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+
+"Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this
+morning?"
+
+Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+spoke.
+
+"We didn't turn up," he said.
+
+"I know you didn't. Why not?"
+
+Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the
+coolness which comes from rehearsal.
+
+"We decided not to."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+fielding."
+
+Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+
+"You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+
+"That's just the word."
+
+"Sorry it bored you."
+
+"It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+
+Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+
+"What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+
+"There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking
+of something."
+
+"I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+
+Stone intervened.
+
+"It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't
+do anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like,
+but we don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or
+Saturday for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the
+school team aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go
+chucking people out of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+
+"You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+
+"What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll
+play for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn
+out for fielding practice before breakfast."
+
+"You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going
+to tomorrow morning."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Six sharp. Don't be late."
+
+"Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+
+"That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+
+"You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+
+"That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+
+"No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any
+deep conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for
+his comfort.
+
+"You've quite made up your minds?"
+
+"Yes," said Stone.
+
+"Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+
+He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+standing in the middle of the open space.
+
+"You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+
+"Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+
+Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than
+Stone, but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game.
+His blow was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his
+opponent's. At the end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+
+He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+
+"Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a
+minute or two."
+
+Stone made no reply.
+
+"Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+
+"All right," said Stone.
+
+"Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+
+Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make
+up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances
+he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than
+ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must
+end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match
+even for Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one
+minute. It seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was
+likely to come from an encounter with Adair.
+
+"All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+
+"Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+is Jackson's study."
+
+Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which
+precluded anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied
+that Mike's study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor
+at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+
+"He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+still there."
+
+"I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he
+isn't busy."
+
+
+
+25
+
+ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+
+
+Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going
+on below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that
+morning from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket
+captaincy which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a
+lugubrious strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with
+Wrykyn. A broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments
+with a day boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of
+Dunstable, the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a
+side out. Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone
+wrong. The M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three
+first-class cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty
+runs. Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs,
+with a team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch--not a
+well-known man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing
+for the club for nearly half a century--had got home by two wickets. In
+fact, it was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was
+about the most hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition
+of itself on the school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off,
+owing to an outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and
+athletics--the second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said
+Strachan, was hard lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for
+Wrykyn, as it had saved them from what would probably have been a record
+hammering, Ripton having eight of their last year's team left, including
+Dixon, the fast bowler, against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had
+been able to make runs in the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had
+struck a bad patch.
+
+Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one
+good batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may
+take a weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the
+importance of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+
+As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days,
+returned with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of
+personal injury which had made him hate his new school on the first
+day of term.
+
+And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered
+the room.
+
+There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+
+Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial
+story in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room,
+made the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand,
+and went on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was
+sitting, and contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+
+Psmith was the first to speak.
+
+"If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I
+seem to see the consommé splashing about his ankles. He's had a note
+telling him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just
+off there at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher,
+is waiting there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair?
+Or don't you take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+
+"Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+
+"What do you want?" said Mike.
+
+He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made
+this a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of
+no other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+afternoon calls.
+
+"I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+
+"That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We
+must be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We--"
+
+"Buck up," said Mike.
+
+"Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+
+"An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+
+"We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but
+it was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the
+first round."
+
+Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this
+was about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner.
+For some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was
+looking for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be
+a privilege to see that he got it.
+
+Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+
+"Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been
+_brawling_ with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you
+and he were like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too.
+Leave us, Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of
+thee.' Shakespeare."
+
+Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+
+"I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+
+"Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice,"
+said Adair, turning to Mike.
+
+Mike said nothing.
+
+"I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn
+out at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out.
+He's going to all right. So is Robinson."
+
+Mike remained silent.
+
+"So are you," said Adair.
+
+"I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+
+Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in
+the study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+
+"Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"I don't think. I know."
+
+"Any special reason for my turning out?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+want you to get some practice."
+
+"I wonder how you got that idea!"
+
+"Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+
+"Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+
+"I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+
+Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+
+"What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+curiously.
+
+"I'm going to make you."
+
+Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+
+"Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+
+For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+
+"Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+
+Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+
+"My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you _will_ let your angry
+passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose you
+must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the midst
+of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If you
+really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know
+a bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road,
+where you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on
+there? Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+
+
+
+26
+
+CLEARING THE AIR
+
+
+Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+the National Sporting Club.
+
+"The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is
+down will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades
+Adair and Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+
+After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up
+to its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been
+cautious sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds,
+as if it had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights,
+when they do occur--which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you
+count junior school scuffles--are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent.
+Up to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly
+attached to him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume
+that attitude of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates
+the other.
+
+So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the
+present battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted
+was to get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together
+as if they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+
+It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves,
+with his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have
+lasted three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while
+Mike had never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used
+his head, nothing could have prevented his winning.
+
+As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did
+at the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was
+the same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength,
+and, thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet
+with an unscientific but powerful righthander.
+
+This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The
+Irish blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him
+merely energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned
+all attempt at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile
+form, and as unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a
+swift exchange of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow,
+coming into contact with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which
+kept it tingling for the rest of the day; and then Adair went down in
+a heap.
+
+He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+
+In the excitement of a fight--which is, after all, about the most
+exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life--it
+is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would
+have seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a
+fraction of an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked
+out. Mike could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on
+his feet again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength;
+and this time Adair went down and stayed down.
+
+"Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be
+sitting up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go
+on with the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to
+be continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+alterations and repairs first."
+
+"Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts
+before in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one
+on his own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+
+"_He's_ all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be skipping
+about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+pick flowers."
+
+Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking
+that Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his
+point of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much.
+At the same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten
+him. The feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in
+a fresh and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and
+had carried it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the
+deliverer of knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new
+acquaintance a man to be respected.
+
+The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized
+Mike's view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of
+him. Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive
+dignity, he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched
+kid. There had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of
+refusing to identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+
+It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass
+of himself.
+
+He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+entered the study.
+
+"How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting.
+He's not a bad cove."
+
+"He's all right," said Mike.
+
+There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way.
+I'm not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but
+everyone to his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get
+overwhelmingly attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems
+to have done it. He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up.
+It's not a bad idea in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him.
+Apparently he's been sweating since early childhood to buck the school
+up. And as he's leaving at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly
+scheme to give him a bit of a send-off, if possible, by making the
+cricket season a bit of a banger. As a start, why not drop him a line to
+say that you'll play against the M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+
+Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade
+Adair, to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to
+understand that you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your
+village team. You didn't, of course?"
+
+"Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+
+"I told him he didn't know the old _noblesse oblige_ spirit of the
+Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon
+by not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return
+to the point under discussion, why not?"
+
+"I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+
+"If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+unworthy company--"
+
+"Don't be an ass."
+
+"--Dismiss it. _I_ am playing."
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"You're _what? You_?"
+
+"I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+handkerchief.
+
+"Can you play cricket?"
+
+"You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+
+"You're rotting."
+
+"You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Then why haven't you played?"
+
+"Why haven't you?"
+
+"Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+
+"The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such
+shock to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing
+of that sort takes years off my life."
+
+"No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+cricket?"
+
+"Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season
+came, where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in
+the night."
+
+"But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked
+watching it."
+
+"Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have
+to overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a
+habit. Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little
+by little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against
+it, but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and
+drifted with the stream. Last year in a house match"--Psmith's voice
+took on a deeper tone of melancholy--"I took seven for thirteen in the
+second innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I
+had found a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow.
+What Comrade Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest
+archaeological disciple has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+
+Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole
+face of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the
+recalcitrant, wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here
+was Psmith, the last person whom he would have expected to be a player,
+stating calmly that he had been in the running for a place in the
+Eton eleven.
+
+Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of
+his place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off,
+each in his own way--Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to
+their respective natures--on Sedleigh.
+
+If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+stop Mike doing so, as--at the bottom of his heart--he wanted to do.
+
+"By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+Adair now. But, I say"--he stopped--"I'm hanged if I'm going to turn out
+and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+
+"That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+
+
+
+27
+
+IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+
+
+"Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+
+"During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your
+elbow was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't
+know. Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the
+game tomorrow."
+
+"I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+
+"Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see
+anybody downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to
+the shop, ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell
+the man to chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at
+tea is all right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to
+commit suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+
+On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+went out of the house.
+
+A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in
+earnest. Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At
+this rate," he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all
+tomorrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show
+what it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When
+Mike woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping.
+Leaden-colored clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace
+of blue to be seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle,
+determined way rain has when it means to make a day of it.
+
+It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin
+boots, crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+
+Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+gate.
+
+These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped--he could hardly walk
+on as if nothing had happened--and looked down at his feet.
+
+"Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+
+"Right ho!" said Adair.
+
+They walked on in silence.
+
+"It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+
+Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born
+of nervousness.
+
+"About nine to."
+
+"Good. We've got plenty of time."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I hate having to hurry over to school."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+
+"Yes. So do I."
+
+"Beastly nuisance when one does."
+
+"Beastly."
+
+"It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+should think, shouldn't you?"
+
+"Not much more. Might be three."
+
+"Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"Beastly day," said Adair.
+
+"Rotten."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+wrist."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+
+"Does it hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+
+"I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+smashed me anyhow."
+
+"Oh, rot."
+
+"I bet you anything you like you would."
+
+"I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+
+"Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+
+"Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+
+Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+
+"I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+
+"Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+
+"Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+
+"Good."
+
+"Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+season."
+
+"Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+
+"Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+
+"He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+year."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the time?" asked Mike.
+
+Adair produced his watch once more.
+
+"Five to."
+
+"We've heaps of time."
+
+"Yes, heaps."
+
+"Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+
+"Right ho!"
+
+Mike cleared his throat.
+
+"I say."
+
+"Hello?"
+
+"I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the--"
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower
+Borlock if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+
+"He never even asked me to get him a place."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+like getting other fellows away from the team."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+
+"Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+
+The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect
+on Mike's mind--shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He
+might have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had
+said, "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have
+led his hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little
+hole, isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived
+that the words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese
+principle. When a Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by
+belittling himself and his belongings.
+
+He eluded the pitfall.
+
+"What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+after the way you've sweated."
+
+Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+
+"I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't
+suppose I've done anything much."
+
+"You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+that's any comfort to you."
+
+"I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+aches."
+
+For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began
+to laugh.
+
+"What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+
+"_You_ were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky
+at present."
+
+"It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+interval, and hang about in case."
+
+"All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got
+math till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which
+won't hurt me."
+
+"He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+
+"I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing
+or a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're
+crocked, I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years
+to get the match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+
+"I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain,
+with you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending
+down much of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out,
+we've got a jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way
+through, and the bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this
+M.C.C. lot a really good hammering, it might have been easier to get
+some good fixtures for next season. You see, it's all right for a school
+like Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can't get the
+best teams to give you a match till you've done something to show that
+you aren't absolute rotters at the game. As for the schools, they're
+worse. They'd simply laugh at you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn
+last year. What would you have done if you'd had a challenge from
+Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or else had a
+fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+
+Mike stopped.
+
+"By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+
+"What! They wouldn't play us."
+
+"Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date.
+Shall I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they
+aren't strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+
+Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+
+"By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+
+
+
+28
+
+MR. DOWNING MOVES
+
+
+The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that
+there should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the
+first Sedleigh _v_. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+
+Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as
+soon as he was changed.
+
+"What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+
+The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+glad if Mike would step across.
+
+"A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A
+meal on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against
+your return."
+
+Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of
+simple pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle
+which had been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize
+for a solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed
+Mike with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+abusive comments on its inventor.
+
+He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+
+Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was
+agitated.
+
+"I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+"but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type.
+You come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies
+round the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+
+"The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+
+"Me, do you mean?"
+
+"What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+
+"You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+
+"I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+
+"What _are_ you talking about?"
+
+"That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+
+"Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type?
+What has he been doing to you?"
+
+"He's off his nut."
+
+"I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump
+at you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he
+say he was a teapot?"
+
+Mike sat down.
+
+"You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+
+"As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+
+"He thinks I did it."
+
+"Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+
+"The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as
+asked me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage
+later on if I behaved sensibly."
+
+"Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master
+wants you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't
+enough evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+stand-off."
+
+"Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for
+all he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain
+that I painted Sammy."
+
+"_Did_ you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+
+"No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+prove that I did."
+
+"Such as what?"
+
+"It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+
+"It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag
+you into it?"
+
+"He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+
+"Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining
+him. But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+
+"He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who
+hasn't got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know
+where the dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs,
+but one's being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym
+shoes. That's how he spotted me."
+
+Psmith sighed.
+
+"Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows
+the folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to
+save you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud,
+right in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you
+aren't, just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"What the dickens are you talking about?"
+
+"Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+
+"I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender
+and groping, "but--_Hello_!"
+
+"Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+
+Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+
+"It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+
+"It _is_," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+
+Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+
+"How on earth did--By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+must have been the paint pot."
+
+"Then you were out that night?"
+
+"Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell
+you now--"
+
+"Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+
+"Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up
+to his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+
+"This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's
+why he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+
+"Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+
+"And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're
+_absolutely_ certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any
+chance, in a moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No?
+No, I suppose not. I wonder who did!"
+
+"It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was
+why I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the
+chap he chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the
+same. I shall get landed both ways."
+
+Psmith pondered.
+
+"It _is_ a tightish place," he admitted.
+
+"I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it
+with disfavor.
+
+"Not for a pretty considerable time."
+
+"I suppose not. I say, I _am_ in the cart. If I can't produce this shoe,
+they're bound to guess why."
+
+"What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you
+and Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass
+rags? Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+
+"Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot,
+and I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said
+very well, then, he must take steps, and--well, that was about all."
+
+"Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+
+"I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+
+"Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his
+move will be?"
+
+"I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+
+"_He'll_ want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on confession.
+The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about the time
+the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing Round-and-round-the-
+mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs thought. You had
+better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the dandelions
+growing. I will think over the matter."
+
+"Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+
+"Possibly. You never know."
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+"See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a
+panel. Come in."
+
+A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+answered the invitation.
+
+"Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you
+he wants to see you."
+
+"I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+
+"Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+
+Mike got up.
+
+"All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you
+today." He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr.
+Jackson will be with him in a moment."
+
+The emissary departed.
+
+"_You're_ all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+
+With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+
+He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in
+his chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a
+moment straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his
+hat and moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at
+the same dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at
+Downing's front gate.
+
+The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight
+of him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+professional manner, passed away.
+
+"Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+
+He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+
+"An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+toward the painting.
+
+"Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+about?"
+
+"It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+his knee.
+
+
+
+29
+
+THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+
+
+The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not
+lead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between
+accuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a
+feeling that the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and
+conversation showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened
+brightly enough, with a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had
+laid before him, but after that a massive silence had been the order of
+the day. There is nothing in this world quite so stolid and
+uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mind to be stolid and
+uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat and looked at Mike, who
+sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt awkward. It was a scene
+which needed either a dramatic interruption or a neat exit speech. As it
+happened, what it got was the dramatic interruption.
+
+The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."--which was practically
+going back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knock
+at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," and
+the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+
+"I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but--"
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+
+"I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+Jackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."
+
+Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling
+of relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+wearing game to play--the headmaster with astonishment.
+
+"Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+
+"No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+
+Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog
+with red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They
+had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but
+anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it
+funny at first. After the first surprise, their feeling had been that it
+was a rotten thing to have done and beastly rough luck on the poor
+brute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply
+did not believe it.
+
+"Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy
+himself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+
+Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was
+done for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy
+it meant that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was
+not likely that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at
+Sedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if
+possible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar
+occasion. It seemed as if Fate had a special grudge against his best
+friends. He did not make friends very quickly or easily, though he had
+always had scores of acquaintances--and with Wyatt and Psmith he had
+found himself at home from the first moment he had met them.
+
+He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+
+Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+
+"Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er--if you are
+going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+
+"Come in," said the headmaster.
+
+It was Adair.
+
+"Yes, Adair?"
+
+Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+
+"It was about Sammy--Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+
+"Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+
+"It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+
+"No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing--"
+
+"It was Dunster, sir."
+
+Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to
+their fullest extent.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform
+him, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's
+confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal
+was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words
+of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted
+for his brain a side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people?
+Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas.
+And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that
+he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? He concentrated his mind
+on Adair as the only person who could save him from impending
+brain fever.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What--_what_ do you mean?"
+
+"It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes ago,
+in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog, sir, for a
+rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here to get into a
+row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at once. I tried to
+find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met Smith outside
+the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to see
+you, sir."
+
+"Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+Dunster?"
+
+"I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+
+"And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+
+"He laughed, sir."
+
+"_Laughed_!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+
+"Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+
+Mr. Downing snorted.
+
+"But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+
+"He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+night in the village."
+
+"And that was the night the--it happened?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to
+any boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if
+any boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to
+do it."
+
+"The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+
+"Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+write to him."
+
+"If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I
+cannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not
+do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his
+own accord and deliberately confessing?"
+
+"To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that
+I should like to see him."
+
+"If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+
+"In the hall!"
+
+"Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+
+"H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the
+room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of
+rain could be heard outside the window.
+
+Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+opened.
+
+"Mr. Smith, sir."
+
+The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with
+a gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+
+"It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+
+"Sit down, Smith."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided
+in favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself
+time has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+
+Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+
+"Smith."
+
+Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+
+"Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It was absolutely untrue?"
+
+"I am afraid so, sir."
+
+"But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+
+Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+
+"... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+
+Psmith sighed softly.
+
+"The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the
+present age."
+
+"What!" replied the headmaster.
+
+"It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has
+been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it
+is out of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of
+the most interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted.
+Human nature--"
+
+The headmaster interrupted.
+
+"Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+
+He made a motion toward the door.
+
+When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot
+on the floor.
+
+"Er ... Smith."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+again. Then he went on.
+
+"Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ...
+er ... severe illness? Any ... er ... _mental_ illness?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"There is no--forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject--there is
+no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+er ... have described?"
+
+"There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+
+"Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+mean to suggest--quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+impulse which you cannot explain?"
+
+"Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+
+Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+
+"Well, Smith?"
+
+"I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+
+"I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+
+"I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+
+"I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+existing between boy and--Well, never mind that for the present. We can
+return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say. I
+shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+
+"Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's
+dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it.
+That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain
+amount of confusion."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+"but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+"Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to
+time and cultivate him."
+
+Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+
+"Well?" said Mike.
+
+"You _are_ the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+
+"Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+
+"Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+
+"Not a thing."
+
+"Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+
+Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+
+"By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+
+"What's that?" asked Psmith.
+
+"Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+"They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+
+"Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+
+"And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what
+it is."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+you'd done it?"
+
+"The craving for--"
+
+"Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+
+Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+
+"My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe.
+I'm surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from
+Michael Jackson."
+
+"Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+was jolly good of you, too."
+
+Psmith moaned.
+
+
+
+30
+
+SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led
+on the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+
+Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be
+influenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more
+school matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type of
+school batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets his
+imagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,
+Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the most
+azure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adair had
+announced on the notice board that on Saturday, July the twentieth,
+Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on the jump. It was
+useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, on Mike's
+authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on their present
+form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but were not
+comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but then Wrykyn
+cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that this probably
+meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--there was a very
+firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh first eleven that the
+other school was quite strong enough to knock the cover off _them_.
+Experience counts enormously in school matches. Sedleigh had never been
+proved. The teams they played were the sort of sides which the Wrykyn
+second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, from time immemorial, had been
+beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters teams and M.C.C. teams packed
+with county men and sending men to Oxford and Cambridge who got their
+blues as freshmen.
+
+Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+
+It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and
+the wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during
+the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+
+Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the
+surroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes
+magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse
+almost invariably ensues.
+
+Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was
+expected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had
+played inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been
+caught at short slip off his second ball.
+
+That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed
+them to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out
+at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to
+half volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not
+equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven
+wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+
+Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he
+was undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total
+to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+seventy-nine.
+
+Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+thirty-one.
+
+This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team
+had looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair
+and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially
+Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with
+the tail.
+
+It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the
+game out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,
+having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their
+nervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in
+the first innings.
+
+It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if
+they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in
+the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so
+bad then that they easily might.
+
+So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.
+The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was
+bowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated
+all the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper
+frame of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the
+rest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a
+hundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one
+to Strachan at cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+
+As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+
+Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during
+which to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and
+go for a win on the first innings.
+
+At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he
+hit into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two
+runs later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over
+with a c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen
+for three, with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too
+dangerous. So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with
+caution, and the collapse ceased.
+
+This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter
+opened. Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the
+hands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had
+been tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's
+defence. They were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at
+the bad.
+
+A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which
+altered the game completely.
+
+"Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot.
+You can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+
+Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball
+from him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The
+next moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five.
+Adair was absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first
+ball right on the worn patch.
+
+Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion,
+while the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+
+There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic
+and without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground.
+There were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down.
+Sedleigh was on top again.
+
+The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+
+Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to
+the right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+
+After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+minutes in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+
+"When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at
+the shop."
+
+"He bowled awfully well."
+
+"Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this
+joyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give
+Sedleigh a fixture again next year?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+swamp them."
+
+"I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the
+thing started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten
+Wrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and
+work up to playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's
+all right, you see."
+
+"And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it
+would be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall
+we stagger?"
+
+They staggered.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***
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+    <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" name="linkgenerator" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      Mike and Psmith, by P.G. Wodehouse
+    </title>
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+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; }
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+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***</div>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MIKE AND PSMITH
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By P.G. Wodehouse
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      1909
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CONTENTS
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>&nbsp;</td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> 1 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> 2 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> 3 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PSMITH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> 4 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> 5 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          GUERRILLA WARFARE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> 6 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> 7 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> 8 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> 9 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> 10 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> 11 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> 12 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> 13 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> 14 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> 15 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ... AND FULFILLS IT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> 16 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PURSUIT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> 17 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> 18 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> 19 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> 20 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          A CHECK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> 21 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> 22 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> 23 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> 24 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ADAIR METHOD
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> 25 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> 26 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          CLEARING THE AIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> 27 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> 28 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING MOVES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> 29 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> 30 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In Evelyn Waugh's book <i>Decline and Fall</i> his hero, applying for a
+      post as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+      grades&mdash;leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+      Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+      class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one of
+      those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to put the
+      word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster qualified to
+      attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is a few more
+      Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted, that even at a
+      "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only drawback is that it
+      does not play the leading schools or the first-rate schools or even the
+      good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from Wrykyn (a "first-rate
+      school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading school") Sedleigh
+      naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike some time to adjust
+      himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher, accepted the change of
+      conditions with his customary equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books, <i>Psmith
+      in the City</i> and <i>Psmith, Journalist</i>, before becoming happily
+      married in <i>Leave It to Psmith</i>, but I have always thought that he
+      was most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play
+      to his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+      with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+      English school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous characters
+      to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton with the son
+      of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas,
+      and one night he told me about this peculiar schoolboy who dressed
+      fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one of the masters inquired
+      after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah and thinnah." It was all
+      the information I required in order to start building him in a star part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life, I
+      can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+      prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally prosperous
+      counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like Perry, in
+      appearing for the defense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must apologize, as I did in the preface to <i>Mike at Wrykyn,</i> for
+      all the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+      quite so much of it this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P.G. Wodehouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      1 &mdash; MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he might
+      have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr. Jackson
+      opened the envelope containing his school report and read the contents,
+      that the document in question was not exactly a paean of praise from
+      beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was late for
+      breakfast in the holidays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+      Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+      Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+      resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for the
+      jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in a
+      detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are&mdash;I've
+      been keeping everything hot for you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+      round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she always
+      did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing thoroughly.
+      She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they made centuries in
+      first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She would field out in the
+      deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at the net in the paddock,
+      though for the others, even for Joe, who had played in all five Test
+      Matches in the previous summer, she would do it only as a favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+      table and watched Mike eat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+      interested. "What did it say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't see&mdash;I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the
+      envelope. Father didn't say anything."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+      was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+      you were in his form."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any more
+      tea in that pot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+      you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+      make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He didn't mean it really, I <i>know</i> he didn't! He couldn't! You're
+      the best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i>. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+      first term you were there&mdash;even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good
+      as that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+      year or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off the
+      first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out at
+      the net now. Let's go and see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+      put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs retired
+      as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+      match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+      considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons now,
+      and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had filled
+      out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had the
+      strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple to him.
+      It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was beginning to find
+      his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own special invention, was
+      delighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+      Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+      returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+      prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+      responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+      fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the wrong
+      men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no light
+      thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+      hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+      information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with that
+      bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant nature.
+      Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his sons as
+      companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to ruffle the
+      placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was an unfailing
+      wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's sarcastic resume of
+      Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term, there had been
+      something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion that Mr. Jackson
+      had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike from Wrykyn unless
+      the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I want
+      to speak to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+      emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+      had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge that
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out&mdash;may
+      I bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen to
+      this report."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+      interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+      more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+      extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't anything really. I only happened&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+      cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+      several occasions, he paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'French bad; conduct disgraceful&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody rags in French."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody does much work in Math."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term&mdash;all speeches and
+      doubtful readings, and cruxes and things&mdash;beastly hard! Everybody
+      says so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+      declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire in
+      him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the same
+      effect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted a
+      public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+      understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him thrills
+      of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his habit to
+      regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an unbiased
+      eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as near the
+      extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in a clear
+      firm hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+      said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in its
+      envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall abide by what I said."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart thumped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+      somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+      their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment
+      the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+      to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+      when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+      normally easygoing man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason he
+      said very little now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name&mdash;one of
+      those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+      when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+      Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What had
+      Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they play?
+      What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps they didn't
+      even <i>play</i> cricket!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+      plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+      and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide his
+      sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+      Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit&mdash;boys work there. Young
+      Barlitt won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was
+      the vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+      into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+      much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+      of conversation were not Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he would
+      have liked to have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      2 &mdash; SEDLEIGH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+      pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up, opened
+      the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic and
+      vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if he
+      hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that Sedleigh
+      station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+      had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike was
+      feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And, so far
+      from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+      deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+      had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously incompetent
+      than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to the handle of
+      the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage van. He disliked
+      his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair. Also the boots he
+      wore. He hated the station, and the man who took his ticket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from Mike's
+      <i>distrait</i> air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up in
+      the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a goodish step, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here you are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+      was it you was going to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Outwood's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+      it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Worse luck," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+      absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a place
+      where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven, and
+      played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of arriving at
+      Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the bitter part of
+      it. He had never been in command. For the last two seasons he had been the
+      star man, going in first, and heading the averages easily at the end of
+      the season; and the three captains under whom he had played during his
+      career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby, and Henfrey, had always been
+      sportsmen to him. But it was not the same thing. He had meant to do such a
+      lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He had had an entirely new system of
+      coaching in his mind. Now it might never be used. He had handed it on in a
+      letter to Strachan, who would be captain in his place; but probably
+      Strachan would have some scheme of his own. There is nobody who could not
+      edit a paper in the ideal way; and there is nobody who has not a theory of
+      his own about cricket coaching at school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+      Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few overs,
+      might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended upon. There
+      was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn would have a
+      bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched athletic year for
+      the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless, and had lost both the
+      Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points. Sheen's victory in the
+      light weights at Aldershot had been their one success. And now, on top of
+      all this, the captain of cricket was removed during the Easter holidays.
+      Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and
+      all its works with a great loathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set in
+      a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country, but
+      almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and past
+      fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he caught
+      sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore an
+      unmistakably schoollike look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This must be Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+      directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by a
+      cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+      in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+      reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+      Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+      he reminded Mike of Smee in <i>Peter Pan</i>. He had the same eyebrows and
+      pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson?" he said mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a cup
+      of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You come
+      from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near Brindleford? It
+      is a part of the country which I have always wished to visit. I dare say
+      you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose at
+      Brindleford?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed him
+      one on a tray, said he had not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad to
+      have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England, and
+      it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose. A
+      deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+      1133-40&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+      after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+      visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+      Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+      unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful preservation.
+      It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and two and a half
+      wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the apse wall. It
+      will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present, Jackson, good-bye."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+      deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+      hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+      journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a little
+      hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+      he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+      Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had come
+      by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+      leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+      left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and fixed
+      it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he inspected Mike
+      in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible speck of dust
+      from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in a tired voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+      bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever sitting
+      down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these chairs as
+      mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That sort of idea.
+      My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      3 &mdash; PSMITH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led Astray
+      and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I don't
+      know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The boy&mdash;what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes! Why, are you new?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+      yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+      way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion to
+      write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+      P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for Smythe.
+      My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but I've
+      decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty. The
+      resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on the back
+      of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert (though I
+      hope you won't), or simply Smith, the <i>P</i> not being sounded. Compare
+      the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar miss-in-balk. See?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+      courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but a
+      babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse to
+      keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of the
+      first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+      boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+      bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze
+      on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. I was superannuated last term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bad luck."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+      scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a Balliol&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+      told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+      here to get a Balliol too. Do <i>you</i> know Barlitt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+      that I was sent here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you come from Crofton?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+      brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+      human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+      The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+      his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+      at least be tolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+      painful story. Now tell me yours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad reports."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+      every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen of it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+      will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to
+      be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+      collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+      companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+      Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+      Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+      and things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of a
+      stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+      grounds&mdash;he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man&mdash;and
+      I hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+      country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+      Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+      half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+      generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark you,
+      laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off cricket.
+      To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser leg, "was the
+      dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A noble game, but
+      a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field out at the nets
+      till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you are a blood at the
+      game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and so on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+      fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+      business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+      for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of pleasure.
+      To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were, was one way
+      of treating the situation, and one not without its meed of comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith approved the resolve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will search
+      the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive fossil
+      together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus improve our
+      minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't wonder if one
+      mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a bit of rabbit
+      shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade Outwood during our
+      brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the lynx-eyed contingent.
+      With tact we ought to be able to slip away from the merry throng of fossil
+      chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used to
+      break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+      interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+      nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+      Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+      and look."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+      either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This'll do us well," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+      couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung on a
+      nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You aren't going to collar it!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+      straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+      claims. This is practical socialism."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to pig
+      it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be alone.
+      It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a fatiguing day.
+      And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help me fetch up my box
+      from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various things in it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      4 &mdash; STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+      rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he preferred
+      to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that the wooden
+      bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was Mike who
+      wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who abstracted the key
+      from the door of the next study, though the idea was Psmith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what we
+      chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door unlocked
+      in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody comes
+      right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think with a
+      little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+      comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think you
+      could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks. We make
+      progress. We make progress."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+      tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+      turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+      insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the evening
+      meal?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something to
+      be at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+      dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+      this, I wonder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+      that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed, and
+      a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+      turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+      to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things to
+      say on the subject."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+      smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On his
+      face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+      stateliness to do the honors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues after
+      our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths. Let me
+      introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in appearance,
+      perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will doubtless come up
+      in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and harangued
+      Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these: 'It
+      might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+      yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+      might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said huskily,
+      'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and said,
+      'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to know what&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+      and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected by
+      his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival, you
+      find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not Spiller."
+      Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of tea. Spiller's
+      sad case had moved him greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it's beastly cheek."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went straight
+      to the root of the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller evaded the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+      studies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+      prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual and
+      the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place bagging
+      studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption that it is
+      impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a lesson to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here, I tell you what it&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if you
+      trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He said, 'I
+      couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the accelerator.' 'But
+      suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.'
+      So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot brake
+      after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I
+      give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and
+      the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realized the
+      possibility of somebody someday collaring your study, you might have
+      thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is,
+      you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as a surprise. The cry goes
+      round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He cannot cope with the
+      situation.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can't I! I'll&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+      Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's my
+      study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man of
+      Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you intend
+      to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade Jackson before
+      you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an insignificant-looking
+      little weed. And you <i>are</i> an insignificant-looking little weed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+      myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well all
+      go together."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined, Mike
+      sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he walked, and
+      now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by the wayside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently the
+      leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you have
+      already made friends."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+      study-claimer's shoulder&mdash;a proceeding violently resented by Spiller&mdash;"is
+      a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands before one
+      like some beautiful flower."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+      gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys
+      in my house friendly toward one another."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is the
+      heart of a little child."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak to
+      you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" began Spiller
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological Society
+      in the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+      disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+      chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+      be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+      induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over the
+      School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support. Boys
+      came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at times,
+      not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact that it
+      provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+      opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+      main, earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society. I&mdash;er&mdash;in
+      a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become a member?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+      down your name at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And Jackson's, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted. This
+      is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to join."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+      Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+      from the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be there, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Capital!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+      you could spare the time, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+      study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+      evenings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. Quite so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+      list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should have
+      spoken before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+      Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study. He
+      would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+      formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+      comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On Saturday, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+      "is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one of
+      these afternoons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      5 &mdash; GUERRILLA WARFARE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+      position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study with
+      the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than sitting
+      under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on Spiller; he
+      would not have appreciated it properly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you in
+      a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+      other before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+      permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we are
+      now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood is not
+      going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Made it jolly hot for them!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+      an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+      are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+      gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a reasonable
+      number of assailants in defense of the home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+      though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all right
+      while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+      admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at us
+      through the door, and we can lock that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And jam a chair against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>And</i>, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of
+      the nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+      cart."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the man,
+      Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind&mdash;such foresight!
+      such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+      rooms we're done&mdash;we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not the matron&mdash;Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+      there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+      afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+      followed a knocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+      parley with the man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+      vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood giggling
+      with his hands in his pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+      light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+      eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I <i>do</i> wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+      description&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mine is Psmith&mdash;P-s-m-i-t-h&mdash;one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The
+      object on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything downstairs.
+      You <i>are</i> chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his study? He's
+      making no end of a row about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of human
+      nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say that he
+      would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the glad throng?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. <i>I</i>
+      think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How many <i>will</i> there be, then?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+      don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+      has been bagged."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+      virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only thing
+      is we must get into the same dormitory."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+      come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with, say,
+      about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five&mdash;there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+      chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+      Outwood and stake out another claim."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+      he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must apologize for disturbing you, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to me
+      when they wish for my advice or help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+      Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+      very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling Jellicoe
+      kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson, Jellicoe and
+      myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it&mdash;I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And we can have the room, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly&mdash;certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that we
+      are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade Jellicoe for
+      his valuable assistance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The handle began to revolve again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+      one's leisure cruelly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+      come down," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The senior day room chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They want us to speak to them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+      down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as the
+      messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door open, I
+      think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what can we do
+      for you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+      the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+      black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll risk it," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+      to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been watching.
+      He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against the advancing
+      crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the weight and impetus
+      of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back, and Mike, stepping
+      into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at the
+      looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the first
+      shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body crashed against the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+      quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+      repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+      instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+      through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+      in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+      have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm and a
+      leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+      windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the flowerbed below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+      guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had pressed
+      against the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson. I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+      always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+      in the corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody hammered on the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bell rang in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+      "There's no harm in going out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+      evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+      attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was plain
+      that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's face
+      was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of garden mold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element. His
+      demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+      condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to Mike.
+      It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as you can."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+      been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky you
+      two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you into
+      the senior day room and scrag you there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but it
+      can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+      term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+      life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My nerves
+      are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce them to
+      hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign&mdash;the thing must
+      be settled at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it as
+      tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will try to
+      corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could fake up some
+      sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all the trouble
+      over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I don't propose to
+      be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose that we let them
+      come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this meeting with me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As a matter of fact&mdash;if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at all;
+      he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we have our
+      little wooden <i>châlet</i> to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+      Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+      moral support, but otherwise, <i>ne pas</i>. And now, as there won't be
+      anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write home
+      and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      6 &mdash; UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements of
+      the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for Dormitory
+      One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The rest of the
+      opposing forces were distributed among other and more distant rooms. It
+      was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be the rendezvous. As to
+      the time when an attack might be expected, it was unlikely that it would
+      occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went the round of the
+      dormitories at eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+      conducted in a subdued and <i>sotto voce</i> manner, or may we let
+      ourselves go a bit here and there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you&mdash;he sleeps miles
+      away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often rag
+      half the night and nothing happens."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment. What
+      would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of these
+      reckless youths!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+      stopping the show before it's half started."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up&mdash;I can hear it sizzling. I
+      quite agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as
+      well to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody
+      else who might interfere with our gambols?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is Barnes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Head of the house&mdash;a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson;
+      they rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+      pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+      vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again, closing the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+      they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+      following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+      would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+      his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+      by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+      directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated imitation
+      of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He would then&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of the
+      steps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson, the
+      man with the big brain!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+      three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+      examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+      made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+      across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+      Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+      finest purlers in the world's history."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they've got a torch&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then they'll
+      charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire into the
+      brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade Jellicoe's
+      jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not be amiss&mdash;we
+      will enmesh the enemy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will retire
+      to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe like an
+      asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at the top of
+      the steps, listening."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying experience,
+      especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential. Mike was tired
+      after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was jerked back to
+      wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle; the faintest
+      rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight giggle, succeeded by
+      a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe, too, had heard the noise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+      movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened the
+      door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic; he was
+      flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the true
+      artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+      enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard had
+      reached the second step.... In another moment&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CRASH!
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+      he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+      contents had got to the right address.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+      before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on the
+      nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he ran
+      amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but his left
+      went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick freed his
+      ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a sudden increase
+      in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good work that was
+      being put in by Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+      caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual kind
+      of housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+      over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+      each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+      secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+      that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+      rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that made
+      itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+      light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other dormitories,
+      roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport. They had
+      switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+      enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+      the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a gingerly
+      fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In the direction
+      of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord of a dressing
+      gown, was engaging the remaining three with a patient smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+      cord acutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+      to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having seized
+      and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again with the
+      cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the spectators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+      everywhere&mdash;on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+      passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+      inadvertently trod), on the floor&mdash;he ranged the room, sowing
+      destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this was
+      to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the garrison
+      armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a final rush
+      sent them through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+      in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood alone
+      in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had pitchforked him
+      so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time since his father had
+      given him his views upon school reports that morning in the Easter
+      holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped, outnumbered as he was,
+      that the enemy would come on again and not give the thing up in disgust;
+      he wanted more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+      action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+      combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+      forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back along
+      the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some clouded
+      cane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+      called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+      the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+      poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+      Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's&mdash;Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+      words; where you pick them up I can't think&mdash;not from me. Well, well,
+      I suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+      night, good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+      whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  <i>Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease.</i>
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      7 &mdash; ADAIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+      three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and wiry,
+      light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to running.
+      Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced eye saw that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was that
+      rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or the
+      passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected to
+      lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very different
+      thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that comes to the
+      top by sheer force of character and determination. He was not naturally
+      clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged resolution which had
+      carried him up the school, and landed him high in the Sixth. As a
+      cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had given him a good
+      eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had triumphed over her
+      failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of more trouble than most
+      people give to their life work he had made himself into a bowler. He read
+      the authorities, and watched first-class players, and thought the thing
+      out on his own account, and he divided the art of bowling into three
+      sections. First, and most important&mdash;pitch. Second on the list&mdash;break.
+      Third&mdash;pace. He set himself to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling
+      at his own pace and without any attempt at break, he could now drop the
+      ball on an envelope seven times out of ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+      expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could get
+      all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything but a
+      plumb wicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+      style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+      elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+      sprints and all the rest of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+      school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a small
+      school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him.
+      There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of them in
+      all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been influenced by
+      Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the effects of his
+      work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature to want to get
+      something which somebody else obviously values very much; and when it was
+      observed by members of his form that Adair was going to great trouble and
+      inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or fifteen, they
+      naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in those teams. The
+      consequence was that his form always played hard. This made other forms
+      play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair succeeded to the
+      captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year, Sedleigh, as Mr.
+      Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach to a cricket master
+      that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying, was a keen school. As
+      a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All it wanted now was opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness for
+      his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which really
+      is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average public-school boy
+      <i>likes</i> his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at Rugger and
+      Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry to leave, and
+      he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for any passionate,
+      deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather bad form than
+      otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the back, and cried,
+      "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old school, Jenkins! The
+      dear old school! The old place you love so!" he would feel seriously ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was the exception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead; his
+      guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia at one
+      end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant times Adair
+      had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to Sedleigh. The place
+      had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike, violently transplanted from
+      Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not to be mentioned in the same
+      breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the future, saw a colossal
+      establishment, a public school among public schools, a lump of human
+      radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars year after year without
+      ceasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+      not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+      want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+      keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+      should take its rank among <i>the</i> schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+      should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's in
+      the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years running. He
+      would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained his wrist. And
+      he plays fives jolly well!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+      from that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+      hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+      little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with his
+      form master during morning school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+      replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+      self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+      into the man's head; and when I <i>had</i> driven it in, he sent me out of
+      the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+      me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+      persecuted by scoundrels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+      pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+      mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+      all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Haven't you <i>ever</i> played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+      qualities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this afternoon
+      and seeing what you can do with a hard ball&mdash;if you can manage
+      without your little sister."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+      hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+      This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+      smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+      myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+      National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the Young
+      Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are being
+      carried back to the pavilion after your century against Loamshire&mdash;do
+      you play Loamshire?&mdash;we shall be grubbing in the hard ground for
+      ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty, Comrade Adair. A
+      Boy's Crossroads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+      brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair turned, and walked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+      same question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a general
+      resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable bullfinch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+      new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We want
+      keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy to be
+      keen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excellent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On archaeology."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing&mdash;for it was no less a celebrity&mdash;started, as one who
+      perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+      passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we went
+      singing about the house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently. "I
+      don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to interfere
+      with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly that in my
+      opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets him into
+      idle, loafing habits."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the principle
+      of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other boys, not
+      wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and going into low
+      public houses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+      Psmith, shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in my
+      opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stumped off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now <i>he's</i> cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+      getting ourselves disliked here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good job, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of a
+      lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      8 &mdash; MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+      Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+      with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+      of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+      resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+      And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings for
+      a Kindergarten <i>v</i>. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+      Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun shone,
+      and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and heard the
+      "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to Adair and
+      shouting, "I <i>will</i> be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three years,
+      and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to the
+      nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once or
+      twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the game
+      which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do not
+      make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers more
+      likely, by the law of averages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+      Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a Burgess,
+      but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three years'
+      experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He was a long
+      way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the others who
+      had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+      Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+      Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth&mdash;not
+      unlike what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy&mdash;but he knew how to
+      keep balls out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+      Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+      batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star at
+      Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+      repeat the experiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+      freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the scent
+      of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This is the
+      real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went up to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+      nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+      manner was offensively abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This net,"
+      it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+      embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge over
+      there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+      corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+      if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked away without a word.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with them
+      the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a poor
+      substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction shouting to
+      him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them hugely, but Mike
+      almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always possible to slip
+      away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked upon them as among
+      the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er with
+      the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the pleased
+      and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him round the
+      garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research struck a new note
+      in the history of that neglected science. He was amiable, but patronizing.
+      He patronized fossils, and he patronized ruins. If he had been confronted
+      with the Great Pyramid, he would have patronized that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+      expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+      old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+      let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+      absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+      putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may lie
+      on his back for a bit."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+      since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+      strolled away down the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+      Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+      Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+      are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement, I
+      can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+      there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound over
+      pebbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+      sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to the
+      music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to say, I
+      rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these naps by the
+      wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And Psmith, heaving the
+      comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has earned rest, lay down, with
+      his head against a mossy tree stump, and closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making centuries
+      in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up, jumped the
+      brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+      undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when you
+      meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in order that
+      you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread his way back
+      through the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on, and
+      trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity in
+      the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The dickens you&mdash;Why, you're Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair moustache.
+      Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could not place
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing you
+      seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my nesting
+      pheasants."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm frightfully sorry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course&mdash;I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made
+      fifty-eight not out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was that
+      you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+      are you doing down here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've left Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+      that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to inquire
+      the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of puttering
+      about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you off
+      for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart leaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he told how matters stood with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+      things"&mdash;Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague&mdash;"but
+      I could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+      get onto my bike&mdash;I've got it down here&mdash;and meet you anywhere
+      you liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my
+      hands off a bat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+      Lower Borlock&mdash;that's the name of the place&mdash;and I'll meet you
+      on the ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off
+      the London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+      Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want to
+      bring mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+      wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and told
+      the news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+      soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+      play for the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+      but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports. I'll
+      borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+      Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a newcomer
+      to the team, M. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      9 &mdash; THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+      position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+      gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+      fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+      it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+      substitute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+      Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+      arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with, proved
+      more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it grew
+      with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a master
+      ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his official
+      dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes. To Mr.
+      Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for the
+      school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should be
+      implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the healthy
+      boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+      by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+      unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+      "overtime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that it
+      was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to do
+      with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+      Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple of his
+      eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem of
+      Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe passport
+      to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket was good, but
+      to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+      of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+      vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+      Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+      the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+      members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+      seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+      Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+      Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye, Sammy
+      was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat, an
+      engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which was a
+      happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a tenor
+      voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+      Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+      two minutes' acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during French
+      lessons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We will now proceed to the painful details.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+      form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading of
+      the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+      according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+      for the disturbing of the peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today they were in very fair form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+      House, held up his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Red, with green stripes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Stone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+      right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard, and
+      the meeting had divided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+      Stone, sit down&mdash;Wilson, get back to your place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Si-<i>lence!</i> The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the
+      question."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be <i>quiet!</i> Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+      needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+      disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a show
+      of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+      out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+      are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, sir, the danger!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+      man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+      the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+      expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+      that are likely to fall on our heads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps like
+      the first fifteen have? They&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wilson, leave the room!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, <i>please</i>, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+      lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+      spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not right!
+      If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of this
+      flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be keen.
+      I...? What is that noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling from
+      a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were being
+      prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The sufferer
+      appeared to have a high voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+      near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+      rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the opposite
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well&mdash;be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+      Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you making that whining noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>sort</i> of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had
+      asked before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just
+      such a case as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+      can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+      "Perhaps that's it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+      sometimes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence! Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+      shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like an
+      excited kangaroo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+      to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between the
+      two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in time to
+      see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin worrying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chaos reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+      dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+      Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+      stirring, bustling scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+      standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all the
+      other noises till in time they gave up the competition and died away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of a
+      Bren gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+      punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+      same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+      will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+      end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain. <i>Quietly</i>,
+      I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that abominable way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crash!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement of
+      your hand&mdash;one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting dispersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+      conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk, so
+      I came in&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+      "the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came in,
+      too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to let
+      him go, and he came in after the rat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+      both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr. Downing
+      liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade, frivolous
+      at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept wicket for
+      the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society, and had
+      refused to play cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun, and
+      paid very little for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+      Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+      it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend their
+      time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen school;
+      this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time. That will
+      do, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+      has a habit of getting the last word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      10 &mdash; ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+      wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+      room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and borrowings
+      to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as something of a
+      blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody. The
+      fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a quid.
+      You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have got, so
+      don't be shy about paying it back."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+      gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+      meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+      Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+      ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+      was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+      Jellicoe&mdash;why on earth did the man want all that?&mdash;meant that,
+      unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the
+      desired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+      regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had made
+      a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a sufficiently
+      softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be stated at once, he
+      did, by return of post.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter&mdash;he was
+      never a very ready writer&mdash;when Stone and Robinson burst into the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+      the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+      Robinson was laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair. Mike's
+      heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was a thing
+      of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius Caesar. He
+      felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and appreciate one
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+      Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+      public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain. They
+      had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits. They
+      looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones and
+      Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about, loud
+      and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to other
+      people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out the
+      tea things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those Fire Brigade meetings," said Stone, "are a rag. You can do what you
+      like, and you never get more than a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you!" said Mike. "I got Saturday afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Wilson in too?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. He got a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What a beastly swindle!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'We are, above all, a keen school,'" quoted Stone. "Don't you ever play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have played a bit," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why on earth did you leave?" asked Stone. "Were you sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. My father took me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn?" said Robinson. "Are you any relation of the Jacksons there&mdash;J.W.
+      and the others?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brother."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, didn't you play at all there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and Robinson
+      nearly dropped his teacup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone broke the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But I mean to say&mdash;look here? What I mean is, why aren't you
+      playing? Why don't you play now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do. I play for a village near here. Place called Lower Borlock. A man
+      who played against Wrykyn for the Free Foresters captains them. He asked
+      me if I'd like some games for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why not for the school?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why should I? It's much better fun for the village. You don't get ordered
+      about by Adair, for a start."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair sticks on side," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough for six," agreed Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," said Stone, "I've got an idea. My word, what a rag!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's wrong now?" inquired Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, look here. Tomorrow'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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bat. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson rocked on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, old Downing fancies himself as a bowler. You <i>must</i> play, and
+      knock the cover off him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Masters don't play in house matches, surely?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This isn't a real house match. Only a friendly. Downing always turns out
+      on Mid-Term Service Day. I say, do play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Think of the rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the team's full," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The list isn't up yet. We'll nip across to Barnes's study, and make him
+      alter it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They dashed out of the room. From down the passage Mike heard yells of "<i>Barnes</i>!"
+      the closing of a door, and a murmur of excited conversation. Then
+      footsteps returning down the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes appeared, on his face the look of one who has seen visions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "is it true? Or is Stone rotting? About Wrykyn, I mean."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I was in the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his <i>Wisden</i>, and he
+      had an immense respect for Wrykyn cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the M. Jackson, then, who had an average of fifty-one point
+      naught three last year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes's manner became like that of a curate talking to a bishop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "then&mdash;er&mdash;will you play against Downing's
+      tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      11 &mdash; THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 noncricketing boy for nearly a month that (<i>a</i>) the school is
+      above all a keen school, (<i>b</i>) that all members of it should play
+      cricket, and (<i>c</i>) that by not playing cricket he is ruining his
+      chances in this world and imperiling 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing assumed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was walking to the field with Adair and another member of his team when
+      he came upon Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" he cried. "Our Jackson clad in suit of mail and armed for the
+      fray!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Mr. Downing's No. 2 manner&mdash;the playful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 today. It is the right spirit, sir,"
+      said Psmith earnestly. "I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed, Smith? You are not playing yourself, I notice. Your enthusiasm
+      has bounds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In our house, sir, competition is fierce, and the Selection Committee
+      unfortunately passed me over."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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 groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. The latter's reformation had dated from
+      that moment.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In stories of the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new boy,
+      who has been found crying in the changing 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;in his walk, in the way he took guard, in his stand at
+      the wicket. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike started cautiously. He was more than usually anxious to make runs
+      today, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first over was a maiden, six dangerous balls beautifully played. The
+      fieldsmen changed over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general interest had now settled on the match between Outwood's and
+      Downing's. The facts in Mike's case had gone around 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Off the first ball of the master's over a leg-bye was run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when delivered, was billed to
+      break from leg, but the program was subject to alterations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His treatment of Adair's next over was freer. He had got a sight of the
+      ball now. Halfway 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crowd was now reluctantly dispersing to its own games, but it stopped
+      as Mr. Downing started his minuet-cakewalk, in the hope that it might see
+      something more sensational.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time the hope was fulfilled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was returned on the installment system by helpers from other games, and
+      the bowler began his maneuvers 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get to them, Jenkins," said Mr. Downing irritably, as the ball came back
+      from the boundary. "Get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't talk in the field, Jenkins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor. He charged up to the wicket as a
+      wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea now was to bowl
+      fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be
+      batting, if you can manage it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And a shrill small voice, from the neighborhood of the pavilion, uttered
+      with painful distinctness the words, "Take him off!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was how the most sensational day's cricket began that Sedleigh had
+      known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 lunchtime with a score of eleven. Mike had
+      then made a hundred and three.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      As Mike was taking off his pads in the pavilion, Adair came up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why did you say you didn't play cricket?" he asked abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been bowling the whole morning, and bowling well, without the
+      slightest success, one is inclined to be abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike finished unfastening an obstinate strap. Then he looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was silent for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you play for us against the Old Sedleighans tomorrow?" he said at
+      length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tossed his pads into his bag and got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Above it, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not keeping you, am I?" said Mike, politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 favoritism. And the dislike
+      deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely individuals. On
+      occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other houses were
+      accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr. Downing distributed his
+      thunderbolts unequally, and the school noticed it. The result was that not
+      only he himself, but also&mdash;which was rather unfair&mdash;his house,
+      too, had acquired a good deal of unpopularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" said Robinson. "Great Scot, what on earth are you talking
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. "I never saw
+      such a chump."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?" suggested Barnes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I won't then," said Barnes unhappily. "Only you know they're rather
+      sick already."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you worry about that," said Stone with a wide grin. "They'll be a
+      lot sicker before we've finished."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are the things which mark epochs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>our</i>
+      innings." Some even began to edge toward the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gray dismay settled on the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score, too,
+      was mounting steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery," snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fifty
+      went up on the board. "Barnes!" he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is absurd. You must declare your innings closed. The game has become
+      a farce."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare! Sir, we can't unless Barnes does. He might be awfully annoyed if
+      we did anything like that without consulting him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Absurd."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's very touchy, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is perfect foolery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The writing on it was as follows:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  OUTWOOD'S <i>v</i>. DOWNING'S
+
+  <i>Outwood's. First innings</i>.
+
+  J.P. Barnes, <i>c</i>. Hammond, <i>b</i>. 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      12 &mdash; THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, leaning against the mantlepiece, discoursed in a desultory way on
+      the day's happenings&mdash;the score off Mr. Downing, the undeniable
+      annoyance of that battered bowler, and the probability of his venting his
+      annoyance on Mike next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't care," murmured Mike, shifting his aching limbs in the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't deserve to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith smoothed his hair at the glass and turned round again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This interested Mike, tired as he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Three quid!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Three crisp, crackling quid. He wanted four."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 <i>me</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I got some from my brother at Oxford."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you asleep, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe. I can't get to sleep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor can I. I'm stiff all over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll come over and sit on your bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking, and then a weight descended in the neighborhood of
+      Mike's toes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you&mdash;oh, nothing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All sorts of things. Especially my father. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I don't know. So would mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody's would, I expect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bed creaked, as Jellicoe digested these great thoughts. Then he spoke
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would be a jolly beastly thing to get sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?" he said. "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you'd say, 'Hello!' And then they'd say, 'What are you doing here?'
+      And you'd say&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About what would happen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Happen when?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When you got home. After being sacked, you know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's been sacked?" Mike's mind was still under a cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dozed off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello! What's the matter? Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I asked you if you'd got any sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose sisters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yours. I asked if you'd got any."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation was becoming too intricate for Jellicoe. He changed the
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, you don't know anyone who could lend me a pound, do you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" cried Mike, sitting up in bed and staring through the darkness in
+      the direction whence the numismatist's voice was proceeding. "Do <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, look out. You'll wake Psmith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say you wanted someone to lend you a quid?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Jellicoe eagerly. "Do you know anyone?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth do you want a pound for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want to tell anybody. But it's jolly serious. I shall get sacked
+      if I don't get it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bob's postal order which had arrived that evening, was reposing in the
+      breast pocket of his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a wrench, but, if the situation was so serious with Jellicoe, it
+      had to be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      13 &mdash; JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;who is that shuffling his feet? I will not have it, I <i>will</i>
+      have silence&mdash;you must hang back in order to make a more effective
+      entrance, like some wretched actor who&mdash;I will <i>not</i> have this
+      shuffling. I have spoken of this before. Macpherson, are you shuffling
+      your feet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Parsons?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's the noise of the draft under the door, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was through one of these batsmen that an accident occurred which had a
+      good deal of influence on Mike's affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When "Heads!" was called on the present occasion, Mike and Jellicoe
+      instantly assumed the crouching attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bright-blazered youth walked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry, you know. Hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was pressing the injured spot tenderly with his fingertips,
+      uttering sharp howls whenever, zeal outrunning discretion, he prodded
+      himself too energetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silly ass, Dunster," he groaned, "slamming about like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry. But I did yell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's swelling up rather," said Mike. "You'd better get over to the house
+      and have it looked at. Can you walk?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe tried, but sat down again with a loud "Ow!" At that moment the
+      bell rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall have to be going in," said Mike, "or I'd have helped you over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you a hand," said Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      14 &mdash; MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found Psmith
+      seated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Return of the exile," said Psmith. "A joyful occasion tinged with
+      melancholy. Have a cherry?&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is your name Jackson?" inquired Dunster, "because Jellicoe wants to see
+      you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas, poor Jellicoe!" said Psmith. "He is now prone on his bed in the
+      dormitory&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Smith and I," said Dunster, "were at prep school together. I'd no
+      idea I should find him here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You still jaw as much as ever, I notice," said the animal delineator,
+      fondling the beginnings of his moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "More," sighed Psmith, "more. Is anything irritating you?" he added,
+      eyeing the other's maneuvers with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You needn't be a funny ass, man," said Dunster, pained; "heaps of people
+      tell me I ought to have it waxed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What it really wants is top-dressing with guano. Hello! another man out.
+      Adair's bowling better today than he did yesterday."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;Adair's
+      bowling is perfectly simple if you go out to it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Dunster went out to it first ball," said Psmith to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What was it Jellicoe wanted?" asked Mike; "was it anything important?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He seemed to think so&mdash;he kept telling me to tell you to go and see
+      him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I fear Comrade Jellicoe is a bit of a weak-minded blitherer&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you ever hear of a rag we worked off on Jellicoe once?" asked
+      Dunster. "The man has absolutely no sense of humor&mdash;can't see when
+      he's being rotted. Well, it was like this&mdash;hello! We're all out&mdash;I
+      shall have to be going out to field again, I suppose, dash it! I'll tell
+      you when I see you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall count the minutes," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stretched himself; the sun was very soothing after his two hours in
+      the detention room; he felt disinclined for exertion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;don't interrupt
+      too much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tilted his hat over his eyes and abandoned Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike found him in a condition bordering on collapse. "I say, you might
+      have come before!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up? I didn't know there was such a hurry about it&mdash;what did
+      you want?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good now," said Jellicoe gloomily; "it's too late, I shall get
+      sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about? What's the row?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's about that money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had to pay it to a man today, or he said he'd write to the Head&mdash;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&mdash;it's too late now!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's face fell. "Oh, hang it!" he said, "I'm awfully sorry. I'd no idea
+      it was anything like that&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It doesn't matter," said Jellicoe miserably; "it can't be helped."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it can," said Mike. "I know what I'll do&mdash;it's all right. I'll
+      get out of the house after lights-out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe sat up. "You can't! You'd get sacked if you were caught."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe's face.
+      "I say, do you think you could, really?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course I can! It'll be rather a rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, it's frightfully decent of you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What absolute rot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But look here, are you certain&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall be all right. Where do you want me to go?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lower Borlock?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, do you know it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather! I've been playing cricket for them all the term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you? Do you know a man called Barley?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barley? Rather&mdash;he runs the White Boar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's the chap I owe the money to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Barley!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall bike there, I think," he said, "if I can get into the shed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school's bicycles were stored in a shed by the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Got it on you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith's got it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll get it from him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't tell Smith why you want it, will you? I don't want anybody to know&mdash;if
+      a thing once starts getting about it's all over the place in no time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right, I won't tell him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, thanks most awfully! I don't know what I should have done, I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      15 &mdash; ... AND FULFILLS IT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mike pedaled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job done without
+      delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a
+      certain number of hours' sleep a day&mdash;I cannot recall for the moment
+      how many&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;standing
+      out black and mysterious against the light sky&mdash;and the rows of
+      silent cottages, until he came to the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out&mdash;it was
+      sometime past eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Mike had waited for a few minutes there was a rattling of chains and
+      a shooting of bolts and the door opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said the boots, appearing in his shirt sleeves. "Why, 'ello!
+      Mr. Jackson, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to see Mr. Barley, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's bin' in bed this half hour back, Mr. Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must see him. Can you get him down?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boots looked doubtful. "Roust the guv'nor outer bed?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike quite admitted the gravity of the task. The landlord of the White
+      Boar was one of those men who need a beauty sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish you would&mdash;it's a thing that can't wait. I've got some money
+      to give to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, if it's <i>that</i> ..." said the boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes later mine host appeared in person, looking more than usually
+      portly in a check dressing gown and red bedroom slippers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can pop off, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exit boots to his slumbers once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Mr. Jackson, what's it all about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jellicoe asked me to come and bring you the money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The money? What money?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What he owes you; the five pounds, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The five&mdash;" 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh dear!" he said, "Oh dear! The five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You might tell us the joke."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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
+      ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was reading the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear Mr. Barley," it ran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was some more to the same effect; it was signed "T.G. Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's it all about?" said Mike, finishing this curious
+      document.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she's the worst of the two, always up to it, she is&mdash;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&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded to scale this water pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had got about halfway up when a voice from somewhere below cried,
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      16 &mdash; PURSUIT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was the exact remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereby Mike recognized him as the school sergeant. "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was
+      that militant gentleman's habitual way of beginning a conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the sound of footsteps returning, this time at a walk. They passed
+      the gate and went on down the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pursuer had given the thing up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;twelve, he supposed&mdash;on
+      the school clock. He would wait till a quarter past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other appeared startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who the dickens is that?" he asked. "Is that you, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here. Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you, if it comes to that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was adjusting his front light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going for the doctor. One of the chaps in our house is bad."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just been for a stroll."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be getting back?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose you think you're doing something tremendously brave and
+      dashing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be going to the doctor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you want to know what I think&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't. So long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+      for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+      hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked in that direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+      news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members of
+      Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of acute
+      illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy in the
+      event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get jumpy
+      beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with MacPhee, as
+      a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct and legitimate
+      result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three doughnuts, two ices, an
+      apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the lot down with tea. But Mr.
+      Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of some deadly scourge which
+      would sweep through and decimate the house. He had dispatched Adair for
+      the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes prowling restlessly about
+      his room, was now standing at his front gate, waiting for Adair's return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction of
+      home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by being
+      hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you, Adair?"
+      The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow&mdash;a
+      flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+      grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+      Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+      an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+      sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and, if
+      Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in the
+      first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept ahead.
+      At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards. The
+      procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he was
+      accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of it
+      which had ever illumined his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at Sedleigh,
+      had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into the school
+      officially&mdash;in speeches from the dais&mdash;by the headmaster, and
+      unofficially&mdash;in earnest private conversations&mdash;by Mr. Downing,
+      that at the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every
+      member of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way,
+      and make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+      it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the school
+      had its orders&mdash;to get out into the open at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this feat.
+      Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board to the
+      effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that day.
+      Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the occasion
+      when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had said, "My
+      house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which the
+      Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened the
+      hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr. Downing
+      having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and poured a
+      stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty to turn his
+      attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was his private
+      study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in a miniature
+      lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for realism, and
+      fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most part, of
+      "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes, kept in
+      the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the dormitory
+      would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other end being
+      fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using his elbows
+      as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and these two,
+      standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the rest of the
+      dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except to their
+      digestions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken a
+      rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+      among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+      to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+      headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+      the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient unto
+      the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to ring at
+      night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine alarm of
+      fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+      end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up the
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash that
+      his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his pursuer off
+      for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the rope and tug
+      it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them, and in the
+      subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+      chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+      strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+      length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+      Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in the
+      Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded the
+      pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put all he
+      knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the effort. He
+      worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike reached the
+      gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As far as Mike could judge&mdash;he was not in a condition to make nice
+      calculations&mdash;he had about four seconds in which to get busy with
+      that bell rope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+      than he did then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+      first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+      from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+      on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+      housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum, as
+      if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school was awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      17 &mdash; THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at Outwood's&mdash;since
+      Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had been received as
+      brothers by the center of disorder, so that even Spiller was compelled to
+      look on the hatchet as buried&mdash;and gave his views on the events of
+      the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning, for it was nearer one
+      than twelve when peace had once more fallen on the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+      surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+      unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+      in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+      school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got so
+      accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort of
+      affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants can
+      give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind is
+      likely to take place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+      meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+      had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+      the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath against
+      the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood. He hobbled
+      about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+      Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over matter.
+      He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a Boneless
+      Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone gurgled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag, I
+      began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+      about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+      particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+      the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+      knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing a
+      thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved again,
+      time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say Comrade
+      Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency to which
+      he has brought us. At any rate I hope&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+      member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+      Sam! Sam!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+      Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed in a
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+      covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+      was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+      weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and wagging
+      his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular dog, and was
+      always well received when he visited any of the houses, but he had never
+      before met with enthusiasm like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's been happening to him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who did it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems to
+      have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up like
+      that!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+      scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+      wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through his
+      eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either have to
+      skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great Healer. In a
+      year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why you shouldn't
+      have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of distinction to the
+      place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see him. By charging a
+      small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think I'll suggest it to
+      Comrade Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+      philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+      soon. It's a quarter to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+      going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing to
+      his ankle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+      frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jolly nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+      somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. But, I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the matter now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+      He'll be frightfully sick."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+      What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+      course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      18 &mdash; MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+      junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+      boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+      seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+      the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his reason
+      for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who&mdash;" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, he came in like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+      find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+      Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+      Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+      As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+      impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+      difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open, escaped
+      and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all and sundry.
+      You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to your own
+      premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this becomes out of
+      the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private trouble into a row.
+      Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction that Sammy had taken,
+      only, instead of running about the road, he went straight to the
+      headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his pajamas
+      and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a cold in the
+      head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in spite of his
+      strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous night in order to
+      test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves in the event of
+      fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed as the latter
+      related the events which had led up to the ringing of the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school, you
+      think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Was he wearing a school cap?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+      hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very big."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You did not see his face?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was dark and he never looked back&mdash;he was in front of me all the
+      time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is another matter ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the bell&mdash;he
+      had painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He&mdash;he&mdash;<i>what</i>,
+      Mr. Downing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted my dog red&mdash;bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+      anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+      wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+      shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of a
+      malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to ridicule
+      to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his dog,
+      he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there was
+      something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the boy
+      who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall after
+      chapel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal to
+      come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the school,
+      with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly reminded of
+      Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a wild screech of
+      laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr. Downing
+      was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal discovered,
+      he would have to discover him for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and Fate,
+      feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing, gave him
+      a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a needle in a
+      haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of being set to
+      find it in a mere truss of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+      archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at close
+      on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+      attempting to get into his house <i>via</i> the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+      whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+      cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded politeness
+      and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some reflections on
+      the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed it on to Mr.
+      Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant that
+      he interrupted him before&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He had broken out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+      dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+      asleep&mdash;all of them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
+      and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his colleague's
+      slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had narrowed itself
+      down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively easy. Perhaps Sergeant
+      Collard had actually recognized the boy. On reflection he dismissed this
+      as unlikely, for the sergeant would scarcely have kept a thing like that
+      to himself; but he might very well have seen more of him than he, Downing,
+      had seen. It was only with an effort that he could keep himself from
+      rushing to the sergeant then and there, and leaving the house lunch to
+      look after itself. He resolved to go the moment that meal was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+      functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+      snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+      still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+      helping, found himself at liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions in
+      the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr. Downing
+      arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+      were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+      ensure privacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+      unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a boy
+      endeavoring to enter his house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did, sir&mdash;spotted
+      'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of Connaught, he
+      used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to say, ''e's feeflee
+      good at spottin'.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+      there?'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you didn't catch him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him&mdash;feeflee
+      fast 'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You noticed nothing else?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+      caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+      feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+      considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon to you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything of
+      the kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+      pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant Collard,
+      having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a walk at once,
+      and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the 'ead, if he
+      persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over his face,
+      rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      19 &mdash; THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses,
+      success in the province of detective work must be, to a very large extent,
+      the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of
+      straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got to have it taken
+      out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a label attached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing
+      manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator, but, as a
+      matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not
+      even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard bungler. We should
+      simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes, how...?" and all the
+      rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+      do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the humdrum
+      round of life without having to measure footprints and smile quiet,
+      tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he thinks
+      naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and had
+      thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but, now
+      that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled to
+      admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of Watson's
+      inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard, he
+      thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant Collard, to
+      detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the crime. As he
+      brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor Watson increased
+      with every minute, and he began to feel a certain resentment against Sir
+      Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir Arthur to be so shrewd
+      and infallible about tracing a mystery to its source, but he knew
+      perfectly well who had done the thing before he started!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+      the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+      problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+      got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+      Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+      thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+      been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a boy
+      and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at twelve
+      o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie&mdash;I was
+      out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+      animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you. It
+      is practically stalemate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+      down the cricket field that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+      is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+      lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard thinking,
+      Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once more
+      intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of his
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+      they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+      air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something particularly
+      shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his bicycle from the
+      shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him irritable.
+      "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+      blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason as
+      a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he wanted
+      his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+      miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+      Sunday afternoons during the term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+      shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it was.
+      What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy soul
+      and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The greater
+      part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea of red
+      paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in the
+      middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+      footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+      plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+      Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle from
+      the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt, leaving
+      Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the detective, to
+      lock the door and resume his perambulation of the cricket field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+      Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+      professional sleuth might have envied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+      decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+      had done the deed of decoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yoicks!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+      must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+      upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been giving
+      a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring box at
+      the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was the direct
+      outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled into him.) In
+      that case the footmark might be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note one</i>: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+      contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor for
+      the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+      contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair went
+      into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note two</i>: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to
+      the house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Things were moving.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+      from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+      watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his house
+      in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the time for
+      reading in deck chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if you
+      found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house last night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+      and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+      You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened to
+      tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+      go into the shed at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+      Markby live?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a second.
+      It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the right as you
+      turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is the first you
+      come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to Markby
+      for a moment on a small matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+      the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+      blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Markby!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion last
+      night after the match?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+      scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So I
+      thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+      Marylebone come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the pot
+      of paint when you had finished?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+      whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you want it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+      business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the floor,
+      with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had better
+      get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I wished to know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+      the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+      successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he had
+      to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house&mdash;the idea of searching a
+      fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+      somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+      exist as a man capable of resenting liberties&mdash;find the
+      paint-splashed shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the
+      headmaster. There could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in
+      Mr. Outwood's house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint
+      without showing some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that
+      the shoe would not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This
+      really was beginning to be something like business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+      fast as he could walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      20 &mdash; A CHECK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+      were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+      the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+      other. Psmith&mdash;for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend&mdash;was
+      wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+      keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+      tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+      Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+      the effort to nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+      window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+      philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of leisure. Hello!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+      bought the place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+      this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he may
+      sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to them.
+      Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair and book?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+      ground."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+      his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+      who has lost his bearings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I&mdash;er&mdash;wish to go round the dormitories."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything, so
+      he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the rooms
+      are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+      sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron being
+      out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined the
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+      An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy, I
+      understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all to
+      himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a cubic
+      foot of air in vain. He argues justly&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in silence.
+      Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think he's
+      out in the field."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+      the exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+      awed whisper, "is where <i>I</i> sleep!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+      remarks to yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They moved on up the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+      waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The studies, Smith," he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+      unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+      Here we have&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This is
+      Barnes's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+      gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to our
+      general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+      window attracted his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+      distant hills ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe at
+      the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen climbing
+      the pipe must have been making for this study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+      Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+      not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+      unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody else comes into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+      precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+      And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just about
+      Jackson's size and build!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+      the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in his
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+      causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+      moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+      achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+      and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I should
+      say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket, downstairs.
+      Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I believe, at early
+      dawn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I know Edmund, sir&mdash;no."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+      basket to me here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly was
+      at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did not
+      know. But that there was something, and that that something was directed
+      in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with last night's
+      wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on leaving his bed at
+      the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe were alone in the room.
+      That might mean that Mike had gone out through the door when the bell
+      sounded, or it might mean that he had been out all the time. It began to
+      look as if the latter solution were the correct one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while that
+      it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study floor. Mr.
+      Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the wall, and
+      straightened out the damaged garment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various bootings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+      task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside the
+      basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+      feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn on
+      being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered footgear,
+      whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as he did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+      here. You can carry it back when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I carry it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing reflected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+      on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+      undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but when
+      a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on the
+      following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint splashed
+      shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name inside the
+      shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was only a few
+      miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was Mike's shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come with me, then."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+      shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+      certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+      You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+      Mr. Outwood's house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have the shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+      look at&mdash;This, you say, is the&mdash;? Just so. Just so. Just ...
+      But, er, Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+      sufficient care, but&mdash;Can <i>you</i> point out to me exactly where
+      this paint is that you speak of?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+      suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and entirely
+      innocent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      21 &mdash; THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+      Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+      is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+      expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+      affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of some
+      kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there was
+      a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in this.
+      Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Do you mean to tell me that you did <i>not</i> see it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+      across the toe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace of
+      paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy, not
+      uncommon. Any doctor will tell you&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably subject&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+      positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you say, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly out
+      of a trance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You had better be careful, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+      Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On one
+      occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I can
+      assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic cleaning
+      before all traces are removed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+      effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+      the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+      momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects, he
+      did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+      consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+      moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+      mistake...."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the only
+      explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared
+      with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few
+      minutes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I go
+      now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+      Cicero's speech <i>De senectute</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith. It
+      is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+      Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith without
+      a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly smile,
+      left the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road between
+      the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw what, if they
+      had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle of Psmith
+      running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified walk. He
+      believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease of
+      his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's gate,
+      bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the top
+      of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+      bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair and
+      panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+      matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+      time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+      and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+      shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+      two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage, and
+      Mr. Downing appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+      another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it had
+      occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's garden.
+      Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse would be to
+      do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling aggrieved with
+      himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too, hurried over to
+      Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh, laid
+      down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers, and
+      watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That thing, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+      eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+      his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+      shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+      complaint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, read if you like."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly irritated,
+      pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the second
+      search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as certain
+      as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence was
+      somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank where it
+      was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with evasive
+      answers was quite out of the common.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even for
+      so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be acquitted,
+      on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+      that there was the place to look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is in this cupboard?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That cupboard, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+      perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Open it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Unlock it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But where is the key, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you not got the key?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+      take a long search to find it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where did you see it last?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+      thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+      from me. I shall break open the door."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard happens
+      to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his permission. He
+      is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am only the acting
+      manager."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule did
+      not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were limits to
+      the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house without his
+      permission and search it to a certain extent was all very well. But when
+      it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+      study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+      house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+      alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the room,
+      he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+      thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+      convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+      standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring into
+      vacancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at all?
+      If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that the
+      cupboard was not tampered with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good enough
+      to come here for a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      22 &mdash; MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+      making any movement in the direction of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Quick</i>, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+      conundrum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith still made no move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+      was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if at
+      any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+      stripling!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+      almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he said
+      did not keep up the standard of docility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+      Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a master. In&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+      place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+      your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+      Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+      ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+      cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+      cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+      garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+      crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for the
+      Empire that the jibboom spanker <i>should</i> be spliced at that
+      particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+      matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my case.
+      If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand, and come
+      back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him to be good
+      enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad to go and
+      find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+      cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+      did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+      shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+      Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+      end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+      the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+      bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+      pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened to
+      the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to this, and
+      let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had stopped
+      swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it up
+      the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and washed
+      off the soot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr. Outwood,
+      the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+      intellectual pressure of the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have been washing my hands, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+      cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it perfectly
+      clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes in
+      a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+      good-gracious-has-the-man-<i>no</i>-sense look on the other's face, "Why
+      he should not do so if he wishes it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+      attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+      painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+      shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+      to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+      sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if he
+      had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+      propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any objection?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, <i>what</i>
+      is it you wish to do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+      used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the rest
+      of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing seized one
+      of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door. The wood
+      splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard, with any
+      skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you," he said. "I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+      for it for days."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+      surprise and wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+      the shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free from
+      paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+      sideways," he added helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must have done. Then, when I lost the key&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+      "or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+      made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+      little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good, hard
+      knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+      working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr. Outwood's
+      set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had caught sight
+      of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to inspect it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It should
+      have been done before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+      earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+      went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+      know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+      thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+      and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon his
+      hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his fingers had
+      closed upon what he was seeking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough, after
+      all, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this trouble.
+      You have done yourself no good by it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+      opinion of what constitutes&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+      looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+      and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+      hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+      looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did&mdash;you&mdash;put&mdash;that&mdash;shoe&mdash;there, Smith?" he
+      asked slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what did you <i>MEAN</i> by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      "WHAT?"
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+      can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+      catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+      soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+      you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way to my
+      room."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+      point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against the
+      slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear up
+      against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language of
+      the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more of
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+      towels, soap, and sponges.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+      He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a successfully
+      conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man of refinement,
+      and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it had been worth it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a lot
+      of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary implements
+      for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to do so.
+      Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the madding
+      crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs there
+      would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+      that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place the
+      shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up to
+      the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at about the
+      same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody would think of
+      looking there a second time, and it was improbable that Mr. Outwood really
+      would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The odds were that he had
+      forgotten about it already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling that
+      he had done a good day's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      23 &mdash; ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most adroit
+      plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to the rule.
+      He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's happenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+      like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where there
+      is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain unrevealed.
+      There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling Mike. He forgot
+      what the consequences might be if he did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+      school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion why
+      only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the subject. He
+      seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow can
+      understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike might
+      be satisfied with a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+      school in one shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much as
+      to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+      understand sound reasoning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, what am I to do? Where <i>is</i> the other shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off in
+      the gym shoes he stood in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which one
+      observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize how
+      strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for instance,
+      where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark blue are to be
+      worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most respectable and
+      unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a mixture of awe and
+      repulsion, which would be excessive if he had sandbagged the headmaster.
+      So in the case of shoes. School rules decree that a boy shall go to his
+      form room in shoes. There is no real reason why, if the day is fine, he
+      should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer them. But, if he does, the
+      thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say, "Great Scott, what <i>have</i>
+      you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, <i>what</i> are you wearing on your
+      feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the assembling of the form
+      for call-over and the arrival of the form master, some wag is sure either
+      to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act with some satirical
+      remark, or else to pull one of them off, and inaugurate an impromptu game
+      of football with it. There was once a boy who went to school one morning
+      in elastic-sided boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+      form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+      since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike with
+      respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to undergo at
+      Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who gave trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a boy
+      in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind, just
+      as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them.
+      They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+      list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+      shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention&mdash;every weapon was employed by
+      him in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+      always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he felt
+      shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in the
+      first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten minutes
+      to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked Like Loafers&mdash;which
+      broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one occasion, when a
+      particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of fare, Dunster had
+      entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath slippers, of a vivid
+      crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including his journey over to the
+      house to change the heelless atrocities, had seen him through very nearly
+      to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+      Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>What</i> are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gym shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+      proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+      comfortably for the address from the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+      moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+      translating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+      unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+      floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction, the
+      form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+      mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+      seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+      appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+      completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+      harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said, "Wal,
+      sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so did Mr.
+      Downing feel at that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+      sped to the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      24 &mdash; THE ADAIR METHOD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+      the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop, came
+      to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the Adair
+      administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt was
+      early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket keenness.
+      Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious interest in life,
+      had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his first term at Wrykyn.
+      And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm attachment to the game, compared
+      with Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+      after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+      been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+      match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose to
+      be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their comfortable
+      beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and had caught
+      catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air, had stung like
+      adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really got to work, it
+      is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the experiment was only
+      equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of the type which likes
+      to undergo hardships for the common good. They played well enough when on
+      the field, but neither cared greatly whether the school had a good season
+      or not. They played the games entirely for their own sakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+      never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate as
+      to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+      today's must be avoided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+      before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+      Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for the
+      team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd better find
+      somebody else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+      passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was the first to recover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+      can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+      kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C. with
+      a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village Jackson
+      plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+      autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+      keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+      being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The majority,
+      consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain runs up
+      against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the team or not,
+      then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless he is a man of
+      action, practically helpless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that they
+      would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The bowling
+      of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the chance of
+      making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are runs,
+      wherever and however made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+      morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+      those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+      there were no signs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond the
+      fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great help.
+      Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+      Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right, was
+      accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with that
+      of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper before the
+      bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of his reading
+      to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen the paper,
+      usually formed an interested and appreciative audience. Today, however,
+      though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of excitement at the
+      news that Sheppard had made a century against Gloucestershire, and that a
+      butter famine was expected in the United States, these world-shaking news
+      items seemed to leave Adair cold. He champed his bread and marmalade with
+      an abstracted air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+      that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe and
+      convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of person
+      who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He never
+      shirked anything, physical or moral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resolved to interview the absentees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He went
+      across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day room,
+      engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and marking the
+      height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided with a record
+      effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance and stagger
+      backward against the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+      spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We didn't turn up," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know you didn't. Why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the coolness
+      which comes from rehearsal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We decided not to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+      fielding."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just the word."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry it bored you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking of
+      something."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't do
+      anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like, but we
+      don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or Saturday
+      for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the school team
+      aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go chucking people out
+      of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll play
+      for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn out for
+      fielding practice before breakfast."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going to
+      tomorrow morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Six sharp. Don't be late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+      six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any deep
+      conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for his
+      comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've quite made up your minds?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+      standing in the middle of the open space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+      seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+      tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than Stone,
+      but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game. His blow
+      was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his opponent's. At the
+      end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a minute
+      or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+      maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make up
+      his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances he
+      might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than ordinarily
+      courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must end in his
+      destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match even for
+      Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one minute. It
+      seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was likely to come
+      from an encounter with Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+      is Jackson's study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which precluded
+      anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied that Mike's
+      study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor at the top of
+      the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+      still there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he isn't
+      busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      25 &mdash; ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going on
+      below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that morning
+      from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket captaincy
+      which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a lugubrious
+      strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with Wrykyn. A
+      broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments with a day
+      boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of Dunstable,
+      the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a side out.
+      Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone wrong. The
+      M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three first-class
+      cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty runs.
+      Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs, with a
+      team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch&mdash;not a well-known
+      man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing for the club
+      for nearly half a century&mdash;had got home by two wickets. In fact, it
+      was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was about the most
+      hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition of itself on the
+      school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off, owing to an
+      outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and athletics&mdash;the
+      second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said Strachan, was hard
+      lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for Wrykyn, as it had saved
+      them from what would probably have been a record hammering, Ripton having
+      eight of their last year's team left, including Dixon, the fast bowler,
+      against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had been able to make runs in
+      the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had struck a bad patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+      to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one good
+      batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may take a
+      weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the importance
+      of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+      against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days, returned
+      with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of personal injury
+      which had made him hate his new school on the first day of term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+      Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+      biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial story
+      in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room, made
+      the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand, and went
+      on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was sitting, and
+      contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+      should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I seem
+      to see the consommé splashing about his ankles. He's had a note telling
+      him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just off there
+      at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher, is waiting
+      there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair? Or don't you
+      take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+      Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+      school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made this
+      a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of no
+      other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+      afternoon calls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+      present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We must
+      be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Buck up," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but it
+      was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the first round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this was
+      about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner. For
+      some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was looking
+      for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be a
+      privilege to see that he got it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been <i>brawling</i>
+      with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you and he were
+      like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too. Leave us,
+      Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of thee.'
+      Shakespeare."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+      himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+      are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+      life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice," said
+      Adair, turning to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn out
+      at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out. He's
+      going to all right. So is Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So are you," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+      dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in the
+      study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think. I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any special reason for my turning out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+      want you to get some practice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder how you got that idea!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+      he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+      curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to make you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+      beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+      Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you <i>will</i> let your
+      angry passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose
+      you must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the
+      midst of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If
+      you really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+      there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know a
+      bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road, where
+      you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on there?
+      Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      26 &mdash; CLEARING THE AIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+      touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+      enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+      occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+      unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+      the National Sporting Club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+      into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+      three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is down
+      will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades Adair and
+      Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up to
+      its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been cautious
+      sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds, as if it
+      had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights, when they
+      do occur&mdash;which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you count
+      junior school scuffles&mdash;are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+      blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+      however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent. Up
+      to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly attached to
+      him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume that attitude
+      of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the present
+      battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted was to
+      get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together as if
+      they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves, with
+      his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have lasted
+      three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while Mike had
+      never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used his head,
+      nothing could have prevented his winning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did at
+      the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was the
+      same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength, and,
+      thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet with an
+      unscientific but powerful righthander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+      science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The Irish
+      blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him merely
+      energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned all attempt
+      at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile form, and as
+      unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a swift exchange
+      of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow, coming into contact
+      with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which kept it tingling for the
+      rest of the day; and then Adair went down in a heap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+      vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the excitement of a fight&mdash;which is, after all, about the most
+      exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life&mdash;it
+      is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+      spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+      only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+      chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would have
+      seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a fraction of
+      an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked out. Mike
+      could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on his feet
+      again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength; and this
+      time Adair went down and stayed down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+      think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+      at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be sitting
+      up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go on with
+      the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to be
+      continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+      alterations and repairs first."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts before
+      in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one on his
+      own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He's</i> all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be
+      skipping about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+      pick flowers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+      perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+      curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking that
+      Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his point
+      of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much. At the
+      same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten him. The
+      feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in a fresh
+      and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and had carried
+      it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the deliverer of
+      knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new acquaintance a
+      man to be respected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+      fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized Mike's
+      view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of him.
+      Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive dignity,
+      he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched kid. There
+      had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of refusing to
+      identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+      stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+      attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass of
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting. He's
+      not a bad cove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's all right," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+      seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+      afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+      comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way. I'm
+      not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but everyone to
+      his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get overwhelmingly
+      attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems to have done it.
+      He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up. It's not a bad idea
+      in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him. Apparently he's been
+      sweating since early childhood to buck the school up. And as he's leaving
+      at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly scheme to give him a bit of
+      a send-off, if possible, by making the cricket season a bit of a banger.
+      As a start, why not drop him a line to say that you'll play against the
+      M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+      and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+      prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+      giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+      improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade Adair,
+      to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to understand that
+      you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your village team. You
+      didn't, of course?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told him he didn't know the old <i>noblesse oblige</i> spirit of the
+      Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon by
+      not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return to
+      the point under discussion, why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+      unworthy company&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "&mdash;Dismiss it. <i>I</i> am playing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're <i>what? You</i>?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+      handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you play cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're rotting."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then why haven't you played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why haven't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+      by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such shock
+      to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing of that
+      sort takes years off my life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+      cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+      year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season came,
+      where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked watching
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have to
+      overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a habit.
+      Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little by
+      little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against it,
+      but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and drifted
+      with the stream. Last year in a house match"&mdash;Psmith's voice took on
+      a deeper tone of melancholy&mdash;"I took seven for thirteen in the second
+      innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I had found
+      a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow. What Comrade
+      Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest archaeological disciple
+      has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole face
+      of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the recalcitrant,
+      wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here was Psmith, the
+      last person whom he would have expected to be a player, stating calmly
+      that he had been in the running for a place in the Eton eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+      read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+      acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+      the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of his
+      place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off, each in
+      his own way&mdash;Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to their
+      respective natures&mdash;on Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+      renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+      stop Mike doing so, as&mdash;at the bottom of his heart&mdash;he wanted to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+      Adair now. But, I say"&mdash;he stopped&mdash;"I'm hanged if I'm going to
+      turn out and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+      not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      27 &mdash; IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+      instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your elbow
+      was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't know.
+      Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the game
+      tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see anybody
+      downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to the shop,
+      ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell the man to
+      chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at tea is all
+      right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to commit
+      suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+      his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+      willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+      went out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+      patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in earnest.
+      Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At this rate,"
+      he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show what
+      it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When Mike
+      woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping. Leaden-colored
+      clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace of blue to be
+      seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle, determined way rain
+      has when it means to make a day of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+      depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin boots,
+      crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped&mdash;he could hardly
+      walk on as if nothing had happened&mdash;and looked down at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked on in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born of
+      nervousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About nine to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. We've got plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hate having to hurry over to school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly nuisance when one does."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+      should think, shouldn't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not much more. Might be three."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly day," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+      wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does it hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+      smashed me anyhow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you anything you like you would."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+      season."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+      year."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the time?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair produced his watch once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We've heaps of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, heaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+      promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+      couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+      It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower Borlock
+      if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He never even asked me to get him a place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+      like getting other fellows away from the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+      going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect on
+      Mike's mind&mdash;shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+      in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He might
+      have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+      Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had said,
+      "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have led his
+      hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little hole,
+      isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived that the
+      words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese principle. When a
+      Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by belittling himself
+      and his belongings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He eluded the pitfall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+      ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+      after the way you've sweated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't suppose
+      I've done anything much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+      that's any comfort to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+      aches."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+      humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began to
+      laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You</i> were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+      gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+      doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+      about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky at
+      present."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+      interval, and hang about in case."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got math
+      till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which won't
+      hurt me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing or
+      a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+      black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+      then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're crocked,
+      I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years to get the
+      match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain, with
+      you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending down much
+      of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out, we've got a
+      jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way through, and the
+      bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this M.C.C. lot a really
+      good hammering, it might have been easier to get some good fixtures for
+      next season. You see, it's all right for a school like Wrykyn, but with a
+      small place like this you simply can't get the best teams to give you a
+      match till you've done something to show that you aren't absolute rotters
+      at the game. As for the schools, they're worse. They'd simply laugh at
+      you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn last year. What would you have
+      done if you'd had a challenge from Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed
+      till you were sick, or else had a fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+      thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! They wouldn't play us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+      from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+      had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date. Shall
+      I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they aren't
+      strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      28 &mdash; MR. DOWNING MOVES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+      hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+      the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+      the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+      considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+      to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that there
+      should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the first
+      Sedleigh <i>v</i>. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+      from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as soon
+      as he was changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+      him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+      glad if Mike would step across.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+      worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A meal
+      on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against your
+      return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of simple
+      pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle which had
+      been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize for a
+      solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed Mike
+      with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+      Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+      abusive comments on its inventor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+      "but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type. You
+      come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies round
+      the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me, do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+      old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type? What
+      has he been doing to you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump at
+      you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he say he
+      was a teapot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He thinks I did it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as asked
+      me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage later on if
+      I behaved sensibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master wants
+      you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't enough
+      evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+      stand-off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+      ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+      see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for all
+      he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain that I
+      painted Sammy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Did</i> you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+      almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+      prove that I did."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Such as what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+      you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+      pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag you
+      into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining him.
+      But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+      and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who hasn't
+      got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know where the
+      dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs, but one's
+      being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym shoes. That's
+      how he spotted me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows the
+      folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to save
+      you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud, right
+      in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you aren't,
+      just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender and
+      groping, "but&mdash;<i>Hello</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i>," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+      the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How on earth did&mdash;By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+      something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+      must have been the paint pot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you were out that night?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell you
+      now&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up to
+      his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+      opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's why
+      he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're <i>absolutely</i>
+      certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any chance, in a
+      moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No? No, I suppose
+      not. I wonder who did!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was why
+      I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the chap he
+      chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the same. I
+      shall get landed both ways."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i> a tightish place," he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it with
+      disfavor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not for a pretty considerable time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose not. I say, I <i>am</i> in the cart. If I can't produce this
+      shoe, they're bound to guess why."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you and
+      Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass rags?
+      Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot, and
+      I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said very
+      well, then, he must take steps, and&mdash;well, that was about all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+      he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+      round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his move
+      will be?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He'll</i> want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on
+      confession. The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about
+      the time the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing
+      Round-and-round-the- mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs
+      thought. You had better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the
+      dandelions growing. I will think over the matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly. You never know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+      entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a panel.
+      Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+      answered the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you he
+      wants to see you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you today."
+      He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr. Jackson
+      will be with him in a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emissary departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You're</i> all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+      saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+      airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in his
+      chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a moment
+      straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his hat and
+      moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at the same
+      dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at Downing's front
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+      conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+      postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight of
+      him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+      professional manner, passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+      the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+      Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+      toward the painting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+      his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      29 &mdash; THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+      line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not lead
+      to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between accuser
+      and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a feeling that
+      the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and conversation
+      showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened brightly enough, with
+      a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had laid before him, but after
+      that a massive silence had been the order of the day. There is nothing in
+      this world quite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up
+      his mind to be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat
+      and looked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt
+      awkward. It was a scene which needed either a dramatic interruption or a
+      neat exit speech. As it happened, what it got was the dramatic
+      interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+      Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."&mdash;which was practically
+      going back to the beginning and starting again&mdash;when there was a
+      knock at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir,"
+      and the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+      Jackson, who committed the&mdash;who painted my dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling of
+      relief&mdash;for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+      wearing game to play&mdash;the headmaster with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+      nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+      of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+      merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+      rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+      imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog with
+      red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They had both
+      been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but anybody, except
+      possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it funny at first. After
+      the first surprise, their feeling had been that it was a rotten thing to
+      have done and beastly rough luck on the poor brute. It was a kid's trick.
+      As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply did not believe it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy himself
+      came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+      in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+      was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was done
+      for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy it meant
+      that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was not likely
+      that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at Sedleigh than
+      at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if possible, worse than he
+      had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar occasion. It seemed as if
+      Fate had a special grudge against his best friends. He did not make
+      friends very quickly or easily, though he had always had scores of
+      acquaintances&mdash;and with Wyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home
+      from the first moment he had met them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+      hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+      rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er&mdash;if you
+      are going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in," said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Adair?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was about Sammy&mdash;Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was Dunster, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+      astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to their
+      fullest extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+      suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+      despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+      perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform him,
+      two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's confession, that
+      Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal was Dunster&mdash;it
+      was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words of an American
+      author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted for his brain a
+      side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people? Dunster, who, he
+      remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas. And why, if Dunster
+      had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that he himself was the
+      culprit? Why&mdash;why anything? He concentrated his mind on Adair as the
+      only person who could save him from impending brain fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What&mdash;<i>what</i> do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes
+      ago, in which he said that he had painted Sammy&mdash;Sampson, the dog,
+      sir, for a rag&mdash;for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here
+      to get into a row&mdash;be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at
+      once. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met
+      Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to
+      see you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+      Dunster?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He laughed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Laughed</i>!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing snorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+      could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+      night in the village."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that was the night the&mdash;it happened?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to any
+      boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+      foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if any
+      boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+      attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+      write to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I cannot
+      understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not do it,
+      what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his own accord
+      and deliberately confessing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+      thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+      appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that I
+      should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the hall!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+      wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+      was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+      seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the room
+      to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of rain
+      could be heard outside the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+      opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Smith, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+      moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+      gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+      some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with a
+      gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided in
+      favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+      fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself time
+      has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+      you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was absolutely untrue?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am afraid so, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+      offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the present
+      age."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" replied the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+      of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has been
+      committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it is out
+      of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of the most
+      interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted. Human
+      nature&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+      Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a motion toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+      comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot on
+      the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+      again. Then he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+      er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ... er
+      ... severe illness? Any ... er ... <i>mental</i> illness?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no&mdash;forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject&mdash;there
+      is no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+      er ... have described?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+      mean to suggest&mdash;quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+      confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+      impulse which you cannot explain?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+      disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+      existing between boy and&mdash;Well, never mind that for the present. We
+      can return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say.
+      I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+      that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's dog,
+      and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+      wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it. That
+      was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain amount
+      of confusion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+      "but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+      downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to time
+      and cultivate him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+      Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?" asked Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+      "They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+      love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what it is."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+      you'd done it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craving for&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+      simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe. I'm
+      surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from Michael
+      Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+      was jolly good of you, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      30 &mdash; SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+      Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+      Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led on
+      the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be influenced
+      by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more school matches
+      than good play ever won. There is a certain type of school batsman who is
+      a gift to any bowler when he once lets his imagination run away with him.
+      Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair, Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon
+      this match in a state of the most azure funk. Ever since Mike had received
+      Strachan's answer and Adair had announced on the notice board that on
+      Saturday, July the twentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had
+      been all on the jump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did
+      repeatedly, on Mike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and
+      that on their present form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team
+      listened, but were not comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual
+      strength, but then Wrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard
+      that this probably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be&mdash;for
+      them&mdash;there was a very firm impression among the members of the
+      Sedleigh first eleven that the other school was quite strong enough to
+      knock the cover off <i>them</i>. Experience counts enormously in school
+      matches. Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the
+      sort of sides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn,
+      from time immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters
+      teams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men to Oxford
+      and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+      to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and the
+      wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during the
+      day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+      itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+      nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the surroundings
+      lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes magnified.
+      Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse almost
+      invariably ensues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+      side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+      whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was expected&mdash;Mike,
+      going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had played inside one
+      from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been caught at short slip off
+      his second ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+      others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed them
+      to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out at
+      anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to half
+      volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not equal to
+      his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven wickets were
+      down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he was
+      undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+      reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+      full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+      had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total to
+      seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+      minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+      seventy-nine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+      finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+      thirty-one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team had
+      looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair and
+      Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially Psmith, who
+      had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with the tail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the game
+      out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate, having
+      another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their nervousness had
+      vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in the first
+      innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+      the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if they
+      could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+      sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in the
+      second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so bad then
+      that they easily might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit. The
+      deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was bowled,
+      and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated all the
+      bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper frame of
+      mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the rest, it
+      looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a hundred and
+      twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one to Strachan at
+      cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+      make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during which
+      to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and go for
+      a win on the first innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+      forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he hit
+      into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two runs
+      later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over with a
+      c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen for three,
+      with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too dangerous. So
+      Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with caution, and the
+      collapse ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter opened.
+      Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the hands of the
+      clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had been tried,
+      but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's defence. They
+      were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at the bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which altered
+      the game completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+      crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot. You
+      can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+      breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball from
+      him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+      suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The next
+      moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five. Adair was
+      absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first ball right
+      on the worn patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion, while
+      the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+      atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic and
+      without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground. There
+      were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down. Sedleigh was
+      on top again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+      walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+      out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+      feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to the
+      right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+      next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+      collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+      minutes in hand.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+      general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+      playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+      jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+      sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at the
+      shop."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He bowled awfully well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this joyful
+      occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give Sedleigh a
+      fixture again next year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+      left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+      swamp them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the thing
+      started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten Wrykyn,
+      he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and work up to
+      playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's all right,
+      you see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+      always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+      and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+      Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it would
+      be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall we stagger?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They staggered.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10586 ***</div>
+  </body>
+</html>
+
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+    <title>
+      Mike and Psmith, by P.G. Wodehouse
+    </title>
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mike and Psmith
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10586]
+Last Updated: November 11, 2018
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE AND PSMITH ***
+
+
+Etext produced by Christine Gehring, Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed
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+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MIKE AND PSMITH
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By P.G. Wodehouse
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      1909
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CONTENTS
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> 1 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> 2 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> 3 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PSMITH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> 4 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> 5 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          GUERRILLA WARFARE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> 6 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> 7 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> 8 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> 9 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> 10 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> 11 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> 12 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> 13 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> 14 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> 15 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ... AND FULFILLS IT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> 16 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PURSUIT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> 17 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> 18 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> 19 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> 20 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          A CHECK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> 21 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> 22 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> 23 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> 24 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ADAIR METHOD
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> 25 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> 26 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          CLEARING THE AIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> 27 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> 28 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING MOVES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> 29 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> 30 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In Evelyn Waugh's book <i>Decline and Fall</i> his hero, applying for a
+      post as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+      grades&mdash;leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+      Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+      class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one of
+      those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to put the
+      word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster qualified to
+      attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is a few more
+      Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted, that even at a
+      "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only drawback is that it
+      does not play the leading schools or the first-rate schools or even the
+      good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from Wrykyn (a "first-rate
+      school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading school") Sedleigh
+      naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike some time to adjust
+      himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher, accepted the change of
+      conditions with his customary equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books, <i>Psmith
+      in the City</i> and <i>Psmith, Journalist</i>, before becoming happily
+      married in <i>Leave It to Psmith</i>, but I have always thought that he
+      was most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play
+      to his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+      with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+      English school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous characters
+      to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton with the son
+      of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas,
+      and one night he told me about this peculiar schoolboy who dressed
+      fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one of the masters inquired
+      after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah and thinnah." It was all
+      the information I required in order to start building him in a star part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life, I
+      can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+      prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally prosperous
+      counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like Perry, in
+      appearing for the defense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must apologize, as I did in the preface to <i>Mike at Wrykyn,</i> for
+      all the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+      quite so much of it this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P.G. Wodehouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      1 &mdash; MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he might
+      have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr. Jackson
+      opened the envelope containing his school report and read the contents,
+      that the document in question was not exactly a paean of praise from
+      beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was late for
+      breakfast in the holidays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+      Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+      Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+      resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for the
+      jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in a
+      detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are&mdash;I've
+      been keeping everything hot for you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+      round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she always
+      did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing thoroughly.
+      She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they made centuries in
+      first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She would field out in the
+      deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at the net in the paddock,
+      though for the others, even for Joe, who had played in all five Test
+      Matches in the previous summer, she would do it only as a favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+      table and watched Mike eat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+      interested. "What did it say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't see&mdash;I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the
+      envelope. Father didn't say anything."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+      was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+      you were in his form."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any more
+      tea in that pot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+      you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+      make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He didn't mean it really, I <i>know</i> he didn't! He couldn't! You're
+      the best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i>. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+      first term you were there&mdash;even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good
+      as that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+      year or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off the
+      first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out at
+      the net now. Let's go and see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+      put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs retired
+      as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+      match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+      considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons now,
+      and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had filled
+      out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had the
+      strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple to him.
+      It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was beginning to find
+      his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own special invention, was
+      delighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+      Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+      returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+      prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+      responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+      fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the wrong
+      men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no light
+      thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+      hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+      information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with that
+      bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant nature.
+      Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his sons as
+      companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to ruffle the
+      placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was an unfailing
+      wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's sarcastic resume of
+      Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term, there had been
+      something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion that Mr. Jackson
+      had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike from Wrykyn unless
+      the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I want
+      to speak to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+      emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+      had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge that
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out&mdash;may
+      I bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen to
+      this report."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+      interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+      more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+      extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't anything really. I only happened&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+      cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+      several occasions, he paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'French bad; conduct disgraceful&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody rags in French."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody does much work in Math."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term&mdash;all speeches and
+      doubtful readings, and cruxes and things&mdash;beastly hard! Everybody
+      says so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+      declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire in
+      him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the same
+      effect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted a
+      public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+      understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him thrills
+      of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his habit to
+      regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an unbiased
+      eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as near the
+      extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in a clear
+      firm hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+      said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in its
+      envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall abide by what I said."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart thumped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+      somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+      their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment
+      the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+      to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+      when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+      normally easygoing man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason he
+      said very little now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name&mdash;one of
+      those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+      when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+      Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What had
+      Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they play?
+      What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps they didn't
+      even <i>play</i> cricket!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+      plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+      and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide his
+      sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+      Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit&mdash;boys work there. Young
+      Barlitt won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was
+      the vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+      into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+      much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+      of conversation were not Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he would
+      have liked to have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      2 &mdash; SEDLEIGH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+      pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up, opened
+      the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic and
+      vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if he
+      hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that Sedleigh
+      station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+      had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike was
+      feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And, so far
+      from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+      deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+      had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously incompetent
+      than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to the handle of
+      the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage van. He disliked
+      his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair. Also the boots he
+      wore. He hated the station, and the man who took his ticket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from Mike's
+      <i>distrait</i> air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up in
+      the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a goodish step, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here you are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+      was it you was going to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Outwood's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+      it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Worse luck," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+      absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a place
+      where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven, and
+      played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of arriving at
+      Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the bitter part of
+      it. He had never been in command. For the last two seasons he had been the
+      star man, going in first, and heading the averages easily at the end of
+      the season; and the three captains under whom he had played during his
+      career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby, and Henfrey, had always been
+      sportsmen to him. But it was not the same thing. He had meant to do such a
+      lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He had had an entirely new system of
+      coaching in his mind. Now it might never be used. He had handed it on in a
+      letter to Strachan, who would be captain in his place; but probably
+      Strachan would have some scheme of his own. There is nobody who could not
+      edit a paper in the ideal way; and there is nobody who has not a theory of
+      his own about cricket coaching at school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+      Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few overs,
+      might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended upon. There
+      was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn would have a
+      bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched athletic year for
+      the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless, and had lost both the
+      Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points. Sheen's victory in the
+      light weights at Aldershot had been their one success. And now, on top of
+      all this, the captain of cricket was removed during the Easter holidays.
+      Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and
+      all its works with a great loathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set in
+      a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country, but
+      almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and past
+      fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he caught
+      sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore an
+      unmistakably schoollike look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This must be Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+      directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by a
+      cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+      in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+      reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+      Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+      he reminded Mike of Smee in <i>Peter Pan</i>. He had the same eyebrows and
+      pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson?" he said mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a cup
+      of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You come
+      from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near Brindleford? It
+      is a part of the country which I have always wished to visit. I dare say
+      you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose at
+      Brindleford?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed him
+      one on a tray, said he had not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad to
+      have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England, and
+      it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose. A
+      deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+      1133-40&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+      after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+      visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+      Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+      unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful preservation.
+      It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and two and a half
+      wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the apse wall. It
+      will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present, Jackson, good-bye."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+      deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+      hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+      journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a little
+      hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+      he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+      Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had come
+      by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+      leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+      left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and fixed
+      it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he inspected Mike
+      in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible speck of dust
+      from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in a tired voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+      bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever sitting
+      down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these chairs as
+      mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That sort of idea.
+      My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      3 &mdash; PSMITH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led Astray
+      and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I don't
+      know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The boy&mdash;what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes! Why, are you new?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+      yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+      way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion to
+      write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+      P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for Smythe.
+      My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but I've
+      decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty. The
+      resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on the back
+      of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert (though I
+      hope you won't), or simply Smith, the <i>P</i> not being sounded. Compare
+      the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar miss-in-balk. See?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+      courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but a
+      babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse to
+      keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of the
+      first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+      boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+      bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze
+      on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. I was superannuated last term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bad luck."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+      scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a Balliol&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+      told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+      here to get a Balliol too. Do <i>you</i> know Barlitt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+      that I was sent here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you come from Crofton?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+      brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+      human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+      The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+      his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+      at least be tolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+      painful story. Now tell me yours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad reports."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+      every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen of it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+      will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to
+      be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+      collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+      companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+      Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+      Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+      and things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of a
+      stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+      grounds&mdash;he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man&mdash;and
+      I hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+      country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+      Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+      half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+      generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark you,
+      laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off cricket.
+      To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser leg, "was the
+      dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A noble game, but
+      a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field out at the nets
+      till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you are a blood at the
+      game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and so on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+      fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+      business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+      for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of pleasure.
+      To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were, was one way
+      of treating the situation, and one not without its meed of comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith approved the resolve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will search
+      the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive fossil
+      together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus improve our
+      minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't wonder if one
+      mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a bit of rabbit
+      shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade Outwood during our
+      brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the lynx-eyed contingent.
+      With tact we ought to be able to slip away from the merry throng of fossil
+      chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used to
+      break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+      interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+      nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+      Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+      and look."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+      either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This'll do us well," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+      couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung on a
+      nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You aren't going to collar it!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+      straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+      claims. This is practical socialism."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to pig
+      it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be alone.
+      It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a fatiguing day.
+      And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help me fetch up my box
+      from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various things in it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      4 &mdash; STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+      rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he preferred
+      to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that the wooden
+      bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was Mike who
+      wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who abstracted the key
+      from the door of the next study, though the idea was Psmith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what we
+      chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door unlocked
+      in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody comes
+      right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think with a
+      little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+      comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think you
+      could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks. We make
+      progress. We make progress."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+      tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+      turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+      insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the evening
+      meal?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something to
+      be at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+      dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+      this, I wonder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+      that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed, and
+      a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+      turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+      to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things to
+      say on the subject."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+      smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On his
+      face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+      stateliness to do the honors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues after
+      our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths. Let me
+      introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in appearance,
+      perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will doubtless come up
+      in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and harangued
+      Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these: 'It
+      might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+      yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+      might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said huskily,
+      'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and said,
+      'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to know what&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+      and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected by
+      his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival, you
+      find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not Spiller."
+      Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of tea. Spiller's
+      sad case had moved him greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it's beastly cheek."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went straight
+      to the root of the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller evaded the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+      studies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+      prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual and
+      the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place bagging
+      studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption that it is
+      impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a lesson to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here, I tell you what it&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if you
+      trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He said, 'I
+      couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the accelerator.' 'But
+      suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.'
+      So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot brake
+      after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I
+      give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and
+      the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realized the
+      possibility of somebody someday collaring your study, you might have
+      thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is,
+      you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as a surprise. The cry goes
+      round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He cannot cope with the
+      situation.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can't I! I'll&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+      Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's my
+      study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man of
+      Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you intend
+      to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade Jackson before
+      you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an insignificant-looking
+      little weed. And you <i>are</i> an insignificant-looking little weed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+      myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well all
+      go together."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined, Mike
+      sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he walked, and
+      now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by the wayside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently the
+      leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you have
+      already made friends."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+      study-claimer's shoulder&mdash;a proceeding violently resented by Spiller&mdash;"is
+      a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands before one
+      like some beautiful flower."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+      gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys
+      in my house friendly toward one another."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is the
+      heart of a little child."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak to
+      you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" began Spiller
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological Society
+      in the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+      disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+      chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+      be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+      induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over the
+      School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support. Boys
+      came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at times,
+      not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact that it
+      provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+      opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+      main, earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society. I&mdash;er&mdash;in
+      a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become a member?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+      down your name at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And Jackson's, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted. This
+      is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to join."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+      Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+      from the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be there, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Capital!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+      you could spare the time, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+      study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+      evenings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. Quite so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+      list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should have
+      spoken before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+      Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study. He
+      would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+      formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+      comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On Saturday, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+      "is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one of
+      these afternoons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      5 &mdash; GUERRILLA WARFARE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+      position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study with
+      the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than sitting
+      under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on Spiller; he
+      would not have appreciated it properly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you in
+      a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+      other before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+      permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we are
+      now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood is not
+      going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Made it jolly hot for them!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+      an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+      are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+      gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a reasonable
+      number of assailants in defense of the home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+      though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all right
+      while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+      admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at us
+      through the door, and we can lock that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And jam a chair against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>And</i>, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of
+      the nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+      cart."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the man,
+      Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind&mdash;such foresight!
+      such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+      rooms we're done&mdash;we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not the matron&mdash;Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+      there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+      afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+      followed a knocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+      parley with the man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+      vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood giggling
+      with his hands in his pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+      light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+      eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I <i>do</i> wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+      description&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mine is Psmith&mdash;P-s-m-i-t-h&mdash;one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The
+      object on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything downstairs.
+      You <i>are</i> chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his study? He's
+      making no end of a row about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of human
+      nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say that he
+      would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the glad throng?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. <i>I</i>
+      think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How many <i>will</i> there be, then?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+      don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+      has been bagged."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+      virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only thing
+      is we must get into the same dormitory."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+      come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with, say,
+      about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five&mdash;there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+      chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+      Outwood and stake out another claim."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+      he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must apologize for disturbing you, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to me
+      when they wish for my advice or help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+      Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+      very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling Jellicoe
+      kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson, Jellicoe and
+      myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it&mdash;I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And we can have the room, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly&mdash;certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that we
+      are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade Jellicoe for
+      his valuable assistance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The handle began to revolve again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+      one's leisure cruelly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+      come down," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The senior day room chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They want us to speak to them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+      down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as the
+      messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door open, I
+      think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what can we do
+      for you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+      the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+      black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll risk it," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+      to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been watching.
+      He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against the advancing
+      crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the weight and impetus
+      of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back, and Mike, stepping
+      into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at the
+      looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the first
+      shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body crashed against the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+      quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+      repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+      instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+      through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+      in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+      have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm and a
+      leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+      windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the flowerbed below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+      guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had pressed
+      against the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson. I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+      always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+      in the corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody hammered on the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bell rang in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+      "There's no harm in going out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+      evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+      attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was plain
+      that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's face
+      was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of garden mold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element. His
+      demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+      condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to Mike.
+      It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as you can."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+      been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky you
+      two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you into
+      the senior day room and scrag you there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but it
+      can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+      term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+      life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My nerves
+      are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce them to
+      hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign&mdash;the thing must
+      be settled at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it as
+      tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will try to
+      corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could fake up some
+      sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all the trouble
+      over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I don't propose to
+      be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose that we let them
+      come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this meeting with me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As a matter of fact&mdash;if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at all;
+      he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we have our
+      little wooden <i>châlet</i> to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+      Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+      moral support, but otherwise, <i>ne pas</i>. And now, as there won't be
+      anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write home
+      and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      6 &mdash; UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements of
+      the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for Dormitory
+      One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The rest of the
+      opposing forces were distributed among other and more distant rooms. It
+      was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be the rendezvous. As to
+      the time when an attack might be expected, it was unlikely that it would
+      occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went the round of the
+      dormitories at eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+      conducted in a subdued and <i>sotto voce</i> manner, or may we let
+      ourselves go a bit here and there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you&mdash;he sleeps miles
+      away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often rag
+      half the night and nothing happens."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment. What
+      would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of these
+      reckless youths!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+      stopping the show before it's half started."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up&mdash;I can hear it sizzling. I
+      quite agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as
+      well to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody
+      else who might interfere with our gambols?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is Barnes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Head of the house&mdash;a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson;
+      they rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+      pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+      vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again, closing the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+      they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+      following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+      would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+      his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+      by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+      directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated imitation
+      of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He would then&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of the
+      steps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson, the
+      man with the big brain!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+      three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+      examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+      made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+      across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+      Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+      finest purlers in the world's history."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they've got a torch&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then they'll
+      charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire into the
+      brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade Jellicoe's
+      jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not be amiss&mdash;we
+      will enmesh the enemy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will retire
+      to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe like an
+      asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at the top of
+      the steps, listening."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying experience,
+      especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential. Mike was tired
+      after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was jerked back to
+      wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle; the faintest
+      rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight giggle, succeeded by
+      a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe, too, had heard the noise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+      movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened the
+      door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic; he was
+      flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the true
+      artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+      enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard had
+      reached the second step.... In another moment&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CRASH!
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+      he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+      contents had got to the right address.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+      before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on the
+      nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he ran
+      amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but his left
+      went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick freed his
+      ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a sudden increase
+      in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good work that was
+      being put in by Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+      caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual kind
+      of housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+      over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+      each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+      secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+      that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+      rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that made
+      itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+      light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other dormitories,
+      roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport. They had
+      switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+      enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+      the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a gingerly
+      fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In the direction
+      of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord of a dressing
+      gown, was engaging the remaining three with a patient smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+      cord acutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+      to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having seized
+      and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again with the
+      cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the spectators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+      everywhere&mdash;on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+      passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+      inadvertently trod), on the floor&mdash;he ranged the room, sowing
+      destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this was
+      to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the garrison
+      armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a final rush
+      sent them through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+      in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood alone
+      in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had pitchforked him
+      so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time since his father had
+      given him his views upon school reports that morning in the Easter
+      holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped, outnumbered as he was,
+      that the enemy would come on again and not give the thing up in disgust;
+      he wanted more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+      action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+      combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+      forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back along
+      the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some clouded
+      cane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+      called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+      the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+      poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+      Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's&mdash;Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+      words; where you pick them up I can't think&mdash;not from me. Well, well,
+      I suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+      night, good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+      whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  <i>Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease.</i>
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      7 &mdash; ADAIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+      three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and wiry,
+      light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to running.
+      Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced eye saw that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was that
+      rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or the
+      passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected to
+      lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very different
+      thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that comes to the
+      top by sheer force of character and determination. He was not naturally
+      clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged resolution which had
+      carried him up the school, and landed him high in the Sixth. As a
+      cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had given him a good
+      eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had triumphed over her
+      failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of more trouble than most
+      people give to their life work he had made himself into a bowler. He read
+      the authorities, and watched first-class players, and thought the thing
+      out on his own account, and he divided the art of bowling into three
+      sections. First, and most important&mdash;pitch. Second on the list&mdash;break.
+      Third&mdash;pace. He set himself to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling
+      at his own pace and without any attempt at break, he could now drop the
+      ball on an envelope seven times out of ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+      expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could get
+      all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything but a
+      plumb wicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+      style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+      elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+      sprints and all the rest of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+      school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a small
+      school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him.
+      There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of them in
+      all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been influenced by
+      Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the effects of his
+      work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature to want to get
+      something which somebody else obviously values very much; and when it was
+      observed by members of his form that Adair was going to great trouble and
+      inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or fifteen, they
+      naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in those teams. The
+      consequence was that his form always played hard. This made other forms
+      play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair succeeded to the
+      captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year, Sedleigh, as Mr.
+      Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach to a cricket master
+      that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying, was a keen school. As
+      a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All it wanted now was opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness for
+      his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which really
+      is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average public-school boy
+      <i>likes</i> his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at Rugger and
+      Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry to leave, and
+      he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for any passionate,
+      deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather bad form than
+      otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the back, and cried,
+      "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old school, Jenkins! The
+      dear old school! The old place you love so!" he would feel seriously ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was the exception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead; his
+      guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia at one
+      end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant times Adair
+      had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to Sedleigh. The place
+      had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike, violently transplanted from
+      Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not to be mentioned in the same
+      breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the future, saw a colossal
+      establishment, a public school among public schools, a lump of human
+      radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars year after year without
+      ceasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+      not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+      want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+      keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+      should take its rank among <i>the</i> schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+      should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's in
+      the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years running. He
+      would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained his wrist. And
+      he plays fives jolly well!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+      from that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+      hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+      little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with his
+      form master during morning school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+      replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+      self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+      into the man's head; and when I <i>had</i> driven it in, he sent me out of
+      the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+      me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+      persecuted by scoundrels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+      pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+      mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+      all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Haven't you <i>ever</i> played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+      qualities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this afternoon
+      and seeing what you can do with a hard ball&mdash;if you can manage
+      without your little sister."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+      hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+      This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+      smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+      myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+      National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the Young
+      Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are being
+      carried back to the pavilion after your century against Loamshire&mdash;do
+      you play Loamshire?&mdash;we shall be grubbing in the hard ground for
+      ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty, Comrade Adair. A
+      Boy's Crossroads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+      brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair turned, and walked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+      same question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a general
+      resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable bullfinch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+      new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We want
+      keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy to be
+      keen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excellent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On archaeology."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing&mdash;for it was no less a celebrity&mdash;started, as one who
+      perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+      passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we went
+      singing about the house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently. "I
+      don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to interfere
+      with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly that in my
+      opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets him into
+      idle, loafing habits."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the principle
+      of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other boys, not
+      wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and going into low
+      public houses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+      Psmith, shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in my
+      opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stumped off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now <i>he's</i> cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+      getting ourselves disliked here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good job, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of a
+      lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      8 &mdash; MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+      Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+      with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+      of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+      resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+      And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings for
+      a Kindergarten <i>v</i>. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+      Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun shone,
+      and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and heard the
+      "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to Adair and
+      shouting, "I <i>will</i> be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three years,
+      and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to the
+      nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once or
+      twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the game
+      which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do not
+      make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers more
+      likely, by the law of averages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+      Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a Burgess,
+      but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three years'
+      experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He was a long
+      way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the others who
+      had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+      Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+      Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth&mdash;not
+      unlike what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy&mdash;but he knew how to
+      keep balls out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+      Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+      batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star at
+      Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+      repeat the experiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+      freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the scent
+      of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This is the
+      real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went up to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+      nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+      manner was offensively abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This net,"
+      it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+      embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge over
+      there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+      corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+      if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked away without a word.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with them
+      the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a poor
+      substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction shouting to
+      him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them hugely, but Mike
+      almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always possible to slip
+      away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked upon them as among
+      the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er with
+      the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the pleased
+      and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him round the
+      garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research struck a new note
+      in the history of that neglected science. He was amiable, but patronizing.
+      He patronized fossils, and he patronized ruins. If he had been confronted
+      with the Great Pyramid, he would have patronized that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+      expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+      old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+      let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+      absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+      putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may lie
+      on his back for a bit."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+      since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+      strolled away down the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+      Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+      Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+      are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement, I
+      can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+      there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound over
+      pebbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+      sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to the
+      music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to say, I
+      rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these naps by the
+      wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And Psmith, heaving the
+      comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has earned rest, lay down, with
+      his head against a mossy tree stump, and closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making centuries
+      in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up, jumped the
+      brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+      undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when you
+      meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in order that
+      you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread his way back
+      through the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on, and
+      trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity in
+      the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The dickens you&mdash;Why, you're Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair moustache.
+      Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could not place
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing you
+      seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my nesting
+      pheasants."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm frightfully sorry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course&mdash;I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made
+      fifty-eight not out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was that
+      you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+      are you doing down here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've left Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+      that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to inquire
+      the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of puttering
+      about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you off
+      for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart leaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he told how matters stood with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+      things"&mdash;Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague&mdash;"but
+      I could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+      get onto my bike&mdash;I've got it down here&mdash;and meet you anywhere
+      you liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my
+      hands off a bat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+      Lower Borlock&mdash;that's the name of the place&mdash;and I'll meet you
+      on the ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off
+      the London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+      Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want to
+      bring mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+      wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and told
+      the news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+      soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+      play for the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+      but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports. I'll
+      borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+      Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a newcomer
+      to the team, M. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      9 &mdash; THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+      position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+      gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+      fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+      it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+      substitute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+      Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+      arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with, proved
+      more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it grew
+      with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a master
+      ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his official
+      dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes. To Mr.
+      Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for the
+      school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should be
+      implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the healthy
+      boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+      by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+      unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+      "overtime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that it
+      was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to do
+      with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+      Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple of his
+      eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem of
+      Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe passport
+      to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket was good, but
+      to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+      of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+      vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+      Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+      the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+      members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+      seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+      Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+      Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye, Sammy
+      was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat, an
+      engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which was a
+      happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a tenor
+      voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+      Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+      two minutes' acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during French
+      lessons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We will now proceed to the painful details.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+      form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading of
+      the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+      according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+      for the disturbing of the peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today they were in very fair form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+      House, held up his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Red, with green stripes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Stone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+      right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard, and
+      the meeting had divided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+      Stone, sit down&mdash;Wilson, get back to your place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Si-<i>lence!</i> The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the
+      question."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be <i>quiet!</i> Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+      needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+      disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a show
+      of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+      out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+      are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, sir, the danger!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+      man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+      the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+      expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+      that are likely to fall on our heads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps like
+      the first fifteen have? They&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wilson, leave the room!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, <i>please</i>, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+      lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+      spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not right!
+      If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of this
+      flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be keen.
+      I...? What is that noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling from
+      a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were being
+      prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The sufferer
+      appeared to have a high voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+      near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+      rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the opposite
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well&mdash;be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+      Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you making that whining noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>sort</i> of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had
+      asked before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just
+      such a case as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+      can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+      "Perhaps that's it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+      sometimes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence! Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+      shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like an
+      excited kangaroo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+      to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between the
+      two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in time to
+      see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin worrying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chaos reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+      dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+      Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+      stirring, bustling scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+      standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all the
+      other noises till in time they gave up the competition and died away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of a
+      Bren gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+      punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+      same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+      will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+      end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain. <i>Quietly</i>,
+      I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that abominable way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crash!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement of
+      your hand&mdash;one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting dispersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+      conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk, so
+      I came in&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+      "the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came in,
+      too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to let
+      him go, and he came in after the rat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+      both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr. Downing
+      liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade, frivolous
+      at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept wicket for
+      the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society, and had
+      refused to play cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun, and
+      paid very little for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+      Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+      it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend their
+      time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen school;
+      this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time. That will
+      do, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+      has a habit of getting the last word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      10 &mdash; ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+      wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+      room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and borrowings
+      to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as something of a
+      blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody. The
+      fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a quid.
+      You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have got, so
+      don't be shy about paying it back."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+      gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+      meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+      Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+      ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+      was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+      Jellicoe&mdash;why on earth did the man want all that?&mdash;meant that,
+      unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the
+      desired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+      regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had made
+      a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a sufficiently
+      softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be stated at once, he
+      did, by return of post.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter&mdash;he was
+      never a very ready writer&mdash;when Stone and Robinson burst into the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+      the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+      Robinson was laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair. Mike's
+      heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was a thing
+      of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius Caesar. He
+      felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and appreciate one
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+      Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+      public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain. They
+      had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits. They
+      looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones and
+      Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about, loud
+      and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to other
+      people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out the
+      tea things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those Fire Brigade meetings," said Stone, "are a rag. You can do what you
+      like, and you never get more than a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you!" said Mike. "I got Saturday afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Wilson in too?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. He got a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What a beastly swindle!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'We are, above all, a keen school,'" quoted Stone. "Don't you ever play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have played a bit," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why on earth did you leave?" asked Stone. "Were you sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. My father took me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn?" said Robinson. "Are you any relation of the Jacksons there&mdash;J.W.
+      and the others?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brother."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, didn't you play at all there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and Robinson
+      nearly dropped his teacup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone broke the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But I mean to say&mdash;look here? What I mean is, why aren't you
+      playing? Why don't you play now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do. I play for a village near here. Place called Lower Borlock. A man
+      who played against Wrykyn for the Free Foresters captains them. He asked
+      me if I'd like some games for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why not for the school?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why should I? It's much better fun for the village. You don't get ordered
+      about by Adair, for a start."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair sticks on side," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough for six," agreed Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," said Stone, "I've got an idea. My word, what a rag!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's wrong now?" inquired Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, look here. Tomorrow'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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bat. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson rocked on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, old Downing fancies himself as a bowler. You <i>must</i> play, and
+      knock the cover off him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Masters don't play in house matches, surely?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This isn't a real house match. Only a friendly. Downing always turns out
+      on Mid-Term Service Day. I say, do play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Think of the rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the team's full," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The list isn't up yet. We'll nip across to Barnes's study, and make him
+      alter it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They dashed out of the room. From down the passage Mike heard yells of "<i>Barnes</i>!"
+      the closing of a door, and a murmur of excited conversation. Then
+      footsteps returning down the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes appeared, on his face the look of one who has seen visions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "is it true? Or is Stone rotting? About Wrykyn, I mean."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I was in the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his <i>Wisden</i>, and he
+      had an immense respect for Wrykyn cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the M. Jackson, then, who had an average of fifty-one point
+      naught three last year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes's manner became like that of a curate talking to a bishop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "then&mdash;er&mdash;will you play against Downing's
+      tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      11 &mdash; THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 noncricketing boy for nearly a month that (<i>a</i>) the school is
+      above all a keen school, (<i>b</i>) that all members of it should play
+      cricket, and (<i>c</i>) that by not playing cricket he is ruining his
+      chances in this world and imperiling 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing assumed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was walking to the field with Adair and another member of his team when
+      he came upon Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" he cried. "Our Jackson clad in suit of mail and armed for the
+      fray!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Mr. Downing's No. 2 manner&mdash;the playful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 today. It is the right spirit, sir,"
+      said Psmith earnestly. "I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed, Smith? You are not playing yourself, I notice. Your enthusiasm
+      has bounds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In our house, sir, competition is fierce, and the Selection Committee
+      unfortunately passed me over."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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 groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. The latter's reformation had dated from
+      that moment.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In stories of the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new boy,
+      who has been found crying in the changing 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;in his walk, in the way he took guard, in his stand at
+      the wicket. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike started cautiously. He was more than usually anxious to make runs
+      today, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first over was a maiden, six dangerous balls beautifully played. The
+      fieldsmen changed over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general interest had now settled on the match between Outwood's and
+      Downing's. The facts in Mike's case had gone around 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Off the first ball of the master's over a leg-bye was run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when delivered, was billed to
+      break from leg, but the program was subject to alterations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His treatment of Adair's next over was freer. He had got a sight of the
+      ball now. Halfway 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crowd was now reluctantly dispersing to its own games, but it stopped
+      as Mr. Downing started his minuet-cakewalk, in the hope that it might see
+      something more sensational.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time the hope was fulfilled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was returned on the installment system by helpers from other games, and
+      the bowler began his maneuvers 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get to them, Jenkins," said Mr. Downing irritably, as the ball came back
+      from the boundary. "Get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't talk in the field, Jenkins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor. He charged up to the wicket as a
+      wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea now was to bowl
+      fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be
+      batting, if you can manage it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And a shrill small voice, from the neighborhood of the pavilion, uttered
+      with painful distinctness the words, "Take him off!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was how the most sensational day's cricket began that Sedleigh had
+      known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 lunchtime with a score of eleven. Mike had
+      then made a hundred and three.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      As Mike was taking off his pads in the pavilion, Adair came up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why did you say you didn't play cricket?" he asked abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been bowling the whole morning, and bowling well, without the
+      slightest success, one is inclined to be abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike finished unfastening an obstinate strap. Then he looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was silent for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you play for us against the Old Sedleighans tomorrow?" he said at
+      length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tossed his pads into his bag and got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Above it, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not keeping you, am I?" said Mike, politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 favoritism. And the dislike
+      deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely individuals. On
+      occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other houses were
+      accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr. Downing distributed his
+      thunderbolts unequally, and the school noticed it. The result was that not
+      only he himself, but also&mdash;which was rather unfair&mdash;his house,
+      too, had acquired a good deal of unpopularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" said Robinson. "Great Scot, what on earth are you talking
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. "I never saw
+      such a chump."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?" suggested Barnes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I won't then," said Barnes unhappily. "Only you know they're rather
+      sick already."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you worry about that," said Stone with a wide grin. "They'll be a
+      lot sicker before we've finished."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are the things which mark epochs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>our</i>
+      innings." Some even began to edge toward the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gray dismay settled on the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score, too,
+      was mounting steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery," snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fifty
+      went up on the board. "Barnes!" he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is absurd. You must declare your innings closed. The game has become
+      a farce."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare! Sir, we can't unless Barnes does. He might be awfully annoyed if
+      we did anything like that without consulting him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Absurd."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's very touchy, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is perfect foolery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The writing on it was as follows:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  OUTWOOD'S <i>v</i>. DOWNING'S
+
+  <i>Outwood's. First innings</i>.
+
+  J.P. Barnes, <i>c</i>. Hammond, <i>b</i>. Hassall      33
+  M. Jackson, not out                         277
+  W.J. Stone, not out                         124
+    Extras                                     37
+        Total (for one wicket)                47
+  Downing's did not bat.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      12 &mdash; THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, leaning against the mantlepiece, discoursed in a desultory way on
+      the day's happenings&mdash;the score off Mr. Downing, the undeniable
+      annoyance of that battered bowler, and the probability of his venting his
+      annoyance on Mike next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't care," murmured Mike, shifting his aching limbs in the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't deserve to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith smoothed his hair at the glass and turned round again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This interested Mike, tired as he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Three quid!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Three crisp, crackling quid. He wanted four."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 <i>me</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I got some from my brother at Oxford."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you asleep, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe. I can't get to sleep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor can I. I'm stiff all over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll come over and sit on your bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking, and then a weight descended in the neighborhood of
+      Mike's toes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you&mdash;oh, nothing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All sorts of things. Especially my father. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I don't know. So would mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody's would, I expect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bed creaked, as Jellicoe digested these great thoughts. Then he spoke
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would be a jolly beastly thing to get sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?" he said. "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you'd say, 'Hello!' And then they'd say, 'What are you doing here?'
+      And you'd say&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About what would happen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Happen when?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When you got home. After being sacked, you know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's been sacked?" Mike's mind was still under a cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dozed off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello! What's the matter? Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I asked you if you'd got any sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose sisters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yours. I asked if you'd got any."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation was becoming too intricate for Jellicoe. He changed the
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, you don't know anyone who could lend me a pound, do you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" cried Mike, sitting up in bed and staring through the darkness in
+      the direction whence the numismatist's voice was proceeding. "Do <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, look out. You'll wake Psmith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say you wanted someone to lend you a quid?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Jellicoe eagerly. "Do you know anyone?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth do you want a pound for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want to tell anybody. But it's jolly serious. I shall get sacked
+      if I don't get it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bob's postal order which had arrived that evening, was reposing in the
+      breast pocket of his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a wrench, but, if the situation was so serious with Jellicoe, it
+      had to be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      13 &mdash; JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;who is that shuffling his feet? I will not have it, I <i>will</i>
+      have silence&mdash;you must hang back in order to make a more effective
+      entrance, like some wretched actor who&mdash;I will <i>not</i> have this
+      shuffling. I have spoken of this before. Macpherson, are you shuffling
+      your feet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Parsons?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's the noise of the draft under the door, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was through one of these batsmen that an accident occurred which had a
+      good deal of influence on Mike's affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When "Heads!" was called on the present occasion, Mike and Jellicoe
+      instantly assumed the crouching attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bright-blazered youth walked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry, you know. Hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was pressing the injured spot tenderly with his fingertips,
+      uttering sharp howls whenever, zeal outrunning discretion, he prodded
+      himself too energetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silly ass, Dunster," he groaned, "slamming about like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry. But I did yell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's swelling up rather," said Mike. "You'd better get over to the house
+      and have it looked at. Can you walk?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe tried, but sat down again with a loud "Ow!" At that moment the
+      bell rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall have to be going in," said Mike, "or I'd have helped you over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you a hand," said Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      14 &mdash; MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found Psmith
+      seated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Return of the exile," said Psmith. "A joyful occasion tinged with
+      melancholy. Have a cherry?&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is your name Jackson?" inquired Dunster, "because Jellicoe wants to see
+      you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas, poor Jellicoe!" said Psmith. "He is now prone on his bed in the
+      dormitory&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Smith and I," said Dunster, "were at prep school together. I'd no
+      idea I should find him here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You still jaw as much as ever, I notice," said the animal delineator,
+      fondling the beginnings of his moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "More," sighed Psmith, "more. Is anything irritating you?" he added,
+      eyeing the other's maneuvers with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You needn't be a funny ass, man," said Dunster, pained; "heaps of people
+      tell me I ought to have it waxed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What it really wants is top-dressing with guano. Hello! another man out.
+      Adair's bowling better today than he did yesterday."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;Adair's
+      bowling is perfectly simple if you go out to it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Dunster went out to it first ball," said Psmith to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What was it Jellicoe wanted?" asked Mike; "was it anything important?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He seemed to think so&mdash;he kept telling me to tell you to go and see
+      him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I fear Comrade Jellicoe is a bit of a weak-minded blitherer&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you ever hear of a rag we worked off on Jellicoe once?" asked
+      Dunster. "The man has absolutely no sense of humor&mdash;can't see when
+      he's being rotted. Well, it was like this&mdash;hello! We're all out&mdash;I
+      shall have to be going out to field again, I suppose, dash it! I'll tell
+      you when I see you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall count the minutes," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stretched himself; the sun was very soothing after his two hours in
+      the detention room; he felt disinclined for exertion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;don't interrupt
+      too much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tilted his hat over his eyes and abandoned Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike found him in a condition bordering on collapse. "I say, you might
+      have come before!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up? I didn't know there was such a hurry about it&mdash;what did
+      you want?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good now," said Jellicoe gloomily; "it's too late, I shall get
+      sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about? What's the row?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's about that money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had to pay it to a man today, or he said he'd write to the Head&mdash;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&mdash;it's too late now!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's face fell. "Oh, hang it!" he said, "I'm awfully sorry. I'd no idea
+      it was anything like that&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It doesn't matter," said Jellicoe miserably; "it can't be helped."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it can," said Mike. "I know what I'll do&mdash;it's all right. I'll
+      get out of the house after lights-out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe sat up. "You can't! You'd get sacked if you were caught."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe's face.
+      "I say, do you think you could, really?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course I can! It'll be rather a rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, it's frightfully decent of you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What absolute rot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But look here, are you certain&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall be all right. Where do you want me to go?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lower Borlock?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, do you know it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather! I've been playing cricket for them all the term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you? Do you know a man called Barley?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barley? Rather&mdash;he runs the White Boar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's the chap I owe the money to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Barley!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall bike there, I think," he said, "if I can get into the shed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school's bicycles were stored in a shed by the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Got it on you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith's got it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll get it from him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't tell Smith why you want it, will you? I don't want anybody to know&mdash;if
+      a thing once starts getting about it's all over the place in no time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right, I won't tell him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, thanks most awfully! I don't know what I should have done, I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      15 &mdash; ... AND FULFILLS IT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mike pedaled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job done without
+      delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a
+      certain number of hours' sleep a day&mdash;I cannot recall for the moment
+      how many&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;standing
+      out black and mysterious against the light sky&mdash;and the rows of
+      silent cottages, until he came to the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out&mdash;it was
+      sometime past eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Mike had waited for a few minutes there was a rattling of chains and
+      a shooting of bolts and the door opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said the boots, appearing in his shirt sleeves. "Why, 'ello!
+      Mr. Jackson, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to see Mr. Barley, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's bin' in bed this half hour back, Mr. Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must see him. Can you get him down?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boots looked doubtful. "Roust the guv'nor outer bed?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike quite admitted the gravity of the task. The landlord of the White
+      Boar was one of those men who need a beauty sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish you would&mdash;it's a thing that can't wait. I've got some money
+      to give to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, if it's <i>that</i> ..." said the boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes later mine host appeared in person, looking more than usually
+      portly in a check dressing gown and red bedroom slippers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can pop off, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exit boots to his slumbers once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Mr. Jackson, what's it all about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jellicoe asked me to come and bring you the money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The money? What money?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What he owes you; the five pounds, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The five&mdash;" 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh dear!" he said, "Oh dear! The five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You might tell us the joke."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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
+      ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was reading the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear Mr. Barley," it ran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was some more to the same effect; it was signed "T.G. Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's it all about?" said Mike, finishing this curious
+      document.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she's the worst of the two, always up to it, she is&mdash;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&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded to scale this water pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had got about halfway up when a voice from somewhere below cried,
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      16 &mdash; PURSUIT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was the exact remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereby Mike recognized him as the school sergeant. "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was
+      that militant gentleman's habitual way of beginning a conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the sound of footsteps returning, this time at a walk. They passed
+      the gate and went on down the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pursuer had given the thing up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;twelve, he supposed&mdash;on
+      the school clock. He would wait till a quarter past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other appeared startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who the dickens is that?" he asked. "Is that you, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here. Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you, if it comes to that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was adjusting his front light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going for the doctor. One of the chaps in our house is bad."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just been for a stroll."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be getting back?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose you think you're doing something tremendously brave and
+      dashing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be going to the doctor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you want to know what I think&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't. So long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+      for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+      hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked in that direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+      news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members of
+      Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of acute
+      illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy in the
+      event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get jumpy
+      beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with MacPhee, as
+      a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct and legitimate
+      result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three doughnuts, two ices, an
+      apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the lot down with tea. But Mr.
+      Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of some deadly scourge which
+      would sweep through and decimate the house. He had dispatched Adair for
+      the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes prowling restlessly about
+      his room, was now standing at his front gate, waiting for Adair's return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction of
+      home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by being
+      hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you, Adair?"
+      The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow&mdash;a
+      flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+      grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+      Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+      an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+      sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and, if
+      Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in the
+      first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept ahead.
+      At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards. The
+      procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he was
+      accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of it
+      which had ever illumined his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at Sedleigh,
+      had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into the school
+      officially&mdash;in speeches from the dais&mdash;by the headmaster, and
+      unofficially&mdash;in earnest private conversations&mdash;by Mr. Downing,
+      that at the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every
+      member of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way,
+      and make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+      it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the school
+      had its orders&mdash;to get out into the open at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this feat.
+      Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board to the
+      effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that day.
+      Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the occasion
+      when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had said, "My
+      house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which the
+      Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened the
+      hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr. Downing
+      having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and poured a
+      stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty to turn his
+      attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was his private
+      study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in a miniature
+      lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for realism, and
+      fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most part, of
+      "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes, kept in
+      the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the dormitory
+      would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other end being
+      fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using his elbows
+      as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and these two,
+      standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the rest of the
+      dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except to their
+      digestions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken a
+      rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+      among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+      to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+      headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+      the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient unto
+      the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to ring at
+      night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine alarm of
+      fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+      end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up the
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash that
+      his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his pursuer off
+      for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the rope and tug
+      it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them, and in the
+      subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+      chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+      strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+      length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+      Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in the
+      Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded the
+      pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put all he
+      knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the effort. He
+      worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike reached the
+      gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As far as Mike could judge&mdash;he was not in a condition to make nice
+      calculations&mdash;he had about four seconds in which to get busy with
+      that bell rope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+      than he did then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+      first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+      from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+      on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+      housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum, as
+      if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school was awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      17 &mdash; THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at Outwood's&mdash;since
+      Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had been received as
+      brothers by the center of disorder, so that even Spiller was compelled to
+      look on the hatchet as buried&mdash;and gave his views on the events of
+      the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning, for it was nearer one
+      than twelve when peace had once more fallen on the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+      surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+      unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+      in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+      school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got so
+      accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort of
+      affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants can
+      give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind is
+      likely to take place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+      meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+      had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+      the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath against
+      the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood. He hobbled
+      about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+      Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over matter.
+      He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a Boneless
+      Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone gurgled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag, I
+      began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+      about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+      particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+      the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+      knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing a
+      thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved again,
+      time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say Comrade
+      Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency to which
+      he has brought us. At any rate I hope&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+      member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+      Sam! Sam!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+      Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed in a
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+      covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+      was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+      weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and wagging
+      his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular dog, and was
+      always well received when he visited any of the houses, but he had never
+      before met with enthusiasm like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's been happening to him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who did it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems to
+      have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up like
+      that!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+      scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+      wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through his
+      eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either have to
+      skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great Healer. In a
+      year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why you shouldn't
+      have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of distinction to the
+      place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see him. By charging a
+      small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think I'll suggest it to
+      Comrade Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+      philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+      soon. It's a quarter to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+      going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing to
+      his ankle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+      frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jolly nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+      somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. But, I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the matter now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+      He'll be frightfully sick."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+      What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+      course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      18 &mdash; MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+      junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+      boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+      seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+      the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his reason
+      for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who&mdash;" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, he came in like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+      find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+      Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+      Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+      As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+      impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+      difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open, escaped
+      and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all and sundry.
+      You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to your own
+      premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this becomes out of
+      the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private trouble into a row.
+      Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction that Sammy had taken,
+      only, instead of running about the road, he went straight to the
+      headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his pajamas
+      and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a cold in the
+      head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in spite of his
+      strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous night in order to
+      test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves in the event of
+      fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed as the latter
+      related the events which had led up to the ringing of the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school, you
+      think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Was he wearing a school cap?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+      hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very big."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You did not see his face?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was dark and he never looked back&mdash;he was in front of me all the
+      time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is another matter ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the bell&mdash;he
+      had painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He&mdash;he&mdash;<i>what</i>,
+      Mr. Downing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted my dog red&mdash;bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+      anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+      wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+      shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of a
+      malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to ridicule
+      to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his dog,
+      he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there was
+      something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the boy
+      who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall after
+      chapel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal to
+      come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the school,
+      with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly reminded of
+      Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a wild screech of
+      laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr. Downing
+      was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal discovered,
+      he would have to discover him for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and Fate,
+      feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing, gave him
+      a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a needle in a
+      haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of being set to
+      find it in a mere truss of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+      archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at close
+      on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+      attempting to get into his house <i>via</i> the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+      whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+      cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded politeness
+      and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some reflections on
+      the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed it on to Mr.
+      Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant that
+      he interrupted him before&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He had broken out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+      dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+      asleep&mdash;all of them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
+      and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his colleague's
+      slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had narrowed itself
+      down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively easy. Perhaps Sergeant
+      Collard had actually recognized the boy. On reflection he dismissed this
+      as unlikely, for the sergeant would scarcely have kept a thing like that
+      to himself; but he might very well have seen more of him than he, Downing,
+      had seen. It was only with an effort that he could keep himself from
+      rushing to the sergeant then and there, and leaving the house lunch to
+      look after itself. He resolved to go the moment that meal was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+      functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+      snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+      still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+      helping, found himself at liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions in
+      the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr. Downing
+      arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+      were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+      ensure privacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+      unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a boy
+      endeavoring to enter his house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did, sir&mdash;spotted
+      'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of Connaught, he
+      used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to say, ''e's feeflee
+      good at spottin'.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+      there?'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you didn't catch him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him&mdash;feeflee
+      fast 'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You noticed nothing else?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+      caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+      feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+      considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon to you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything of
+      the kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+      pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant Collard,
+      having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a walk at once,
+      and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the 'ead, if he
+      persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over his face,
+      rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      19 &mdash; THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses,
+      success in the province of detective work must be, to a very large extent,
+      the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of
+      straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got to have it taken
+      out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a label attached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing
+      manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator, but, as a
+      matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not
+      even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard bungler. We should
+      simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes, how...?" and all the
+      rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+      do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the humdrum
+      round of life without having to measure footprints and smile quiet,
+      tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he thinks
+      naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and had
+      thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but, now
+      that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled to
+      admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of Watson's
+      inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard, he
+      thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant Collard, to
+      detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the crime. As he
+      brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor Watson increased
+      with every minute, and he began to feel a certain resentment against Sir
+      Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir Arthur to be so shrewd
+      and infallible about tracing a mystery to its source, but he knew
+      perfectly well who had done the thing before he started!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+      the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+      problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+      got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+      Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+      thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+      been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a boy
+      and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at twelve
+      o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie&mdash;I was
+      out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+      animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you. It
+      is practically stalemate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+      down the cricket field that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+      is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+      lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard thinking,
+      Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once more
+      intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of his
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+      they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+      air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something particularly
+      shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his bicycle from the
+      shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him irritable.
+      "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+      blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason as
+      a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he wanted
+      his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+      miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+      Sunday afternoons during the term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+      shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it was.
+      What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy soul
+      and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The greater
+      part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea of red
+      paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in the
+      middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+      footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+      plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+      Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle from
+      the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt, leaving
+      Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the detective, to
+      lock the door and resume his perambulation of the cricket field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+      Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+      professional sleuth might have envied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+      decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+      had done the deed of decoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yoicks!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+      must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+      upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been giving
+      a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring box at
+      the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was the direct
+      outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled into him.) In
+      that case the footmark might be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note one</i>: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+      contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor for
+      the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+      contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair went
+      into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note two</i>: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to
+      the house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Things were moving.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+      from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+      watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his house
+      in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the time for
+      reading in deck chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if you
+      found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house last night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+      and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+      You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened to
+      tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+      go into the shed at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+      Markby live?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a second.
+      It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the right as you
+      turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is the first you
+      come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to Markby
+      for a moment on a small matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+      the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+      blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Markby!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion last
+      night after the match?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+      scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So I
+      thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+      Marylebone come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the pot
+      of paint when you had finished?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+      whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you want it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+      business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the floor,
+      with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had better
+      get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I wished to know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+      the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+      successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he had
+      to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house&mdash;the idea of searching a
+      fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+      somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+      exist as a man capable of resenting liberties&mdash;find the
+      paint-splashed shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the
+      headmaster. There could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in
+      Mr. Outwood's house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint
+      without showing some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that
+      the shoe would not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This
+      really was beginning to be something like business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+      fast as he could walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      20 &mdash; A CHECK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+      were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+      the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+      other. Psmith&mdash;for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend&mdash;was
+      wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+      keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+      tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+      Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+      the effort to nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+      window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+      philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of leisure. Hello!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+      bought the place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+      this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he may
+      sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to them.
+      Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair and book?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+      ground."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+      his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+      who has lost his bearings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I&mdash;er&mdash;wish to go round the dormitories."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything, so
+      he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the rooms
+      are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+      sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron being
+      out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined the
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+      An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy, I
+      understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all to
+      himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a cubic
+      foot of air in vain. He argues justly&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in silence.
+      Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think he's
+      out in the field."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+      the exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+      awed whisper, "is where <i>I</i> sleep!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+      remarks to yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They moved on up the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+      waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The studies, Smith," he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+      unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+      Here we have&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This is
+      Barnes's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+      gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to our
+      general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+      window attracted his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+      distant hills ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe at
+      the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen climbing
+      the pipe must have been making for this study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+      Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+      not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+      unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody else comes into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+      precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+      And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just about
+      Jackson's size and build!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+      the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in his
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+      causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+      moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+      achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+      and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I should
+      say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket, downstairs.
+      Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I believe, at early
+      dawn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I know Edmund, sir&mdash;no."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+      basket to me here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly was
+      at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did not
+      know. But that there was something, and that that something was directed
+      in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with last night's
+      wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on leaving his bed at
+      the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe were alone in the room.
+      That might mean that Mike had gone out through the door when the bell
+      sounded, or it might mean that he had been out all the time. It began to
+      look as if the latter solution were the correct one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while that
+      it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study floor. Mr.
+      Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the wall, and
+      straightened out the damaged garment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various bootings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+      task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside the
+      basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+      feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn on
+      being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered footgear,
+      whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as he did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+      here. You can carry it back when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I carry it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing reflected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+      on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+      undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but when
+      a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on the
+      following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint splashed
+      shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name inside the
+      shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was only a few
+      miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was Mike's shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come with me, then."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+      shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+      certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+      You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+      Mr. Outwood's house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have the shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+      look at&mdash;This, you say, is the&mdash;? Just so. Just so. Just ...
+      But, er, Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+      sufficient care, but&mdash;Can <i>you</i> point out to me exactly where
+      this paint is that you speak of?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+      suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and entirely
+      innocent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      21 &mdash; THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+      Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+      is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+      expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+      affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of some
+      kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there was
+      a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in this.
+      Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Do you mean to tell me that you did <i>not</i> see it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+      across the toe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace of
+      paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy, not
+      uncommon. Any doctor will tell you&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably subject&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+      positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you say, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly out
+      of a trance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You had better be careful, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+      Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On one
+      occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I can
+      assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic cleaning
+      before all traces are removed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+      effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+      the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+      momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects, he
+      did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+      consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+      moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+      mistake...."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the only
+      explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared
+      with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few
+      minutes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I go
+      now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+      Cicero's speech <i>De senectute</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith. It
+      is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+      Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith without
+      a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly smile,
+      left the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road between
+      the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw what, if they
+      had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle of Psmith
+      running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified walk. He
+      believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease of
+      his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's gate,
+      bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the top
+      of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+      bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair and
+      panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+      matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+      time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+      and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+      shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+      two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage, and
+      Mr. Downing appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+      another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it had
+      occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's garden.
+      Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse would be to
+      do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling aggrieved with
+      himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too, hurried over to
+      Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh, laid
+      down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers, and
+      watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That thing, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+      eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+      his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+      shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+      complaint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, read if you like."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly irritated,
+      pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the second
+      search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as certain
+      as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence was
+      somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank where it
+      was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with evasive
+      answers was quite out of the common.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even for
+      so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be acquitted,
+      on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+      that there was the place to look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is in this cupboard?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That cupboard, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+      perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Open it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Unlock it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But where is the key, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you not got the key?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+      take a long search to find it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where did you see it last?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+      thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+      from me. I shall break open the door."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard happens
+      to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his permission. He
+      is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am only the acting
+      manager."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule did
+      not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were limits to
+      the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house without his
+      permission and search it to a certain extent was all very well. But when
+      it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+      study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+      house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+      alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the room,
+      he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+      thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+      convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+      standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring into
+      vacancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at all?
+      If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that the
+      cupboard was not tampered with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good enough
+      to come here for a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      22 &mdash; MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+      making any movement in the direction of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Quick</i>, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+      conundrum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith still made no move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+      was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if at
+      any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+      stripling!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+      almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he said
+      did not keep up the standard of docility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+      Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a master. In&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+      place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+      your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+      Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+      ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+      cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+      cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+      garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+      crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for the
+      Empire that the jibboom spanker <i>should</i> be spliced at that
+      particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+      matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my case.
+      If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand, and come
+      back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him to be good
+      enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad to go and
+      find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+      cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+      did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+      shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+      Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+      end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+      the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+      bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+      pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened to
+      the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to this, and
+      let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had stopped
+      swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it up
+      the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and washed
+      off the soot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr. Outwood,
+      the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+      intellectual pressure of the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have been washing my hands, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+      cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it perfectly
+      clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes in
+      a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+      good-gracious-has-the-man-<i>no</i>-sense look on the other's face, "Why
+      he should not do so if he wishes it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+      attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+      painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+      shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+      to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+      sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if he
+      had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+      propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any objection?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, <i>what</i>
+      is it you wish to do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+      used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the rest
+      of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing seized one
+      of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door. The wood
+      splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard, with any
+      skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you," he said. "I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+      for it for days."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+      surprise and wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+      the shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free from
+      paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+      sideways," he added helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must have done. Then, when I lost the key&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+      "or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+      made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+      little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good, hard
+      knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+      working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr. Outwood's
+      set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had caught sight
+      of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to inspect it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It should
+      have been done before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+      earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+      went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+      know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+      thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+      and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon his
+      hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his fingers had
+      closed upon what he was seeking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough, after
+      all, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this trouble.
+      You have done yourself no good by it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+      opinion of what constitutes&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+      looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+      and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+      hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+      looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did&mdash;you&mdash;put&mdash;that&mdash;shoe&mdash;there, Smith?" he
+      asked slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what did you <i>MEAN</i> by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      "WHAT?"
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+      can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+      catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+      soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+      you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way to my
+      room."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+      point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against the
+      slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear up
+      against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language of
+      the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more of
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+      towels, soap, and sponges.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+      He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a successfully
+      conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man of refinement,
+      and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it had been worth it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a lot
+      of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary implements
+      for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to do so.
+      Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the madding
+      crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs there
+      would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+      that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place the
+      shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up to
+      the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at about the
+      same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody would think of
+      looking there a second time, and it was improbable that Mr. Outwood really
+      would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The odds were that he had
+      forgotten about it already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling that
+      he had done a good day's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      23 &mdash; ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most adroit
+      plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to the rule.
+      He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's happenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+      like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where there
+      is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain unrevealed.
+      There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling Mike. He forgot
+      what the consequences might be if he did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+      school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion why
+      only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the subject. He
+      seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow can
+      understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike might
+      be satisfied with a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+      school in one shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much as
+      to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+      understand sound reasoning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, what am I to do? Where <i>is</i> the other shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off in
+      the gym shoes he stood in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which one
+      observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize how
+      strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for instance,
+      where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark blue are to be
+      worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most respectable and
+      unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a mixture of awe and
+      repulsion, which would be excessive if he had sandbagged the headmaster.
+      So in the case of shoes. School rules decree that a boy shall go to his
+      form room in shoes. There is no real reason why, if the day is fine, he
+      should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer them. But, if he does, the
+      thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say, "Great Scott, what <i>have</i>
+      you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, <i>what</i> are you wearing on your
+      feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the assembling of the form
+      for call-over and the arrival of the form master, some wag is sure either
+      to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act with some satirical
+      remark, or else to pull one of them off, and inaugurate an impromptu game
+      of football with it. There was once a boy who went to school one morning
+      in elastic-sided boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+      form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+      since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike with
+      respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to undergo at
+      Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who gave trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a boy
+      in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind, just
+      as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them.
+      They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+      list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+      shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention&mdash;every weapon was employed by
+      him in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+      always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he felt
+      shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in the
+      first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten minutes
+      to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked Like Loafers&mdash;which
+      broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one occasion, when a
+      particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of fare, Dunster had
+      entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath slippers, of a vivid
+      crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including his journey over to the
+      house to change the heelless atrocities, had seen him through very nearly
+      to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+      Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>What</i> are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gym shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+      proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+      comfortably for the address from the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+      moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+      translating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+      unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+      floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction, the
+      form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+      mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+      seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+      appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+      completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+      harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said, "Wal,
+      sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so did Mr.
+      Downing feel at that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+      sped to the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      24 &mdash; THE ADAIR METHOD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+      the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop, came
+      to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the Adair
+      administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt was
+      early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket keenness.
+      Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious interest in life,
+      had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his first term at Wrykyn.
+      And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm attachment to the game, compared
+      with Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+      after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+      been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+      match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose to
+      be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their comfortable
+      beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and had caught
+      catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air, had stung like
+      adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really got to work, it
+      is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the experiment was only
+      equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of the type which likes
+      to undergo hardships for the common good. They played well enough when on
+      the field, but neither cared greatly whether the school had a good season
+      or not. They played the games entirely for their own sakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+      never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate as
+      to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+      today's must be avoided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+      before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+      Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for the
+      team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd better find
+      somebody else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+      passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was the first to recover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+      can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+      kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C. with
+      a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village Jackson
+      plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+      autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+      keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+      being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The majority,
+      consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain runs up
+      against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the team or not,
+      then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless he is a man of
+      action, practically helpless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that they
+      would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The bowling
+      of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the chance of
+      making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are runs,
+      wherever and however made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+      morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+      those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+      there were no signs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond the
+      fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great help.
+      Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+      Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right, was
+      accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with that
+      of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper before the
+      bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of his reading
+      to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen the paper,
+      usually formed an interested and appreciative audience. Today, however,
+      though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of excitement at the
+      news that Sheppard had made a century against Gloucestershire, and that a
+      butter famine was expected in the United States, these world-shaking news
+      items seemed to leave Adair cold. He champed his bread and marmalade with
+      an abstracted air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+      that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe and
+      convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of person
+      who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He never
+      shirked anything, physical or moral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resolved to interview the absentees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He went
+      across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day room,
+      engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and marking the
+      height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided with a record
+      effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance and stagger
+      backward against the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+      spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We didn't turn up," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know you didn't. Why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the coolness
+      which comes from rehearsal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We decided not to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+      fielding."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just the word."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry it bored you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking of
+      something."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't do
+      anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like, but we
+      don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or Saturday
+      for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the school team
+      aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go chucking people out
+      of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll play
+      for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn out for
+      fielding practice before breakfast."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going to
+      tomorrow morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Six sharp. Don't be late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+      six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any deep
+      conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for his
+      comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've quite made up your minds?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+      standing in the middle of the open space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+      seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+      tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than Stone,
+      but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game. His blow
+      was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his opponent's. At the
+      end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a minute
+      or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+      maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make up
+      his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances he
+      might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than ordinarily
+      courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must end in his
+      destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match even for
+      Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one minute. It
+      seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was likely to come
+      from an encounter with Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+      is Jackson's study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which precluded
+      anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied that Mike's
+      study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor at the top of
+      the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+      still there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he isn't
+      busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      25 &mdash; ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going on
+      below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that morning
+      from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket captaincy
+      which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a lugubrious
+      strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with Wrykyn. A
+      broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments with a day
+      boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of Dunstable,
+      the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a side out.
+      Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone wrong. The
+      M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three first-class
+      cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty runs.
+      Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs, with a
+      team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch&mdash;not a well-known
+      man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing for the club
+      for nearly half a century&mdash;had got home by two wickets. In fact, it
+      was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was about the most
+      hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition of itself on the
+      school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off, owing to an
+      outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and athletics&mdash;the
+      second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said Strachan, was hard
+      lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for Wrykyn, as it had saved
+      them from what would probably have been a record hammering, Ripton having
+      eight of their last year's team left, including Dixon, the fast bowler,
+      against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had been able to make runs in
+      the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had struck a bad patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+      to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one good
+      batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may take a
+      weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the importance
+      of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+      against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days, returned
+      with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of personal injury
+      which had made him hate his new school on the first day of term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+      Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+      biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial story
+      in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room, made
+      the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand, and went
+      on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was sitting, and
+      contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+      should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I seem
+      to see the consommé splashing about his ankles. He's had a note telling
+      him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just off there
+      at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher, is waiting
+      there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair? Or don't you
+      take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+      Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+      school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made this
+      a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of no
+      other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+      afternoon calls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+      present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We must
+      be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Buck up," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but it
+      was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the first round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this was
+      about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner. For
+      some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was looking
+      for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be a
+      privilege to see that he got it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been <i>brawling</i>
+      with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you and he were
+      like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too. Leave us,
+      Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of thee.'
+      Shakespeare."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+      himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+      are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+      life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice," said
+      Adair, turning to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn out
+      at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out. He's
+      going to all right. So is Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So are you," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+      dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in the
+      study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think. I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any special reason for my turning out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+      want you to get some practice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder how you got that idea!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+      he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+      curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to make you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+      beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+      Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you <i>will</i> let your
+      angry passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose
+      you must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the
+      midst of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If
+      you really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+      there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know a
+      bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road, where
+      you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on there?
+      Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      26 &mdash; CLEARING THE AIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+      touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+      enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+      occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+      unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+      the National Sporting Club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+      into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+      three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is down
+      will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades Adair and
+      Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up to
+      its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been cautious
+      sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds, as if it
+      had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights, when they
+      do occur&mdash;which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you count
+      junior school scuffles&mdash;are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+      blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+      however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent. Up
+      to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly attached to
+      him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume that attitude
+      of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the present
+      battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted was to
+      get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together as if
+      they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves, with
+      his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have lasted
+      three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while Mike had
+      never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used his head,
+      nothing could have prevented his winning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did at
+      the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was the
+      same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength, and,
+      thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet with an
+      unscientific but powerful righthander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+      science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The Irish
+      blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him merely
+      energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned all attempt
+      at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile form, and as
+      unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a swift exchange
+      of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow, coming into contact
+      with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which kept it tingling for the
+      rest of the day; and then Adair went down in a heap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+      vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the excitement of a fight&mdash;which is, after all, about the most
+      exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life&mdash;it
+      is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+      spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+      only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+      chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would have
+      seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a fraction of
+      an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked out. Mike
+      could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on his feet
+      again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength; and this
+      time Adair went down and stayed down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+      think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+      at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be sitting
+      up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go on with
+      the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to be
+      continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+      alterations and repairs first."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts before
+      in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one on his
+      own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He's</i> all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be
+      skipping about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+      pick flowers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+      perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+      curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking that
+      Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his point
+      of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much. At the
+      same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten him. The
+      feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in a fresh
+      and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and had carried
+      it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the deliverer of
+      knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new acquaintance a
+      man to be respected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+      fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized Mike's
+      view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of him.
+      Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive dignity,
+      he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched kid. There
+      had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of refusing to
+      identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+      stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+      attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass of
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting. He's
+      not a bad cove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's all right," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+      seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+      afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+      comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way. I'm
+      not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but everyone to
+      his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get overwhelmingly
+      attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems to have done it.
+      He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up. It's not a bad idea
+      in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him. Apparently he's been
+      sweating since early childhood to buck the school up. And as he's leaving
+      at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly scheme to give him a bit of
+      a send-off, if possible, by making the cricket season a bit of a banger.
+      As a start, why not drop him a line to say that you'll play against the
+      M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+      and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+      prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+      giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+      improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade Adair,
+      to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to understand that
+      you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your village team. You
+      didn't, of course?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told him he didn't know the old <i>noblesse oblige</i> spirit of the
+      Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon by
+      not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return to
+      the point under discussion, why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+      unworthy company&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "&mdash;Dismiss it. <i>I</i> am playing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're <i>what? You</i>?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+      handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you play cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're rotting."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then why haven't you played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why haven't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+      by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such shock
+      to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing of that
+      sort takes years off my life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+      cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+      year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season came,
+      where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked watching
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have to
+      overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a habit.
+      Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little by
+      little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against it,
+      but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and drifted
+      with the stream. Last year in a house match"&mdash;Psmith's voice took on
+      a deeper tone of melancholy&mdash;"I took seven for thirteen in the second
+      innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I had found
+      a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow. What Comrade
+      Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest archaeological disciple
+      has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole face
+      of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the recalcitrant,
+      wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here was Psmith, the
+      last person whom he would have expected to be a player, stating calmly
+      that he had been in the running for a place in the Eton eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+      read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+      acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+      the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of his
+      place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off, each in
+      his own way&mdash;Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to their
+      respective natures&mdash;on Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+      renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+      stop Mike doing so, as&mdash;at the bottom of his heart&mdash;he wanted to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+      Adair now. But, I say"&mdash;he stopped&mdash;"I'm hanged if I'm going to
+      turn out and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+      not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      27 &mdash; IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+      instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your elbow
+      was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't know.
+      Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the game
+      tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see anybody
+      downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to the shop,
+      ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell the man to
+      chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at tea is all
+      right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to commit
+      suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+      his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+      willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+      went out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+      patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in earnest.
+      Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At this rate,"
+      he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show what
+      it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When Mike
+      woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping. Leaden-colored
+      clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace of blue to be
+      seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle, determined way rain
+      has when it means to make a day of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+      depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin boots,
+      crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped&mdash;he could hardly
+      walk on as if nothing had happened&mdash;and looked down at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked on in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born of
+      nervousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About nine to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. We've got plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hate having to hurry over to school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly nuisance when one does."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+      should think, shouldn't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not much more. Might be three."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly day," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+      wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does it hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+      smashed me anyhow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you anything you like you would."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+      season."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+      year."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the time?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair produced his watch once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We've heaps of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, heaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+      promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+      couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+      It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower Borlock
+      if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He never even asked me to get him a place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+      like getting other fellows away from the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+      going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect on
+      Mike's mind&mdash;shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+      in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He might
+      have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+      Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had said,
+      "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have led his
+      hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little hole,
+      isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived that the
+      words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese principle. When a
+      Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by belittling himself
+      and his belongings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He eluded the pitfall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+      ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+      after the way you've sweated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't suppose
+      I've done anything much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+      that's any comfort to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+      aches."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+      humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began to
+      laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You</i> were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+      gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+      doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+      about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky at
+      present."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+      interval, and hang about in case."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got math
+      till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which won't
+      hurt me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing or
+      a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+      black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+      then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're crocked,
+      I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years to get the
+      match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain, with
+      you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending down much
+      of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out, we've got a
+      jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way through, and the
+      bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this M.C.C. lot a really
+      good hammering, it might have been easier to get some good fixtures for
+      next season. You see, it's all right for a school like Wrykyn, but with a
+      small place like this you simply can't get the best teams to give you a
+      match till you've done something to show that you aren't absolute rotters
+      at the game. As for the schools, they're worse. They'd simply laugh at
+      you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn last year. What would you have
+      done if you'd had a challenge from Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed
+      till you were sick, or else had a fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+      thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! They wouldn't play us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+      from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+      had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date. Shall
+      I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they aren't
+      strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      28 &mdash; MR. DOWNING MOVES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+      hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+      the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+      the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+      considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+      to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that there
+      should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the first
+      Sedleigh <i>v</i>. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+      from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as soon
+      as he was changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+      him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+      glad if Mike would step across.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+      worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A meal
+      on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against your
+      return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of simple
+      pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle which had
+      been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize for a
+      solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed Mike
+      with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+      Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+      abusive comments on its inventor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+      "but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type. You
+      come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies round
+      the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me, do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+      old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type? What
+      has he been doing to you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump at
+      you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he say he
+      was a teapot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He thinks I did it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as asked
+      me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage later on if
+      I behaved sensibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master wants
+      you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't enough
+      evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+      stand-off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+      ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+      see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for all
+      he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain that I
+      painted Sammy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Did</i> you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+      almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+      prove that I did."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Such as what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+      you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+      pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag you
+      into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining him.
+      But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+      and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who hasn't
+      got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know where the
+      dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs, but one's
+      being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym shoes. That's
+      how he spotted me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows the
+      folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to save
+      you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud, right
+      in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you aren't,
+      just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender and
+      groping, "but&mdash;<i>Hello</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i>," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+      the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How on earth did&mdash;By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+      something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+      must have been the paint pot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you were out that night?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell you
+      now&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up to
+      his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+      opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's why
+      he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're <i>absolutely</i>
+      certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any chance, in a
+      moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No? No, I suppose
+      not. I wonder who did!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was why
+      I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the chap he
+      chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the same. I
+      shall get landed both ways."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i> a tightish place," he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it with
+      disfavor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not for a pretty considerable time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose not. I say, I <i>am</i> in the cart. If I can't produce this
+      shoe, they're bound to guess why."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you and
+      Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass rags?
+      Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot, and
+      I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said very
+      well, then, he must take steps, and&mdash;well, that was about all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+      he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+      round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his move
+      will be?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He'll</i> want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on
+      confession. The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about
+      the time the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing
+      Round-and-round-the- mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs
+      thought. You had better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the
+      dandelions growing. I will think over the matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly. You never know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+      entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a panel.
+      Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+      answered the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you he
+      wants to see you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you today."
+      He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr. Jackson
+      will be with him in a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emissary departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You're</i> all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+      saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+      airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in his
+      chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a moment
+      straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his hat and
+      moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at the same
+      dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at Downing's front
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+      conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+      postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight of
+      him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+      professional manner, passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+      the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+      Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+      toward the painting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+      his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      29 &mdash; THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+      line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not lead
+      to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between accuser
+      and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a feeling that
+      the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and conversation
+      showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened brightly enough, with
+      a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had laid before him, but after
+      that a massive silence had been the order of the day. There is nothing in
+      this world quite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up
+      his mind to be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat
+      and looked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt
+      awkward. It was a scene which needed either a dramatic interruption or a
+      neat exit speech. As it happened, what it got was the dramatic
+      interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+      Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."&mdash;which was practically
+      going back to the beginning and starting again&mdash;when there was a
+      knock at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir,"
+      and the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+      Jackson, who committed the&mdash;who painted my dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling of
+      relief&mdash;for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+      wearing game to play&mdash;the headmaster with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+      nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+      of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+      merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+      rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+      imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog with
+      red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They had both
+      been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but anybody, except
+      possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it funny at first. After
+      the first surprise, their feeling had been that it was a rotten thing to
+      have done and beastly rough luck on the poor brute. It was a kid's trick.
+      As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply did not believe it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy himself
+      came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+      in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+      was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was done
+      for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy it meant
+      that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was not likely
+      that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at Sedleigh than
+      at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if possible, worse than he
+      had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar occasion. It seemed as if
+      Fate had a special grudge against his best friends. He did not make
+      friends very quickly or easily, though he had always had scores of
+      acquaintances&mdash;and with Wyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home
+      from the first moment he had met them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+      hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+      rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er&mdash;if you
+      are going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in," said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Adair?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was about Sammy&mdash;Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was Dunster, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+      astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to their
+      fullest extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+      suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+      despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+      perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform him,
+      two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's confession, that
+      Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal was Dunster&mdash;it
+      was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words of an American
+      author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted for his brain a
+      side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people? Dunster, who, he
+      remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas. And why, if Dunster
+      had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that he himself was the
+      culprit? Why&mdash;why anything? He concentrated his mind on Adair as the
+      only person who could save him from impending brain fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What&mdash;<i>what</i> do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes
+      ago, in which he said that he had painted Sammy&mdash;Sampson, the dog,
+      sir, for a rag&mdash;for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here
+      to get into a row&mdash;be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at
+      once. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met
+      Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to
+      see you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+      Dunster?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He laughed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Laughed</i>!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing snorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+      could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+      night in the village."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that was the night the&mdash;it happened?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to any
+      boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+      foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if any
+      boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+      attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+      write to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I cannot
+      understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not do it,
+      what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his own accord
+      and deliberately confessing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+      thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+      appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that I
+      should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the hall!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+      wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+      was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+      seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the room
+      to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of rain
+      could be heard outside the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+      opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Smith, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+      moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+      gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+      some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with a
+      gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided in
+      favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+      fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself time
+      has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+      you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was absolutely untrue?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am afraid so, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+      offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the present
+      age."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" replied the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+      of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has been
+      committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it is out
+      of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of the most
+      interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted. Human
+      nature&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+      Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a motion toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+      comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot on
+      the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+      again. Then he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+      er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ... er
+      ... severe illness? Any ... er ... <i>mental</i> illness?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no&mdash;forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject&mdash;there
+      is no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+      er ... have described?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+      mean to suggest&mdash;quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+      confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+      impulse which you cannot explain?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+      disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+      existing between boy and&mdash;Well, never mind that for the present. We
+      can return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say.
+      I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+      that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's dog,
+      and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+      wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it. That
+      was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain amount
+      of confusion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+      "but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+      downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to time
+      and cultivate him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+      Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?" asked Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+      "They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+      love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what it is."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+      you'd done it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craving for&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+      simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe. I'm
+      surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from Michael
+      Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+      was jolly good of you, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      30 &mdash; SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+      Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+      Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led on
+      the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be influenced
+      by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more school matches
+      than good play ever won. There is a certain type of school batsman who is
+      a gift to any bowler when he once lets his imagination run away with him.
+      Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair, Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon
+      this match in a state of the most azure funk. Ever since Mike had received
+      Strachan's answer and Adair had announced on the notice board that on
+      Saturday, July the twentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had
+      been all on the jump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did
+      repeatedly, on Mike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and
+      that on their present form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team
+      listened, but were not comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual
+      strength, but then Wrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard
+      that this probably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be&mdash;for
+      them&mdash;there was a very firm impression among the members of the
+      Sedleigh first eleven that the other school was quite strong enough to
+      knock the cover off <i>them</i>. Experience counts enormously in school
+      matches. Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the
+      sort of sides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn,
+      from time immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters
+      teams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men to Oxford
+      and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+      to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and the
+      wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during the
+      day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+      itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+      nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the surroundings
+      lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes magnified.
+      Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse almost
+      invariably ensues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+      side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+      whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was expected&mdash;Mike,
+      going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had played inside one
+      from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been caught at short slip off
+      his second ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+      others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed them
+      to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out at
+      anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to half
+      volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not equal to
+      his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven wickets were
+      down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he was
+      undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+      reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+      full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+      had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total to
+      seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+      minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+      seventy-nine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+      finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+      thirty-one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team had
+      looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair and
+      Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially Psmith, who
+      had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with the tail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the game
+      out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate, having
+      another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their nervousness had
+      vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in the first
+      innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+      the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if they
+      could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+      sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in the
+      second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so bad then
+      that they easily might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit. The
+      deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was bowled,
+      and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated all the
+      bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper frame of
+      mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the rest, it
+      looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a hundred and
+      twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one to Strachan at
+      cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+      make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during which
+      to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and go for
+      a win on the first innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+      forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he hit
+      into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two runs
+      later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over with a
+      c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen for three,
+      with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too dangerous. So
+      Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with caution, and the
+      collapse ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter opened.
+      Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the hands of the
+      clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had been tried,
+      but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's defence. They
+      were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at the bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which altered
+      the game completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+      crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot. You
+      can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+      breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball from
+      him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+      suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The next
+      moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five. Adair was
+      absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first ball right
+      on the worn patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion, while
+      the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+      atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic and
+      without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground. There
+      were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down. Sedleigh was
+      on top again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+      walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+      out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+      feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to the
+      right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+      next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+      collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+      minutes in hand.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+      general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+      playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+      jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+      sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at the
+      shop."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He bowled awfully well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this joyful
+      occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give Sedleigh a
+      fixture again next year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+      left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+      swamp them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the thing
+      started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten Wrykyn,
+      he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and work up to
+      playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's all right,
+      you see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+      always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+      and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+      Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it would
+      be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall we stagger?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They staggered.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mike and Psmith
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10586]
+[Date last updated: December 10, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE AND PSMITH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Christine Gehring, Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+MIKE AND PSMITH
+
+By P.G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+MEREDITH PRESS / NEW YORK
+
+Copyright 1909 by A. & C. Black
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+  1.  MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+  2.  SEDLEIGH
+  3.  PSMITH
+  4.  STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+  5.  GUERRILLA WARFARE
+  6.  UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+  7.  ADAIR
+  8.  MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+  9.  THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+ 10.  ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+ 11.  THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+ 12.  THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+ 13.  JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+ 14.  MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+ 15.  ... AND FULFILLS IT
+ 16.  PURSUIT
+ 17.  THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+ 18.  MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+ 19.  THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+ 20.  A CHECK
+ 21.  THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+ 22.  MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+ 23.  ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+ 24.  THE ADAIR METHOD
+ 25.  ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+ 26.  CLEARING THE AIR
+ 27.  IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+ 28.  MR. DOWNING MOVES
+ 29.  THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+ 30.  SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In Evelyn Waugh's book _Decline and Fall_ his hero, applying for a post
+as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+grades--leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one
+of those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to
+put the word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster
+qualified to attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is
+a few more Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted,
+that even at a "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only
+drawback is that it does not play the leading schools or the first-rate
+schools or even the good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from
+Wrykyn (a "first-rate school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading
+school") Sedleigh naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike
+some time to adjust himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher,
+accepted the change of conditions with his customary equanimity.
+
+This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books,
+_Psmith in the City_ and _Psmith, Journalist_, before becoming happily
+married in _Leave It to Psmith_, but I have always thought that he was
+most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play to
+his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+English school.
+
+Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous
+characters to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton
+with the son of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and
+Sullivan operettas, and one night he told me about this peculiar
+schoolboy who dressed fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one
+of the masters inquired after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah
+and thinnah." It was all the information I required in order to start
+building him in a star part.
+
+If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life,
+I can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally
+prosperous counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like
+Perry, in appearing for the defense.
+
+I must apologize, as I did in the preface to _Mike at Wrykyn,_ for all
+the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+quite so much of it this time.
+
+P.G. Wodehouse.
+
+
+
+1
+
+MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+
+
+If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he
+might have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr.
+Jackson opened the envelope containing his school report and read the
+contents, that the document in question was not exactly a paean of
+praise from beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was
+late for breakfast in the holidays.
+
+When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for
+the jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in
+a detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+
+"Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are--I've
+been keeping everything hot for you."
+
+"Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+
+Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she
+always did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing
+thoroughly. She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they
+made centuries in first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She
+would field out in the deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at
+the net in the paddock, though for the others, even for Joe, who had
+played in all five Test Matches in the previous summer, she would do it
+only as a favor.
+
+Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+table and watched Mike eat.
+
+"Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+
+The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+interested. "What did it say?"
+
+"I didn't see--I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the envelope.
+Father didn't say anything."
+
+Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+
+"It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+you were in his form."
+
+"No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any
+more tea in that pot?"
+
+"I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+
+"Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+
+"He didn't mean it really, I _know_ he didn't! He couldn't! You're the
+best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+
+"What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+
+"You _are_. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+first term you were there--even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good as
+that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+year or two."
+
+"Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off
+the first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out
+at the net now. Let's go and see."
+
+Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs
+retired as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+
+She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons
+now, and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had
+filled out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had
+the strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple
+to him. It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was
+beginning to find his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own
+special invention, was delighted.
+
+"If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+
+"I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+
+Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the
+wrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no
+light thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+
+As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+
+Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with
+that bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+
+Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant
+nature. Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his
+sons as companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to
+ruffle the placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was
+an unfailing wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's
+sarcastic resume of Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term,
+there had been something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion
+that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike
+from Wrykyn unless the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson
+was a man of his word.
+
+It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+entered the study.
+
+"Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I
+want to speak to you."
+
+Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+
+There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge
+that morning.
+
+"It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out--may I
+bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show--"
+
+"Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen
+to this report."
+
+"Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+
+"It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+
+"Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+
+"'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+
+"It wasn't anything really. I only happened--"
+
+Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+several occasions, he paused.
+
+"'French bad; conduct disgraceful--'"
+
+"Everybody rags in French."
+
+"'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+
+"Nobody does much work in Math."
+
+"'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+
+"We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term--all speeches and
+doubtful readings, and cruxes and things--beastly hard! Everybody
+says so."
+
+"Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+
+Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+
+"'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire
+in him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the
+same effect."
+
+Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted
+a public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him
+thrills of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his
+habit to regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an
+unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as
+near the extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in
+a clear firm hand.
+
+"You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in
+its envelope.
+
+Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+
+"I shall abide by what I said."
+
+Mike's heart thumped.
+
+"You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+
+Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that
+moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of
+the earth.
+
+The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+normally easygoing man.
+
+Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason
+he said very little now.
+
+"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+
+Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name--one of
+those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What
+had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they
+play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps
+they didn't even _play_ cricket!
+
+"But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+
+Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide
+his sympathy.
+
+"It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit--boys work there. Young Barlitt
+won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was the
+vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+of conversation were not Mike's.
+
+"Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+
+Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he
+would have liked to have said.
+
+
+
+2
+
+SEDLEIGH
+
+
+The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up,
+opened the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic
+and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+
+"For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if
+he hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that
+Sedleigh station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+
+Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike
+was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And,
+so far from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously
+incompetent than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to
+the handle of the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage
+van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair.
+Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, and the man who took
+his ticket.
+
+"Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from
+Mike's _distrait_ air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up
+in the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+
+"I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+
+"It's a goodish step, sir."
+
+"Here you are."
+
+"Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+was it you was going to?"
+
+"Outwood's."
+
+"Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+it, sir."
+
+"Worse luck," said Mike.
+
+He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a
+place where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven,
+and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of
+arriving at Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the
+bitter part of it. He had never been in command. For the last two
+seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading the
+averages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains under
+whom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby,
+and Henfrey, had always been sportsmen to him. But it was not the same
+thing. He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He
+had had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind. Now it might
+never be used. He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who would be
+captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some scheme of
+his own. There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the ideal way;
+and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own about cricket
+coaching at school.
+
+Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few
+overs, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended
+upon. There was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn
+would have a bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched
+athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless,
+and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points.
+Sheen's victory in the light weights at Aldershot had been their one
+success. And now, on top of all this, the captain of cricket was removed
+during the Easter holidays. Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found
+himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works with a great loathing.
+
+The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set
+in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country,
+but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and
+past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he
+caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore
+an unmistakably schoollike look.
+
+This must be Sedleigh.
+
+Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+
+There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by
+a cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+
+Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+
+He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+
+There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+he reminded Mike of Smee in _Peter Pan_. He had the same eyebrows and
+pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+
+"Jackson?" he said mildly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a
+cup of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You
+come from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near
+Brindleford? It is a part of the country which I have always wished to
+visit. I dare say you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St.
+Ambrose at Brindleford?"
+
+Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed
+him one on a tray, said he had not.
+
+"Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad
+to have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England,
+and it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose.
+A deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+1133-40--"
+
+"Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+
+"What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful
+preservation. It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and
+two and a half wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the
+apse wall. It will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present,
+Jackson, good-bye."
+
+Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a
+little hard.
+
+He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had
+come by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+
+A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and
+fixed it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he
+inspected Mike in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible
+speck of dust from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+
+"Hello," he said.
+
+He spoke in a tired voice.
+
+"Hello," said Mike.
+
+"Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever
+sitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these
+chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That
+sort of idea. My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+
+
+
+3
+
+PSMITH
+
+
+"Jackson," said Mike.
+
+"Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led
+Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+
+"The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I
+don't know."
+
+"The boy--what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+
+"Yes! Why, are you new?"
+
+"Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion
+to write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for
+Smythe. My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but
+I've decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty.
+The resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on
+the back of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert
+(though I hope you won't), or simply Smith, the _P_ not being sounded.
+Compare the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar
+miss-in-balk. See?"
+
+Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+courtesy.
+
+"Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but
+a babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse
+to keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of
+the first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like
+gaze on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+
+"No?" said Mike.
+
+"No. I was superannuated last term."
+
+"Bad luck."
+
+"For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+
+"But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+
+"This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a
+Balliol--"
+
+"Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+
+"That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+here to get a Balliol too. Do _you_ know Barlitt?"
+
+"His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+that I was sent here."
+
+"Do you come from Crofton?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+
+Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+at least be tolerable.
+
+"Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+painful story. Now tell me yours."
+
+"Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad
+reports."
+
+"My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen
+of it?"
+
+"Rotten."
+
+"I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought
+to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+
+"He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+and things."
+
+"And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of
+a stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+grounds--he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man--and I
+hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark
+you, laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off
+cricket. To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser
+leg, "was the dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A
+noble game, but a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field
+out at the nets till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you
+are a blood at the game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and
+so on."
+
+"I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+
+He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of
+pleasure. To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were,
+was one way of treating the situation, and one not without its meed
+of comfort.
+
+Psmith approved the resolve.
+
+"Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will
+search the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive
+fossil together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus
+improve our minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't
+wonder if one mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a
+bit of rabbit shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade
+Outwood during our brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the
+lynx-eyed contingent. With tact we ought to be able to slip away from
+the merry throng of fossil chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+
+"Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used
+to break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+
+"It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+
+"I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+
+"Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+and look."
+
+They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+
+"This'll do us well," he said.
+
+It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung
+on a nail.
+
+"Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+
+"I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+
+"Not now."
+
+"You aren't going to collar it!"
+
+"That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+claims. This is practical socialism."
+
+"But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+
+"His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to
+pig it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be
+alone. It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a
+fatiguing day. And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help
+me fetch up my box from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various
+things in it."
+
+
+
+4
+
+STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+
+
+Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he
+preferred to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that
+the wooden bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was
+Mike who wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who
+abstracted the key from the door of the next study, though the idea
+was Psmith's.
+
+"Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what
+we chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door
+unlocked in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody
+comes right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think
+with a little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think
+you could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks.
+We make progress. We make progress."
+
+"We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the
+evening meal?"
+
+"Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something
+to be at Wrykyn."
+
+"These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+this, I wonder."
+
+A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed,
+and a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+
+"Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+
+"The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things
+to say on the subject."
+
+Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On
+his face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+
+Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+stateliness to do the honors.
+
+"What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+
+"We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues
+after our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths.
+Let me introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in
+appearance, perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will
+doubtless come up in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+
+"My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and
+harangued Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+
+"Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these:
+'It might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said
+huskily, 'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and
+said, 'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters--"
+
+"I want to know what--"
+
+"Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected
+by his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival,
+you find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not
+Spiller." Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of
+tea. Spiller's sad case had moved him greatly.
+
+The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+
+"It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+
+"The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+
+"Well, it's beastly cheek."
+
+Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went
+straight to the root of the matter.
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+
+Spiller evaded the question.
+
+"It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+studies."
+
+"But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual
+and the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place
+bagging studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption
+that it is impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a
+lesson to you."
+
+"Look here, I tell you what it--"
+
+"I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if
+you trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He
+said, 'I couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the
+accelerator.' 'But suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now
+we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out
+to be the foot brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a
+ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never
+confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you
+had only realized the possibility of somebody someday collaring your
+study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing
+with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as
+a surprise. The cry goes round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He
+cannot cope with the situation.'"
+
+"Can't I! I'll--"
+
+"What _are_ you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+
+"All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's
+my study."
+
+"But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man
+of Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you
+intend to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade
+Jackson before you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an
+insignificant-looking little weed. And you _are_ an
+insignificant-looking little weed."
+
+"We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+
+"Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well
+all go together."
+
+The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined,
+Mike sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he
+walked, and now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by
+the wayside.
+
+Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently
+the leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+
+"Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you
+have already made friends."
+
+"Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+study-claimer's shoulder--a proceeding violently resented by
+Spiller--"is a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands
+before one like some beautiful flower."
+
+Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+
+"Er--quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys in
+my house friendly toward one another."
+
+"There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is
+the heart of a little child."
+
+"Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I--"
+
+"But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak
+to you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+
+"Please, sir--" began Spiller
+
+"I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological
+Society in the school."
+
+Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over
+the School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support.
+Boys came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at
+times, not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact
+that it provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+main, earnest.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society.
+I--er--in a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become
+a member?"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+
+"Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+
+"Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+down your name at once."
+
+"And Jackson's, sir."
+
+"Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted.
+This is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+
+"Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to
+join."
+
+"Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+
+"Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+from the school."
+
+"We shall be there, sir."
+
+"Capital!"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+you could spare the time, sir."
+
+"Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+
+"Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+study?"
+
+"By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+
+"Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+evenings."
+
+"Quite so. Quite so."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+
+"Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+
+"I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should
+have spoken before."
+
+"But sir--"
+
+Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+
+"This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+
+He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+
+"We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study.
+He would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+
+"Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+
+"On Saturday, sir."
+
+"All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+"is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one
+of these afternoons."
+
+
+
+5
+
+GUERRILLA WARFARE
+
+
+"There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study
+with the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than
+sitting under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on
+Spiller; he would not have appreciated it properly."
+
+Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you
+in a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+other before."
+
+"The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we
+are now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood
+is not going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+
+"What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+
+"What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+
+"Made it jolly hot for them!"
+
+"So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a
+reasonable number of assailants in defense of the home."
+
+Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all
+right while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+
+"That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at
+us through the door, and we can lock that."
+
+"And jam a chair against it."
+
+"_And_, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of the
+nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+
+"Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+cart."
+
+Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the
+man, Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind--such foresight!
+such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+rooms we're done--we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of
+the night."
+
+"We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+
+"Not the matron--Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+
+As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+followed a knocking.
+
+"This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+parley with the man."
+
+Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood
+giggling with his hands in his pockets.
+
+"I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+
+"If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+
+The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+
+"I _do_ wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+description--"
+
+"My name's Jellicoe."
+
+"Mine is Psmith--P-s-m-i-t-h--one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The object
+on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything
+downstairs. You _are_ chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his
+study? He's making no end of a row about it."
+
+"Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+
+"What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+
+"He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+
+"As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of
+human nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say
+that he would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the
+glad throng?"
+
+"Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. _I_
+think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"How many _will_ there be, then?" asked Mike.
+
+"He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+has been bagged."
+
+"Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+
+"We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only
+thing is we must get into the same dormitory."
+
+"This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with,
+say, about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+
+"Five--there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+chaps."
+
+"I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+Outwood and stake out another claim."
+
+Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+he said.
+
+"We must apologize for disturbing you, sir--"
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to
+me when they wish for my advice or help."
+
+"We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling
+Jellicoe kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself."
+
+"You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it--I like to see it."
+
+"And we can have the room, sir?"
+
+"Certainly--certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+
+"And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that
+we are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade
+Jellicoe for his valuable assistance."
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+
+The handle began to revolve again.
+
+"That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+one's leisure cruelly."
+
+This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+come down," he said.
+
+Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The senior day room chaps."
+
+"Spiller?"
+
+"Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+
+"They want us to speak to them?"
+
+"They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+
+"Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as
+the messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door
+open, I think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what
+can we do for you?"
+
+Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+the doorway.
+
+"Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+
+"After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+
+"You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+
+"We'll risk it," said Mike.
+
+Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+
+"Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+
+There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been
+watching. He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against
+the advancing crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the
+weight and impetus of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back,
+and Mike, stepping into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+
+"A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at
+the looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the
+first shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+
+A heavy body crashed against the door.
+
+"They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+
+"We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+
+There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm
+and a leg.
+
+Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the
+flowerbed below.
+
+Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had
+pressed against the wall.
+
+"Robinson. I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+
+Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+in the corridor.
+
+Somebody hammered on the door.
+
+"Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+
+"You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you
+don't."
+
+"Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+
+A bell rang in the distance.
+
+"Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+
+"They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+"There's no harm in going out."
+
+The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+
+In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was
+plain that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's
+face was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of
+garden mold.
+
+Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element.
+His demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+
+Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to
+Mike. It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as
+you can."
+
+Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky
+you two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you
+into the senior day room and scrag you there."
+
+"This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but
+it can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My
+nerves are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce
+them to hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign--the thing
+must be settled at once."
+
+"Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+
+"No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it
+as tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will
+try to corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could
+fake up some sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all
+the trouble over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I
+don't propose to be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose
+that we let them come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this
+meeting with me?"
+
+"I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+
+"As a matter of fact--if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+
+"Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at
+all; he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we
+have our little wooden _châlet_ to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+moral support, but otherwise, _ne pas_. And now, as there won't be
+anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write
+home and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+
+
+
+6
+
+UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+
+
+Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements
+of the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for
+Dormitory One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The
+rest of the opposing forces were distributed among other and more
+distant rooms. It was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be
+the rendezvous. As to the time when an attack might be expected, it was
+unlikely that it would occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went
+the round of the dormitories at eleven.
+
+"And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+conducted in a subdued and _sotto voce_ manner, or may we let ourselves
+go a bit here and there?"
+
+"I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you--he sleeps miles
+away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often
+rag half the night and nothing happens."
+
+"This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment.
+What would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of
+these reckless youths!"
+
+"All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+stopping the show before it's half started."
+
+"Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up--I can hear it sizzling. I quite
+agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as well
+to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody else
+who might interfere with our gambols?"
+
+"Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+
+"Who is Barnes?"
+
+"Head of the house--a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson; they
+rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+
+"Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+
+Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again,
+closing the door.
+
+"How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+
+"Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated
+imitation of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He
+would then--"
+
+"I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of
+the steps?"
+
+"Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson,
+the man with the big brain!"
+
+The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+
+"Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+finest purlers in the world's history."
+
+"If they've got a torch--"
+
+"They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then
+they'll charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire
+into the brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade
+Jellicoe's jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not
+be amiss--we will enmesh the enemy!"
+
+"Right ho!" said Mike.
+
+"These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will
+retire to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe
+like an asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at
+the top of the steps, listening."
+
+"You _are_ a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+
+Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying
+experience, especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential.
+Mike was tired after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was
+jerked back to wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle;
+the faintest rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight
+giggle, succeeded by a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe,
+too, had heard the noise.
+
+There was a creaking sound.
+
+It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened
+the door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic;
+he was flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the
+true artist.
+
+The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard
+had reached the second step.... In another moment--
+
+CRASH!
+
+And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+
+A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+contents had got to the right address.
+
+Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on
+the nose.
+
+Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he
+ran amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but
+his left went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick
+freed his ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a
+sudden increase in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good
+work that was being put in by Psmith.
+
+Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual
+kind of housemaster.
+
+He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that
+made itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+
+All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other
+dormitories, roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport.
+They had switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+
+By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a
+gingerly fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In
+the direction of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord
+of a dressing gown, was engaging the remaining three with a
+patient smile.
+
+They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+cord acutely.
+
+The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having
+seized and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again
+with the cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the
+spectators.
+
+Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+everywhere--on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+inadvertently trod), on the floor--he ranged the room, sowing
+destruction.
+
+The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this
+was to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the
+garrison armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a
+final rush sent them through.
+
+"Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+in the doorway.
+
+It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood
+alone in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had
+pitchforked him so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time
+since his father had given him his views upon school reports that
+morning in the Easter holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped,
+outnumbered as he was, that the enemy would come on again and not give
+the thing up in disgust; he wanted more.
+
+On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+
+Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+
+It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back
+along the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some
+clouded cane.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's--Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+words; where you pick them up I can't think--not from me. Well, well, I
+suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+night, good night."
+
+The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+
+Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+
+On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  _Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease._
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+7
+
+ADAIR
+
+
+On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+
+He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+
+"That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+
+His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+
+"Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+
+Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and
+wiry, light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to
+running. Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced
+eye saw that.
+
+As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was
+that rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or
+the passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected
+to lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very
+different thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that
+comes to the top by sheer force of character and determination. He was
+not naturally clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged
+resolution which had carried him up the school, and landed him high in
+the Sixth. As a cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had
+given him a good eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had
+triumphed over her failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of
+more trouble than most people give to their life work he had made
+himself into a bowler. He read the authorities, and watched first-class
+players, and thought the thing out on his own account, and he divided
+the art of bowling into three sections. First, and most
+important--pitch. Second on the list--break. Third--pace. He set himself
+to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling at his own pace and without
+any attempt at break, he could now drop the ball on an envelope seven
+times out of ten.
+
+Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could
+get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything
+but a plumb wicket.
+
+Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+sprints and all the rest of it.
+
+Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+
+A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a
+small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before
+him. There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of
+them in all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been
+influenced by Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the
+effects of his work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature
+to want to get something which somebody else obviously values very much;
+and when it was observed by members of his form that Adair was going to
+great trouble and inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or
+fifteen, they naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in
+those teams. The consequence was that his form always played hard. This
+made other forms play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair
+succeeded to the captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year,
+Sedleigh, as Mr. Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach
+to a cricket master that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying,
+was a keen school. As a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+
+All it wanted now was opportunity.
+
+This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness
+for his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which
+really is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average
+public-school boy _likes_ his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at
+Rugger and Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry
+to leave, and he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for
+any passionate, deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather
+bad form than otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the
+back, and cried, "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old
+school, Jenkins! The dear old school! The old place you love so!" he
+would feel seriously ill.
+
+Adair was the exception.
+
+To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead;
+his guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia
+at one end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant
+times Adair had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to
+Sedleigh. The place had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike,
+violently transplanted from Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not
+to be mentioned in the same breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the
+future, saw a colossal establishment, a public school among public
+schools, a lump of human radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars
+year after year without ceasing.
+
+It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+should take its rank among _the_ schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+
+"He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's
+in the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years
+running. He would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained
+his wrist. And he plays fives jolly well!"
+
+"Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+from that moment.
+
+Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with
+his form master during morning school.
+
+"'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+into the man's head; and when I _had_ driven it in, he sent me out of
+the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+persecuted by scoundrels."
+
+"Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+
+They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+
+"Haven't you _ever_ played?"
+
+"My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+
+Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+qualities.
+
+"Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this
+afternoon and seeing what you can do with a hard ball--if you can manage
+without your little sister."
+
+"I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+
+Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+
+Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+
+"My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the
+Young Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are
+being carried back to the pavilion after your century against
+Loamshire--do you play Loamshire?--we shall be grubbing in the hard
+ground for ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty,
+Comrade Adair. A Boy's Crossroads."
+
+"Then you won't play?"
+
+"No," said Mike.
+
+"Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+
+Adair turned, and walked on.
+
+Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+same question.
+
+"Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+
+It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a
+general resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable
+bullfinch.
+
+"I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We
+want keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy
+to be keen."
+
+"We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+
+"Excellent."
+
+"On archaeology."
+
+Mr. Downing--for it was no less a celebrity--started, as one who
+perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+
+"Archaeology!"
+
+"We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we
+went singing about the house."
+
+"I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently.
+"I don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to
+interfere with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly
+that in my opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets
+him into idle, loafing habits."
+
+"I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the
+principle of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other
+boys, not wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and
+going into low public houses."
+
+"A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+Psmith, shaking his head.
+
+"If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in
+my opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+
+He stumped off.
+
+"Now _he's_ cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+getting ourselves disliked here."
+
+"Good job, too."
+
+"At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of
+a lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+
+
+
+8
+
+MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+
+
+There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings
+for a Kindergarten _v_. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun
+shone, and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and
+heard the "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to
+Adair and shouting, "I _will_ be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three
+years, and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to
+the nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+
+But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+
+What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once
+or twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the
+game which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do
+not make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers
+more likely, by the law of averages.
+
+Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a
+Burgess, but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three
+years' experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He
+was a long way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the
+others who had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+
+The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth--not unlike
+what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy--but he knew how to keep balls
+out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+
+Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+
+There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+
+Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star
+at Wrykyn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+repeat the experiment.
+
+It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the
+scent of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This
+is the real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of
+the game.
+
+Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+
+He went up to Adair.
+
+"May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+manner was offensively abrupt.
+
+Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This
+net," it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+
+"What?" he said.
+
+Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+embarrassment.
+
+"This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge
+over there."
+
+"Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+
+Mike walked away without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with
+them the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a
+poor substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction
+shouting to him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them
+hugely, but Mike almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always
+possible to slip away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked
+upon them as among the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+
+Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er
+with the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the
+pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him
+round the garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research
+struck a new note in the history of that neglected science. He was
+amiable, but patronizing. He patronized fossils, and he patronized
+ruins. If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would have
+patronized that.
+
+He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+
+That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+
+"Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may
+lie on his back for a bit."
+
+Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+strolled away down the hill.
+
+Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+
+"A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement,
+I can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+
+They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound
+over pebbles.
+
+"Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to
+the music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to
+say, I rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these
+naps by the wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And
+Psmith, heaving the comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has
+earned rest, lay down, with his head against a mossy tree stump, and
+closed his eyes.
+
+Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making
+centuries in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up,
+jumped the brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+
+He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+
+Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when
+you meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in
+order that you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread
+his way back through the trees.
+
+He was too late.
+
+"Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+
+In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on,
+and trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity
+in the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+
+"I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look
+round."
+
+"The dickens you--Why, you're Jackson!"
+
+Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair
+moustache. Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could
+not place him.
+
+"I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing
+you seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my
+nesting pheasants."
+
+"I'm frightfully sorry."
+
+"That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+
+"Of course--I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made fifty-eight
+not out."
+
+"Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was
+that you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+
+"You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+
+"Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+are you doing down here?"
+
+"I've left Wrykyn."
+
+Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to
+inquire the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+
+"I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of
+puttering about."
+
+"Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+
+"Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you
+off for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+
+Mike's heart leaped.
+
+"Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+
+And he told how matters stood with him.
+
+"So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+things"--Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague--"but I
+could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+get onto my bike--I've got it down here--and meet you anywhere you
+liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my hands
+off a bat."
+
+"I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+Lower Borlock--that's the name of the place--and I'll meet you on the
+ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off the
+London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+Saturday?"
+
+"Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want
+to bring mine."
+
+"I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+
+"I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and
+told the news.
+
+"I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+play for the school."
+
+"My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports.
+I'll borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a
+newcomer to the team, M. Jackson.
+
+
+
+9
+
+THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+
+
+Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+substitute.
+
+The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with,
+proved more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+
+They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it
+grew with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a
+master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his
+official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes.
+To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for
+the school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should
+be implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the
+healthy boy.
+
+The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+"overtime."
+
+One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that
+it was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to
+do with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+
+It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple
+of his eye.
+
+Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem
+of Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe
+passport to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket
+was good, but to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+
+The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+
+Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+
+The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+
+At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+
+Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye,
+Sammy was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat,
+an engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which
+was a happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a
+tenor voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+
+Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+two minutes' acquaintance.
+
+In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during
+French lessons.
+
+We will now proceed to the painful details.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading
+of the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+for the disturbing of the peace.
+
+Today they were in very fair form.
+
+As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+House, held up his hand.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+
+"A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+
+"Red, with green stripes, sir."
+
+Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+
+"Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+
+"One moment, Stone."
+
+"Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+right."
+
+A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard,
+and the meeting had divided.
+
+Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+
+"Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+Stone, sit down--Wilson, get back to your place."
+
+"Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+
+"Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+
+"Please, sir--"
+
+"Si-_lence!_ The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the question."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"Be _quiet!_ Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a
+show of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said
+Robinson.
+
+"I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+
+The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+
+Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"But, sir, the danger!"
+
+"Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+
+The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+
+"Silence!"
+
+"Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+that are likely to fall on our heads."
+
+Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+
+"Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+
+"Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps
+like the first fifteen have? They--"
+
+"Wilson, leave the room!"
+
+"Sir, _please_, sir!"
+
+"This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+lines."
+
+A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+
+Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not
+right! If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of
+this flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be
+keen. I...? What is that noise?"
+
+From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling
+from a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were
+being prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The
+sufferer appeared to have a high voice.
+
+There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the
+opposite wall.
+
+"May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+
+"Very well--be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+
+Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+Downing.
+
+The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+
+"What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+
+"Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+
+"I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+
+"A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+
+"Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+
+"Are you making that whining noise?"
+
+"Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+
+"What _sort_ of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had asked
+before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just such a
+case as this.
+
+"I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+
+"They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+"Perhaps that's it."
+
+"It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+sometimes."
+
+"Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+
+"Silence! Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+
+"Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like
+an excited kangaroo.
+
+Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between
+the two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in
+time to see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin
+worrying it.
+
+Chaos reigned.
+
+"A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+
+The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+stirring, bustling scene.
+
+Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+
+The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all
+the other noises till in time they gave up the competition and
+died away.
+
+Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of
+a Bren gun.
+
+"Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain.
+_Quietly_, I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that
+abominable way."
+
+Crash!
+
+"Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement
+of your hand--one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+
+The meeting dispersed.
+
+"Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+
+Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat--"
+
+"What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+
+"Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk,
+so I came in--"
+
+"And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+"the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came
+in, too."
+
+"I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+
+"I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to
+let him go, and he came in after the rat."
+
+It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr.
+Downing liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade,
+frivolous at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept
+wicket for the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society,
+and had refused to play cricket.
+
+Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+
+"One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+
+Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun,
+and paid very little for it.
+
+Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend
+their time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen
+school; this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time.
+That will do, Jackson."
+
+And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+has a habit of getting the last word.
+
+
+
+10
+
+ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+
+
+They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+
+When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and
+borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as
+something of a blow.
+
+"What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+
+"I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody.
+The fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+
+"Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a
+quid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have
+got, so don't be shy about paying it back."
+
+Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+gratitude.
+
+Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+Jellicoe--why on earth did the man want all that?--meant that, unless a
+carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the desired
+effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+
+In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had
+made a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a
+sufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be
+stated at once, he did, by return of post.)
+
+Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter--he was
+never a very ready writer--when Stone and Robinson burst into the room.
+
+Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+
+But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+Robinson was laughing.
+
+"You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+
+"What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+
+They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair.
+Mike's heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was
+a thing of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius
+Caesar. He felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and
+appreciate one another.
+
+There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain.
+They had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits.
+They looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones
+and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about,
+loud and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to
+other people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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 father 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 teacup.
+
+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 Lower 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. Tomorrow'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's 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
+naught 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 tomorrow?"
+
+"Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+
+
+
+11
+
+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 noncricketing 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 imperiling 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 today. 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
+groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. 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 changing 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 wicket. 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
+today, 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 facts in Mike's case had gone around 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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when
+delivered, was billed to break from leg, but the program 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. Halfway 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-cakewalk, 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 installment system by helpers from other games,
+and the bowler began his maneuvers 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 vigor. 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 neighborhood 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 lunchtime 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.
+
+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 tomorrow?" 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 favoritism.
+And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely
+individuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other
+houses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, 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 Scot, 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 toward 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 gray 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 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
+gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+
+It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+
+He walked in that direction.
+
+Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members
+of Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of
+acute illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy
+in the event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get
+jumpy beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with
+MacPhee, as a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct
+and legitimate result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three
+doughnuts, two ices, an apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the
+lot down with tea. But Mr. Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of
+some deadly scourge which would sweep through and decimate the house. He
+had dispatched Adair for the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes
+prowling restlessly about his room, was now standing at his front gate,
+waiting for Adair's return.
+
+It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction
+of home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by
+being hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you,
+Adair?" The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+
+Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow--a
+flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and,
+if Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in
+the first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept
+ahead. At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards.
+The procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for
+the pavilion.
+
+As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he
+was accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of
+it which had ever illumined his life.
+
+It was this.
+
+One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at
+Sedleigh, had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into
+the school officially--in speeches from the dais--by the headmaster, and
+unofficially--in earnest private conversations--by Mr. Downing, that at
+the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every member
+of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way, and
+make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the
+school had its orders--to get out into the open at once.
+
+Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this
+feat. Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board
+to the effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that
+day. Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the
+occasion when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had
+said, "My house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which
+the Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened
+the hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr.
+Downing having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and
+poured a stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty
+to turn his attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was
+his private study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in
+a miniature lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for
+realism, and fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most
+part, of "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes,
+kept in the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the
+dormitory would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other
+end being fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using
+his elbows as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and
+these two, standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the
+rest of the dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except
+to their digestions.
+
+After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken
+a rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient
+unto the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to
+ring at night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine
+alarm of fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+
+So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+
+The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up
+the wall.
+
+Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash
+that his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his
+pursuer off for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the
+rope and tug it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them,
+and in the subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+
+The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in
+the Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded
+the pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put
+all he knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the
+effort. He worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike
+reached the gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+
+As far as Mike could judge--he was not in a condition to make nice
+calculations--he had about four seconds in which to get busy with that
+bell rope.
+
+Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+than he did then.
+
+The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+housemaster.
+
+And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum,
+as if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+
+The school was awake.
+
+
+
+17
+
+THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at
+Outwood's--since Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had
+been received as brothers by the center of disorder, so that even
+Spiller was compelled to look on the hatchet as buried--and gave his
+views on the events of the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning,
+for it was nearer one than twelve when peace had once more fallen on
+the school.
+
+"Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got
+so accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort
+of affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants
+can give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind
+is likely to take place?"
+
+"I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+
+"I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+
+Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath
+against the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood.
+He hobbled about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+
+"It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over
+matter. He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a
+Boneless Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+
+"I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+
+Stone gurgled.
+
+"So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag,
+I began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+
+"I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+
+"It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing
+a thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved
+again, time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say
+Comrade Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency
+to which he has brought us. At any rate I hope--"
+
+There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+
+"I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+
+"Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+
+"You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+Sam! Sam!"
+
+A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+
+"Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed
+in a corner.
+
+Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and
+wagging his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular
+dog, and was always well received when he visited any of the houses, but
+he had never before met with enthusiasm like this.
+
+"Good old Sammy!"
+
+"What on earth's been happening to him?"
+
+"Who did it?"
+
+Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+
+"I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems
+to have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up
+like that!"
+
+Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+
+"Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+
+"It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through
+his eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either
+have to skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great
+Healer. In a year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why
+you shouldn't have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of
+distinction to the place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see
+him. By charging a small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think
+I'll suggest it to Comrade Downing."
+
+"There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+
+"Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+soon. It's a quarter to."
+
+There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing
+to his ankle.
+
+"I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right."
+
+"No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+
+"Jolly nearly."
+
+"It _was_ you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+
+"All right. But, I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"What's the matter now?"
+
+"I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+He'll be frightfully sick."
+
+"Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+course."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+
+Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+18
+
+MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+
+
+There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his
+reason for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+
+Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+
+"Who--" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+
+"Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+
+"Please, sir, he came in like that."
+
+"Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+
+A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+
+The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+
+While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open,
+escaped and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all
+and sundry. You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to
+your own premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this
+becomes out of the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private
+trouble into a row. Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction
+that Sammy had taken, only, instead of running about the road, he went
+straight to the headmaster.
+
+The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his
+pajamas and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a
+cold in the head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in
+spite of his strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous
+night in order to test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves
+in the event of fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed
+as the latter related the events which had led up to the ringing of
+the bell.
+
+"Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school,
+you think?"
+
+"I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Was he wearing a school cap?"
+
+"He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+
+"No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+
+"Very big."
+
+"You did not see his face?"
+
+"It was dark and he never looked back--he was in front of me all the
+time."
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+"There is another matter ..."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the
+bell--he had painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He--he--_what_, Mr.
+Downing?"
+
+"He painted my dog red--bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of
+a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to
+ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+
+The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his
+dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there
+was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+
+"It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the
+boy who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall
+after chapel."
+
+Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal
+to come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the
+school, with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly
+reminded of Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a
+wild screech of laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+
+The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr.
+Downing was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal
+discovered, he would have to discover him for himself.
+
+The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and
+Fate, feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing,
+gave him a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a
+needle in a haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of
+being set to find it in a mere truss of straw.
+
+It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at
+close on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+attempting to get into his house _via_ the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded
+politeness and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some
+reflections on the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed
+it on to Mr. Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+
+"Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+
+"Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant
+that he interrupted him before--"
+
+"I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+
+"But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+
+"He had broken out."
+
+"Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+asleep--all of them."
+
+Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed
+excitement and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his
+colleague's slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had
+narrowed itself down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively
+easy. Perhaps Sergeant Collard had actually recognized the boy. On
+reflection he dismissed this as unlikely, for the sergeant would
+scarcely have kept a thing like that to himself; but he might very well
+have seen more of him than he, Downing, had seen. It was only with an
+effort that he could keep himself from rushing to the sergeant then and
+there, and leaving the house lunch to look after itself. He resolved to
+go the moment that meal was at an end.
+
+Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+helping, found himself at liberty.
+
+Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+
+Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions
+in the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr.
+Downing arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+
+The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+ensure privacy.
+
+Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+
+"Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a
+boy endeavoring to enter his house."
+
+The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did,
+sir--spotted 'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of
+Connaught, he used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to
+say, ''e's feeflee good at spottin'.'"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+there?'"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+
+"But you didn't catch him?"
+
+"No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+
+"Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+
+"No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+
+"Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+
+"'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him--feeflee fast
+'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+
+"You noticed nothing else?"
+
+"'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+
+"It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+
+"So do I, sir."
+
+"You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you
+think?"
+
+"Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+
+Mr. Downing rose to go.
+
+"Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house."
+
+"Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+
+"Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+
+"Good afternoon to you, sir."
+
+"Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+
+The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything
+of the kind.
+
+"I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+
+"Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+
+"I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+
+And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant
+Collard, having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a
+walk at once, and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the
+'ead, if he persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over
+his face, rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+
+
+
+19
+
+THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+
+
+For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock
+Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must be, to a very
+large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue
+from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got
+to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a
+label attached.
+
+The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a
+patronizing manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator,
+but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We
+should not even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard
+bungler. We should simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes,
+how...?" and all the rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+
+It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the
+humdrum round of life without having to measure footprints and smile
+quiet, tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he
+thinks naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+
+Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and
+had thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but,
+now that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled
+to admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of
+Watson's inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard,
+he thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant
+Collard, to detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the
+crime. As he brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor
+Watson increased with every minute, and he began to feel a certain
+resentment against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir
+Arthur to be so shrewd and infallible about tracing a mystery to its
+source, but he knew perfectly well who had done the thing before
+he started!
+
+Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a
+boy and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at
+twelve o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie--I
+was out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you.
+It is practically stalemate.
+
+All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+down the cricket field that afternoon.
+
+What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+
+What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard
+thinking, Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once
+more intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of
+his house.
+
+Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something
+particularly shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his
+bicycle from the shed.
+
+"Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him
+irritable. "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+
+Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason
+as a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he
+wanted his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+
+Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+Sunday afternoons during the term.
+
+He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+
+Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+
+A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+
+Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it
+was. What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy
+soul and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The
+greater part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea
+of red paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in
+the middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+
+"Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+
+Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+
+"Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+
+Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle
+from the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt,
+leaving Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the
+detective, to lock the door and resume his perambulation of the
+cricket field.
+
+Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+professional sleuth might have envied.
+
+Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+had done the deed of decoration.
+
+Yoicks!
+
+There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been
+giving a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring
+box at the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was
+the direct outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled
+into him.) In that case the footmark might be his.
+
+_Note one_: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+
+In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor
+for the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair
+went into it.
+
+_Note two_: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to the
+house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+
+Things were moving.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+from him.
+
+Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his
+house in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the
+time for reading in deck chairs.
+
+"Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if
+you found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house
+last night."
+
+"Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+
+"I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened
+to tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes
+this morning?"
+
+"No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+go into the shed at all."
+
+"I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+Markby live?"
+
+"I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a
+second. It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the
+right as you turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is
+the first you come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+
+"Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to
+Markby for a moment on a small matter."
+
+A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+
+"Oh, Markby!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion
+last night after the match?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So
+I thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+Marylebone come down."
+
+"Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the
+pot of paint when you had finished?"
+
+"Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+
+"On the floor?"
+
+"On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+
+"Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+
+"Do you want it, sir?"
+
+"No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the
+floor, with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had
+better get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I
+wished to know."
+
+Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he
+had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house--the idea of searching a
+fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+exist as a man capable of resenting liberties--find the paint-splashed
+shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster. There
+could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in Mr. Outwood's
+house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint without showing
+some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that the shoe would
+not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This really was
+beginning to be something like business.
+
+Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+fast as he could walk.
+
+
+
+20
+
+A CHECK
+
+
+The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+other. Psmith--for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend--was
+wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+the effort to nothing.
+
+"Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of
+leisure. Hello!"
+
+He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+
+"What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+bought the place?"
+
+"Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he
+may sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to
+them. Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair
+and book?"
+
+"I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+ground."
+
+"'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+
+Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+who has lost his bearings.
+
+"A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+
+"Er--Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I--er--wish to go round the dormitories."
+
+It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything,
+so he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+
+"I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the
+rooms are."
+
+"With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+sir?"
+
+"Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron
+being out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined
+the master.
+
+"Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Downing nodded.
+
+"Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy,
+I understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all
+to himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a
+cubic foot of air in vain. He argues justly--"
+
+He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in
+silence. Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+
+"Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think
+he's out in the field."
+
+Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+the exercise.
+
+"Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+
+"This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+awed whisper, "is where _I_ sleep!"
+
+Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+
+"Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+remarks to yourself."
+
+"I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+They moved on up the passage.
+
+Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+
+"The studies, Smith," he cried.
+
+"Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+Here we have--"
+
+Mr. Downing stopped short.
+
+"Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+
+"Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This
+is Barnes's."
+
+Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+
+"Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+
+"This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+
+"What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+
+"I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to
+our general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+
+Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+window attracted his attention.
+
+"Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+
+"There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+
+Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+
+"A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+distant hills ..."
+
+Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe
+at the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen
+climbing the pipe must have been making for this study.
+
+He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+
+"Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+
+"Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+
+"Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Nobody else comes into it?"
+
+"If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+
+"Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+
+"Not at all, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just
+about Jackson's size and build!
+
+Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in
+his life.
+
+"Smith!" he said excitedly.
+
+"On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+
+"Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+
+There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+
+"His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just
+now."
+
+"Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+
+"Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I
+should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket,
+downstairs. Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I
+believe, at early dawn."
+
+"Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+
+"If I know Edmund, sir--no."
+
+"Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+basket to me here."
+
+Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly
+was at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did
+not know. But that there was something, and that that something was
+directed in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with
+last night's wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on
+leaving his bed at the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe
+were alone in the room. That might mean that Mike had gone out through
+the door when the bell sounded, or it might mean that he had been out
+all the time. It began to look as if the latter solution were the
+correct one.
+
+He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while
+that it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study
+floor. Mr. Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the
+wall, and straightened out the damaged garment.
+
+"We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various
+bootings."
+
+Mr. Downing looked up.
+
+"You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+
+"Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside
+the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+
+At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+
+"Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+
+The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn
+on being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered
+footgear, whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as
+he did so.
+
+"That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+
+"Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+here. You can carry it back when you return."
+
+"Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+
+"Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+
+"Shall I carry it, sir?"
+
+Mr. Downing reflected.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+
+It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+
+Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+him.
+
+Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+
+He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but
+when a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on
+the following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint
+splashed shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name
+inside the shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was
+only a few miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was
+Mike's shoe.
+
+"Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith looked at it again.
+
+"No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+
+"Come with me, then."
+
+Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+
+The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+
+The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+
+"Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+Mr. Outwood's house?"
+
+"I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You have the shoe?"
+
+"Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+look at--This, you say, is the--? Just so. Just so. Just ... But, er,
+Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+sufficient care, but--Can _you_ point out to me exactly where this paint
+is that you speak of?"
+
+Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and
+entirely innocent.
+
+
+
+21
+
+THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+
+
+The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of
+some kind.
+
+Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+
+"There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there
+was a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in
+this. Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+
+"Paint, sir?"
+
+"What! Do you mean to tell me that you did _not_ see it?"
+
+"No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+
+"This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+across the toe."
+
+The headmaster interposed.
+
+"You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace
+of paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy,
+not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you--"
+
+"I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably
+subject--"
+
+"It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+
+"It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+
+"A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+
+The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+
+"What did you say, Smith?"
+
+"Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly
+out of a trance.
+
+Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+
+"You had better be careful, Smith."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+
+"Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On
+one occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I
+can assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic
+cleaning before all traces are removed."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+
+"Certainly Smith."
+
+Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+
+"My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects,
+he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+mistake...."
+
+"Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+"Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the
+only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really
+smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of
+a few minutes."
+
+"You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I
+go now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+Cicero's speech _De senectute_."
+
+"I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith.
+It is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+
+"I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+
+"If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+
+The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith
+without a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly
+smile, left the garden.
+
+Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road
+between the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw
+what, if they had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle
+of Psmith running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified
+walk. He believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+
+On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease
+of his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's
+gate, bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+
+On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the
+top of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair
+and panted.
+
+"Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+
+He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+
+He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage,
+and Mr. Downing appeared.
+
+The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it
+had occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's
+garden. Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse
+would be to do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling
+aggrieved with himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too,
+hurried over to Outwood's.
+
+Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+
+"I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh,
+laid down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+
+"Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your
+help."
+
+Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers,
+and watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+
+The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+
+"Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+
+"That thing, sir?"
+
+"Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+
+"Why, sir?"
+
+"Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+
+"I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+complaint.
+
+"Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+
+"I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+
+"Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+
+"May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+
+"Yes, read if you like."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly
+irritated, pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+
+He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the
+second search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as
+certain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence
+was somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank
+where it was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with
+evasive answers was quite out of the common.
+
+His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even
+for so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be
+acquitted, on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+
+Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+that there was the place to look.
+
+"Smith!" he said.
+
+Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What is in this cupboard?"
+
+"That cupboard, sir?"
+
+"Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+
+"Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+
+"Open it."
+
+"I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+
+"Unlock it."
+
+"But where is the key, sir?"
+
+"Have you not got the key?"
+
+"If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+take a long search to find it."
+
+"Where did you see it last?"
+
+"It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+
+"Where is Jackson?"
+
+"Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+from me. I shall break open the door."
+
+Psmith got up.
+
+"I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+
+"Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+
+"Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard
+happens to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his
+permission. He is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am
+only the acting manager."
+
+Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule
+did not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were
+limits to the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house
+without his permission and search it to a certain extent was all very
+well. But when it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+
+On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the
+room, he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+
+He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring
+into vacancy.
+
+Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at
+all? If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that
+the cupboard was not tampered with.
+
+"Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good
+enough to come here for a moment."
+
+
+
+22
+
+MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+
+
+"Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+making any movement in the direction of the door.
+
+"_Quick_, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+conundrum.
+
+"Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+
+Psmith still made no move.
+
+"Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if
+at any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+stripling!"
+
+It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he
+said did not keep up the standard of docility.
+
+"I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a
+master. In--'"
+
+"This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+
+Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+
+"If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for
+the Empire that the jibboom spanker _should_ be spliced at that
+particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my
+case. If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand,
+and come back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him
+to be good enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad
+to go and find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+
+"Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+
+Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+
+"Very well, Smith."
+
+"I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+
+Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+
+"But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+
+He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+
+His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened
+to the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to
+this, and let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had
+stopped swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+
+He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+
+As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it
+up the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening
+his hand.
+
+The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and
+washed off the soot.
+
+When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr.
+Outwood, the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+intellectual pressure of the situation.
+
+"Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+
+"I have been washing my hands, sir."
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+
+"Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+
+"My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it
+perfectly clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+
+"I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes
+in a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+good-gracious-has-the-man-_no_-sense look on the other's face, "Why he
+should not do so if he wishes it."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+
+"If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+"He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+
+"I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+
+Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if
+he had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+
+"So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any
+objection?"
+
+Mr. Outwood started.
+
+"Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, _what_
+is it you wish to do?"
+
+"This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the
+rest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing
+seized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door.
+The wood splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard,
+with any skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+place.
+
+"I told you," he said. "I told you."
+
+"I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+for it for days."
+
+Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+surprise and wrath.
+
+"This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+the shoe."
+
+"It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free
+from paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+sideways," he added helpfully.
+
+"Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+
+"I must have done. Then, when I lost the key--"
+
+"Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+"or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+
+The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good,
+hard knock.
+
+The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr.
+Outwood's set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had
+caught sight of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to
+inspect it.
+
+"Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It
+should have been done before."
+
+Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+
+Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+
+He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon
+his hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his
+fingers had closed upon what he was seeking.
+
+"Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough,
+after all, Smith."
+
+"No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+
+"You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this
+trouble. You have done yourself no good by it."
+
+"It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+
+"Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+opinion of what constitutes--"
+
+His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+
+"Did--you--put--that--shoe--there, Smith?" he asked slowly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then what did you _MEAN_ by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+
+"Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"WHAT?"
+
+"Animal spirits, sir."
+
+What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+
+"My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way
+to my room."
+
+In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against
+the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear
+up against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language
+of the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+
+"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+
+"Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+
+"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+
+His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+
+"You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more
+of it."
+
+Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+towels, soap, and sponges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a
+successfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man
+of refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it
+had been worth it.
+
+The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a
+lot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary
+implements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to
+do so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the
+madding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs
+there would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+
+His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place
+the shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+
+Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up
+to the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at
+about the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody
+would think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable that
+Mr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The
+odds were that he had forgotten about it already.
+
+Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling
+that he had done a good day's work.
+
+
+
+23
+
+ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+
+
+The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most
+adroit plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to
+the rule. He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's
+happenings.
+
+It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where
+there is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain
+unrevealed. There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling
+Mike. He forgot what the consequences might be if he did not.
+
+So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+
+Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion
+why only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the
+subject. He seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow
+can understand.
+
+"'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike
+might be satisfied with a compromise.
+
+"One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+school in one shoe."
+
+Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much
+as to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+understand sound reasoning."
+
+"Well, what am I to do? Where _is_ the other shoe?"
+
+"Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+
+"Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off
+in the gym shoes he stood in.
+
+It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which
+one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize
+how strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for
+instance, where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark
+blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most
+respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a
+mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if he had
+sandbagged the headmaster. So in the case of shoes. School rules decree
+that a boy shall go to his form room in shoes. There is no real reason
+why, if the day is fine, he should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer
+them. But, if he does, the thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say,
+"Great Scott, what _have_ you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, _what_ are
+you wearing on your feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the
+assembling of the form for call-over and the arrival of the form master,
+some wag is sure either to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act
+with some satirical remark, or else to pull one of them off, and
+inaugurate an impromptu game of football with it. There was once a boy
+who went to school one morning in elastic-sided boots.
+
+Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike
+with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to
+undergo at Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who
+gave trouble.
+
+There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a
+boy in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind,
+just as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with
+them. They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+
+Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention--every weapon was employed by him
+in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he
+felt shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in
+the first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten
+minutes to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked
+Like Loafers--which broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one
+occasion, when a particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of
+fare, Dunster had entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath
+slippers, of a vivid crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including
+his journey over to the house to change the heelless atrocities, had
+seen him through very nearly to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+
+Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+
+"Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+
+"_What_ are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+
+"Gym shoes, sir."
+
+"You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+
+The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+comfortably for the address from the throne.
+
+"I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+
+A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+translating.
+
+Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction,
+the form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+
+Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said,
+"Wal, sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so
+did Mr. Downing feel at that moment.
+
+When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+sped to the headmaster.
+
+
+
+24
+
+THE ADAIR METHOD
+
+
+It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop,
+came to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the
+Adair administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt
+was early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket
+keenness. Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious
+interest in life, had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his
+first term at Wrykyn. And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm
+attachment to the game, compared with Mike's.
+
+As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose
+to be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their
+comfortable beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and
+had caught catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air,
+had stung like adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really
+got to work, it is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the
+experiment was only equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of
+the type which likes to undergo hardships for the common good. They
+played well enough when on the field, but neither cared greatly whether
+the school had a good season or not. They played the games entirely for
+their own sakes.
+
+The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate
+as to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+today's must be avoided.
+
+"It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for
+the team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd
+better find somebody else."
+
+"Yes."
+
+At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+
+"Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+
+"Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+
+"Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+
+Stone was the first to recover.
+
+"I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C.
+with a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village
+Jackson plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+
+"All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+
+Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The
+majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain
+runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the
+team or not, then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless
+he is a man of action, practically helpless.
+
+Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that
+they would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The
+bowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the
+chance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are
+runs, wherever and however made.
+
+The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+there were no signs.
+
+Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond
+the fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great
+help. Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+
+At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right,
+was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with
+that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper
+before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of
+his reading to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen
+the paper, usually formed an interested and appreciative audience.
+Today, however, though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of
+excitement at the news that Sheppard had made a century against
+Gloucestershire, and that a butter famine was expected in the United
+States, these world-shaking news items seemed to leave Adair cold. He
+champed his bread and marmalade with an abstracted air.
+
+He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+
+Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe
+and convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of
+person who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He
+never shirked anything, physical or moral.
+
+He resolved to interview the absentees.
+
+It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He
+went across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day
+room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and
+marking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided
+with a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance
+and stagger backward against the captain.
+
+"Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+
+"Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this
+morning?"
+
+Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+spoke.
+
+"We didn't turn up," he said.
+
+"I know you didn't. Why not?"
+
+Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the
+coolness which comes from rehearsal.
+
+"We decided not to."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+fielding."
+
+Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+
+"You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+
+"That's just the word."
+
+"Sorry it bored you."
+
+"It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+
+Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+
+"What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+
+"There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking
+of something."
+
+"I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+
+Stone intervened.
+
+"It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't
+do anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like,
+but we don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or
+Saturday for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the
+school team aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go
+chucking people out of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+
+"You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+
+"What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll
+play for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn
+out for fielding practice before breakfast."
+
+"You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going
+to tomorrow morning."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Six sharp. Don't be late."
+
+"Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+
+"That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+
+"You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+
+"That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+
+"No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any
+deep conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for
+his comfort.
+
+"You've quite made up your minds?"
+
+"Yes," said Stone.
+
+"Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+
+He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+standing in the middle of the open space.
+
+"You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+
+"Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+
+Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than
+Stone, but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game.
+His blow was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his
+opponent's. At the end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+
+He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+
+"Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a
+minute or two."
+
+Stone made no reply.
+
+"Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+
+"All right," said Stone.
+
+"Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+
+Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make
+up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances
+he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than
+ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must
+end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match
+even for Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one
+minute. It seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was
+likely to come from an encounter with Adair.
+
+"All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+
+"Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+is Jackson's study."
+
+Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which
+precluded anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied
+that Mike's study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor
+at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+
+"He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+still there."
+
+"I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he
+isn't busy."
+
+
+
+25
+
+ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+
+
+Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going
+on below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that
+morning from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket
+captaincy which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a
+lugubrious strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with
+Wrykyn. A broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments
+with a day boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of
+Dunstable, the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a
+side out. Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone
+wrong. The M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three
+first-class cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty
+runs. Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs,
+with a team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch--not a
+well-known man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing
+for the club for nearly half a century--had got home by two wickets. In
+fact, it was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was
+about the most hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition
+of itself on the school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off,
+owing to an outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and
+athletics--the second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said
+Strachan, was hard lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for
+Wrykyn, as it had saved them from what would probably have been a record
+hammering, Ripton having eight of their last year's team left, including
+Dixon, the fast bowler, against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had
+been able to make runs in the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had
+struck a bad patch.
+
+Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one
+good batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may
+take a weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the
+importance of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+
+As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days,
+returned with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of
+personal injury which had made him hate his new school on the first
+day of term.
+
+And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered
+the room.
+
+There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+
+Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial
+story in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room,
+made the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand,
+and went on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was
+sitting, and contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+
+Psmith was the first to speak.
+
+"If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I
+seem to see the consommé splashing about his ankles. He's had a note
+telling him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just
+off there at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher,
+is waiting there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair?
+Or don't you take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+
+"Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+
+"What do you want?" said Mike.
+
+He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made
+this a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of
+no other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+afternoon calls.
+
+"I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+
+"That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We
+must be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We--"
+
+"Buck up," said Mike.
+
+"Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+
+"An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+
+"We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but
+it was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the
+first round."
+
+Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this
+was about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner.
+For some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was
+looking for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be
+a privilege to see that he got it.
+
+Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+
+"Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been
+_brawling_ with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you
+and he were like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too.
+Leave us, Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of
+thee.' Shakespeare."
+
+Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+
+"I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+
+"Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice,"
+said Adair, turning to Mike.
+
+Mike said nothing.
+
+"I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn
+out at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out.
+He's going to all right. So is Robinson."
+
+Mike remained silent.
+
+"So are you," said Adair.
+
+"I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+
+Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in
+the study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+
+"Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"I don't think. I know."
+
+"Any special reason for my turning out?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+want you to get some practice."
+
+"I wonder how you got that idea!"
+
+"Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+
+"Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+
+"I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+
+Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+
+"What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+curiously.
+
+"I'm going to make you."
+
+Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+
+"Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+
+For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+
+"Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+
+Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+
+"My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you _will_ let your angry
+passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose you
+must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the midst
+of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If you
+really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know
+a bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road,
+where you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on
+there? Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+
+
+
+26
+
+CLEARING THE AIR
+
+
+Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+the National Sporting Club.
+
+"The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is
+down will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades
+Adair and Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+
+After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up
+to its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been
+cautious sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds,
+as if it had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights,
+when they do occur--which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you
+count junior school scuffles--are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent.
+Up to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly
+attached to him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume
+that attitude of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates
+the other.
+
+So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the
+present battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted
+was to get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together
+as if they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+
+It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves,
+with his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have
+lasted three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while
+Mike had never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used
+his head, nothing could have prevented his winning.
+
+As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did
+at the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was
+the same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength,
+and, thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet
+with an unscientific but powerful righthander.
+
+This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The
+Irish blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him
+merely energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned
+all attempt at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile
+form, and as unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a
+swift exchange of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow,
+coming into contact with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which
+kept it tingling for the rest of the day; and then Adair went down in
+a heap.
+
+He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+
+In the excitement of a fight--which is, after all, about the most
+exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life--it
+is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would
+have seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a
+fraction of an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked
+out. Mike could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on
+his feet again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength;
+and this time Adair went down and stayed down.
+
+"Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be
+sitting up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go
+on with the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to
+be continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+alterations and repairs first."
+
+"Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts
+before in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one
+on his own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+
+"_He's_ all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be skipping
+about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+pick flowers."
+
+Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking
+that Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his
+point of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much.
+At the same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten
+him. The feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in
+a fresh and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and
+had carried it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the
+deliverer of knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new
+acquaintance a man to be respected.
+
+The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized
+Mike's view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of
+him. Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive
+dignity, he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched
+kid. There had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of
+refusing to identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+
+It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass
+of himself.
+
+He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+entered the study.
+
+"How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting.
+He's not a bad cove."
+
+"He's all right," said Mike.
+
+There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way.
+I'm not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but
+everyone to his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get
+overwhelmingly attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems
+to have done it. He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up.
+It's not a bad idea in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him.
+Apparently he's been sweating since early childhood to buck the school
+up. And as he's leaving at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly
+scheme to give him a bit of a send-off, if possible, by making the
+cricket season a bit of a banger. As a start, why not drop him a line to
+say that you'll play against the M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+
+Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade
+Adair, to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to
+understand that you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your
+village team. You didn't, of course?"
+
+"Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+
+"I told him he didn't know the old _noblesse oblige_ spirit of the
+Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon
+by not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return
+to the point under discussion, why not?"
+
+"I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+
+"If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+unworthy company--"
+
+"Don't be an ass."
+
+"--Dismiss it. _I_ am playing."
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"You're _what? You_?"
+
+"I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+handkerchief.
+
+"Can you play cricket?"
+
+"You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+
+"You're rotting."
+
+"You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Then why haven't you played?"
+
+"Why haven't you?"
+
+"Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+
+"The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such
+shock to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing
+of that sort takes years off my life."
+
+"No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+cricket?"
+
+"Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season
+came, where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in
+the night."
+
+"But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked
+watching it."
+
+"Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have
+to overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a
+habit. Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little
+by little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against
+it, but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and
+drifted with the stream. Last year in a house match"--Psmith's voice
+took on a deeper tone of melancholy--"I took seven for thirteen in the
+second innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I
+had found a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow.
+What Comrade Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest
+archaeological disciple has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+
+Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole
+face of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the
+recalcitrant, wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here
+was Psmith, the last person whom he would have expected to be a player,
+stating calmly that he had been in the running for a place in the
+Eton eleven.
+
+Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of
+his place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off,
+each in his own way--Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to
+their respective natures--on Sedleigh.
+
+If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+stop Mike doing so, as--at the bottom of his heart--he wanted to do.
+
+"By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+Adair now. But, I say"--he stopped--"I'm hanged if I'm going to turn out
+and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+
+"That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+
+
+
+27
+
+IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+
+
+"Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+
+"During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your
+elbow was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't
+know. Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the
+game tomorrow."
+
+"I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+
+"Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see
+anybody downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to
+the shop, ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell
+the man to chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at
+tea is all right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to
+commit suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+
+On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+went out of the house.
+
+A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in
+earnest. Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At
+this rate," he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all
+tomorrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show
+what it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When
+Mike woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping.
+Leaden-colored clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace
+of blue to be seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle,
+determined way rain has when it means to make a day of it.
+
+It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin
+boots, crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+
+Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+gate.
+
+These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped--he could hardly walk
+on as if nothing had happened--and looked down at his feet.
+
+"Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+
+"Right ho!" said Adair.
+
+They walked on in silence.
+
+"It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+
+Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born
+of nervousness.
+
+"About nine to."
+
+"Good. We've got plenty of time."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I hate having to hurry over to school."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+
+"Yes. So do I."
+
+"Beastly nuisance when one does."
+
+"Beastly."
+
+"It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+should think, shouldn't you?"
+
+"Not much more. Might be three."
+
+"Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"Beastly day," said Adair.
+
+"Rotten."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+wrist."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+
+"Does it hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+
+"I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+smashed me anyhow."
+
+"Oh, rot."
+
+"I bet you anything you like you would."
+
+"I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+
+"Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+
+"Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+
+Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+
+"I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+
+"Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+
+"Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+
+"Good."
+
+"Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+season."
+
+"Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+
+"Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+
+"He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+year."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the time?" asked Mike.
+
+Adair produced his watch once more.
+
+"Five to."
+
+"We've heaps of time."
+
+"Yes, heaps."
+
+"Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+
+"Right ho!"
+
+Mike cleared his throat.
+
+"I say."
+
+"Hello?"
+
+"I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the--"
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower
+Borlock if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+
+"He never even asked me to get him a place."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+like getting other fellows away from the team."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+
+"Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+
+The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect
+on Mike's mind--shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He
+might have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had
+said, "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have
+led his hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little
+hole, isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived
+that the words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese
+principle. When a Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by
+belittling himself and his belongings.
+
+He eluded the pitfall.
+
+"What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+after the way you've sweated."
+
+Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+
+"I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't
+suppose I've done anything much."
+
+"You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+that's any comfort to you."
+
+"I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+aches."
+
+For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began
+to laugh.
+
+"What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+
+"_You_ were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky
+at present."
+
+"It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+interval, and hang about in case."
+
+"All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got
+math till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which
+won't hurt me."
+
+"He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+
+"I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing
+or a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're
+crocked, I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years
+to get the match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+
+"I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain,
+with you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending
+down much of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out,
+we've got a jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way
+through, and the bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this
+M.C.C. lot a really good hammering, it might have been easier to get
+some good fixtures for next season. You see, it's all right for a school
+like Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can't get the
+best teams to give you a match till you've done something to show that
+you aren't absolute rotters at the game. As for the schools, they're
+worse. They'd simply laugh at you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn
+last year. What would you have done if you'd had a challenge from
+Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or else had a
+fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+
+Mike stopped.
+
+"By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+
+"What! They wouldn't play us."
+
+"Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date.
+Shall I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they
+aren't strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+
+Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+
+"By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+
+
+
+28
+
+MR. DOWNING MOVES
+
+
+The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that
+there should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the
+first Sedleigh _v_. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+
+Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as
+soon as he was changed.
+
+"What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+
+The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+glad if Mike would step across.
+
+"A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A
+meal on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against
+your return."
+
+Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of
+simple pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle
+which had been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize
+for a solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed
+Mike with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+abusive comments on its inventor.
+
+He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+
+Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was
+agitated.
+
+"I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+"but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type.
+You come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies
+round the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+
+"The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+
+"Me, do you mean?"
+
+"What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+
+"You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+
+"I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+
+"What _are_ you talking about?"
+
+"That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+
+"Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type?
+What has he been doing to you?"
+
+"He's off his nut."
+
+"I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump
+at you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he
+say he was a teapot?"
+
+Mike sat down.
+
+"You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+
+"As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+
+"He thinks I did it."
+
+"Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+
+"The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as
+asked me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage
+later on if I behaved sensibly."
+
+"Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master
+wants you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't
+enough evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+stand-off."
+
+"Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for
+all he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain
+that I painted Sammy."
+
+"_Did_ you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+
+"No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+prove that I did."
+
+"Such as what?"
+
+"It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+
+"It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag
+you into it?"
+
+"He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+
+"Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining
+him. But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+
+"He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who
+hasn't got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know
+where the dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs,
+but one's being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym
+shoes. That's how he spotted me."
+
+Psmith sighed.
+
+"Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows
+the folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to
+save you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud,
+right in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you
+aren't, just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"What the dickens are you talking about?"
+
+"Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+
+"I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender
+and groping, "but--_Hello_!"
+
+"Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+
+Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+
+"It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+
+"It _is_," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+
+Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+
+"How on earth did--By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+must have been the paint pot."
+
+"Then you were out that night?"
+
+"Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell
+you now--"
+
+"Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+
+"Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up
+to his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+
+"This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's
+why he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+
+"Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+
+"And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're
+_absolutely_ certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any
+chance, in a moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No?
+No, I suppose not. I wonder who did!"
+
+"It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was
+why I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the
+chap he chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the
+same. I shall get landed both ways."
+
+Psmith pondered.
+
+"It _is_ a tightish place," he admitted.
+
+"I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it
+with disfavor.
+
+"Not for a pretty considerable time."
+
+"I suppose not. I say, I _am_ in the cart. If I can't produce this shoe,
+they're bound to guess why."
+
+"What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you
+and Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass
+rags? Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+
+"Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot,
+and I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said
+very well, then, he must take steps, and--well, that was about all."
+
+"Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+
+"I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+
+"Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his
+move will be?"
+
+"I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+
+"_He'll_ want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on confession.
+The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about the time
+the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing Round-and-round-the-
+mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs thought. You had
+better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the dandelions
+growing. I will think over the matter."
+
+"Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+
+"Possibly. You never know."
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+"See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a
+panel. Come in."
+
+A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+answered the invitation.
+
+"Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you
+he wants to see you."
+
+"I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+
+"Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+
+Mike got up.
+
+"All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you
+today." He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr.
+Jackson will be with him in a moment."
+
+The emissary departed.
+
+"_You're_ all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+
+With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+
+He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in
+his chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a
+moment straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his
+hat and moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at
+the same dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at
+Downing's front gate.
+
+The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight
+of him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+professional manner, passed away.
+
+"Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+
+He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+
+"An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+toward the painting.
+
+"Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+about?"
+
+"It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+his knee.
+
+
+
+29
+
+THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+
+
+The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not
+lead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between
+accuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a
+feeling that the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and
+conversation showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened
+brightly enough, with a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had
+laid before him, but after that a massive silence had been the order of
+the day. There is nothing in this world quite so stolid and
+uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mind to be stolid and
+uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat and looked at Mike, who
+sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt awkward. It was a scene
+which needed either a dramatic interruption or a neat exit speech. As it
+happened, what it got was the dramatic interruption.
+
+The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."--which was practically
+going back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knock
+at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," and
+the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+
+"I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but--"
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+
+"I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+Jackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."
+
+Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling
+of relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+wearing game to play--the headmaster with astonishment.
+
+"Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+
+"No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+
+Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog
+with red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They
+had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but
+anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it
+funny at first. After the first surprise, their feeling had been that it
+was a rotten thing to have done and beastly rough luck on the poor
+brute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply
+did not believe it.
+
+"Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy
+himself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+
+Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was
+done for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy
+it meant that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was
+not likely that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at
+Sedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if
+possible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar
+occasion. It seemed as if Fate had a special grudge against his best
+friends. He did not make friends very quickly or easily, though he had
+always had scores of acquaintances--and with Wyatt and Psmith he had
+found himself at home from the first moment he had met them.
+
+He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+
+Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+
+"Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er--if you are
+going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+
+"Come in," said the headmaster.
+
+It was Adair.
+
+"Yes, Adair?"
+
+Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+
+"It was about Sammy--Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+
+"Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+
+"It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+
+"No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing--"
+
+"It was Dunster, sir."
+
+Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to
+their fullest extent.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform
+him, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's
+confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal
+was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words
+of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted
+for his brain a side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people?
+Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas.
+And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that
+he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? He concentrated his mind
+on Adair as the only person who could save him from impending
+brain fever.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What--_what_ do you mean?"
+
+"It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes ago,
+in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog, sir, for a
+rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here to get into a
+row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at once. I tried to
+find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met Smith outside
+the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to see
+you, sir."
+
+"Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+Dunster?"
+
+"I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+
+"And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+
+"He laughed, sir."
+
+"_Laughed_!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+
+"Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+
+Mr. Downing snorted.
+
+"But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+
+"He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+night in the village."
+
+"And that was the night the--it happened?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to
+any boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if
+any boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to
+do it."
+
+"The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+
+"Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+write to him."
+
+"If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I
+cannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not
+do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his
+own accord and deliberately confessing?"
+
+"To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that
+I should like to see him."
+
+"If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+
+"In the hall!"
+
+"Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+
+"H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the
+room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of
+rain could be heard outside the window.
+
+Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+opened.
+
+"Mr. Smith, sir."
+
+The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with
+a gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+
+"It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+
+"Sit down, Smith."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided
+in favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself
+time has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+
+Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+
+"Smith."
+
+Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+
+"Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It was absolutely untrue?"
+
+"I am afraid so, sir."
+
+"But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+
+Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+
+"... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+
+Psmith sighed softly.
+
+"The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the
+present age."
+
+"What!" replied the headmaster.
+
+"It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has
+been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it
+is out of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of
+the most interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted.
+Human nature--"
+
+The headmaster interrupted.
+
+"Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+
+He made a motion toward the door.
+
+When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot
+on the floor.
+
+"Er ... Smith."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+again. Then he went on.
+
+"Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ...
+er ... severe illness? Any ... er ... _mental_ illness?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"There is no--forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject--there is
+no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+er ... have described?"
+
+"There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+
+"Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+mean to suggest--quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+impulse which you cannot explain?"
+
+"Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+
+Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+
+"Well, Smith?"
+
+"I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+
+"I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+
+"I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+
+"I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+existing between boy and--Well, never mind that for the present. We can
+return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say. I
+shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+
+"Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's
+dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it.
+That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain
+amount of confusion."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+"but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+"Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to
+time and cultivate him."
+
+Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+
+"Well?" said Mike.
+
+"You _are_ the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+
+"Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+
+"Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+
+"Not a thing."
+
+"Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+
+Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+
+"By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+
+"What's that?" asked Psmith.
+
+"Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+"They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+
+"Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+
+"And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what
+it is."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+you'd done it?"
+
+"The craving for--"
+
+"Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+
+Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+
+"My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe.
+I'm surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from
+Michael Jackson."
+
+"Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+was jolly good of you, too."
+
+Psmith moaned.
+
+
+
+30
+
+SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led
+on the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+
+Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be
+influenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more
+school matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type of
+school batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets his
+imagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,
+Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the most
+azure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adair had
+announced on the notice board that on Saturday, July the twentieth,
+Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on the jump. It was
+useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, on Mike's
+authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on their present
+form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but were not
+comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but then Wrykyn
+cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that this probably
+meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--there was a very
+firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh first eleven that the
+other school was quite strong enough to knock the cover off _them_.
+Experience counts enormously in school matches. Sedleigh had never been
+proved. The teams they played were the sort of sides which the Wrykyn
+second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, from time immemorial, had been
+beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters teams and M.C.C. teams packed
+with county men and sending men to Oxford and Cambridge who got their
+blues as freshmen.
+
+Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+
+It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and
+the wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during
+the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+
+Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the
+surroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes
+magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse
+almost invariably ensues.
+
+Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was
+expected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had
+played inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been
+caught at short slip off his second ball.
+
+That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed
+them to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out
+at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to
+half volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not
+equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven
+wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+
+Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he
+was undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total
+to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+seventy-nine.
+
+Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+thirty-one.
+
+This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team
+had looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair
+and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially
+Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with
+the tail.
+
+It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the
+game out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,
+having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their
+nervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in
+the first innings.
+
+It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if
+they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in
+the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so
+bad then that they easily might.
+
+So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.
+The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was
+bowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated
+all the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper
+frame of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the
+rest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a
+hundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one
+to Strachan at cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+
+As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+
+Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during
+which to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and
+go for a win on the first innings.
+
+At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he
+hit into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two
+runs later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over
+with a c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen
+for three, with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too
+dangerous. So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with
+caution, and the collapse ceased.
+
+This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter
+opened. Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the
+hands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had
+been tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's
+defence. They were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at
+the bad.
+
+A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which
+altered the game completely.
+
+"Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot.
+You can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+
+Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball
+from him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The
+next moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five.
+Adair was absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first
+ball right on the worn patch.
+
+Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion,
+while the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+
+There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic
+and without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground.
+There were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down.
+Sedleigh was on top again.
+
+The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+
+Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to
+the right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+
+After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+minutes in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+
+"When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at
+the shop."
+
+"He bowled awfully well."
+
+"Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this
+joyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give
+Sedleigh a fixture again next year?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+swamp them."
+
+"I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the
+thing started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten
+Wrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and
+work up to playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's
+all right, you see."
+
+"And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it
+would be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall
+we stagger?"
+
+They staggered.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mike and Psmith
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10586]
+Last Updated: November 11, 2018
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE AND PSMITH ***
+
+
+Etext produced by Christine Gehring, Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      MIKE AND PSMITH
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By P.G. Wodehouse
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      1909
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CONTENTS
+    </h3>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> 1 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> 2 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> 3 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PSMITH
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> 4 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> 5 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          GUERRILLA WARFARE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> 6 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> 7 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> 8 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> 9 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> 10 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> 11 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> 12 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> 13 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> 14 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> 15 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ... AND FULFILLS IT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> 16 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          PURSUIT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> 17 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> 18 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> 19 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> 20 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          A CHECK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> 21 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> 22 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> 23 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> 24 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ADAIR METHOD
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> 25 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> 26 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          CLEARING THE AIR
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> 27 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> 28 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          MR. DOWNING MOVES
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> 29 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> 30 </a>
+        </td>
+        <td>
+          SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In Evelyn Waugh's book <i>Decline and Fall</i> his hero, applying for a
+      post as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+      grades&mdash;leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+      Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+      class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one of
+      those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to put the
+      word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster qualified to
+      attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is a few more
+      Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted, that even at a
+      "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only drawback is that it
+      does not play the leading schools or the first-rate schools or even the
+      good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from Wrykyn (a "first-rate
+      school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading school") Sedleigh
+      naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike some time to adjust
+      himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher, accepted the change of
+      conditions with his customary equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books, <i>Psmith
+      in the City</i> and <i>Psmith, Journalist</i>, before becoming happily
+      married in <i>Leave It to Psmith</i>, but I have always thought that he
+      was most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play
+      to his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+      with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+      English school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous characters
+      to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton with the son
+      of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas,
+      and one night he told me about this peculiar schoolboy who dressed
+      fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one of the masters inquired
+      after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah and thinnah." It was all
+      the information I required in order to start building him in a star part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life, I
+      can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+      prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally prosperous
+      counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like Perry, in
+      appearing for the defense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I must apologize, as I did in the preface to <i>Mike at Wrykyn,</i> for
+      all the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+      quite so much of it this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P.G. Wodehouse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      1 &mdash; MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he might
+      have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr. Jackson
+      opened the envelope containing his school report and read the contents,
+      that the document in question was not exactly a paean of praise from
+      beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was late for
+      breakfast in the holidays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+      Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+      Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+      resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for the
+      jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in a
+      detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are&mdash;I've
+      been keeping everything hot for you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+      round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she always
+      did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing thoroughly.
+      She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they made centuries in
+      first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She would field out in the
+      deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at the net in the paddock,
+      though for the others, even for Joe, who had played in all five Test
+      Matches in the previous summer, she would do it only as a favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+      table and watched Mike eat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+      interested. "What did it say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't see&mdash;I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the
+      envelope. Father didn't say anything."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+      was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+      you were in his form."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any more
+      tea in that pot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+      you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+      make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He didn't mean it really, I <i>know</i> he didn't! He couldn't! You're
+      the best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i>. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+      first term you were there&mdash;even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good
+      as that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+      year or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off the
+      first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out at
+      the net now. Let's go and see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+      put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs retired
+      as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+      match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+      considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons now,
+      and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had filled
+      out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had the
+      strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple to him.
+      It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was beginning to find
+      his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own special invention, was
+      delighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+      Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+      returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+      prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+      responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+      fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the wrong
+      men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no light
+      thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+      hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+      information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with that
+      bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant nature.
+      Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his sons as
+      companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to ruffle the
+      placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was an unfailing
+      wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's sarcastic resume of
+      Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term, there had been
+      something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion that Mr. Jackson
+      had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike from Wrykyn unless
+      the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I want
+      to speak to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+      emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+      had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge that
+      morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out&mdash;may
+      I bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen to
+      this report."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+      interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+      more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+      extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't anything really. I only happened&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+      cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+      several occasions, he paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'French bad; conduct disgraceful&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody rags in French."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody does much work in Math."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term&mdash;all speeches and
+      doubtful readings, and cruxes and things&mdash;beastly hard! Everybody
+      says so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+      declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire in
+      him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the same
+      effect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted a
+      public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+      understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him thrills
+      of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his habit to
+      regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an unbiased
+      eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as near the
+      extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in a clear
+      firm hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+      said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in its
+      envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall abide by what I said."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart thumped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+      somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+      their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment
+      the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+      to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+      when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+      normally easygoing man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason he
+      said very little now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name&mdash;one of
+      those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+      when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+      Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What had
+      Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they play?
+      What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps they didn't
+      even <i>play</i> cricket!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+      plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+      and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide his
+      sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+      Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit&mdash;boys work there. Young
+      Barlitt won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was
+      the vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+      into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+      much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+      of conversation were not Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he would
+      have liked to have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      2 &mdash; SEDLEIGH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+      pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up, opened
+      the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic and
+      vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if he
+      hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that Sedleigh
+      station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+      had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike was
+      feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And, so far
+      from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+      deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+      had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously incompetent
+      than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to the handle of
+      the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage van. He disliked
+      his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair. Also the boots he
+      wore. He hated the station, and the man who took his ticket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from Mike's
+      <i>distrait</i> air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up in
+      the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a goodish step, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here you are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+      was it you was going to?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Outwood's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+      it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Worse luck," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+      absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a place
+      where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven, and
+      played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of arriving at
+      Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the bitter part of
+      it. He had never been in command. For the last two seasons he had been the
+      star man, going in first, and heading the averages easily at the end of
+      the season; and the three captains under whom he had played during his
+      career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby, and Henfrey, had always been
+      sportsmen to him. But it was not the same thing. He had meant to do such a
+      lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He had had an entirely new system of
+      coaching in his mind. Now it might never be used. He had handed it on in a
+      letter to Strachan, who would be captain in his place; but probably
+      Strachan would have some scheme of his own. There is nobody who could not
+      edit a paper in the ideal way; and there is nobody who has not a theory of
+      his own about cricket coaching at school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+      Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few overs,
+      might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended upon. There
+      was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn would have a
+      bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched athletic year for
+      the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless, and had lost both the
+      Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points. Sheen's victory in the
+      light weights at Aldershot had been their one success. And now, on top of
+      all this, the captain of cricket was removed during the Easter holidays.
+      Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and
+      all its works with a great loathing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set in
+      a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country, but
+      almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and past
+      fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he caught
+      sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore an
+      unmistakably schoollike look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This must be Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+      directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by a
+      cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+      in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+      reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+      Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+      he reminded Mike of Smee in <i>Peter Pan</i>. He had the same eyebrows and
+      pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson?" he said mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a cup
+      of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You come
+      from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near Brindleford? It
+      is a part of the country which I have always wished to visit. I dare say
+      you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose at
+      Brindleford?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed him
+      one on a tray, said he had not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad to
+      have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England, and
+      it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose. A
+      deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+      1133-40&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+      after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+      visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+      Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+      unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful preservation.
+      It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and two and a half
+      wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the apse wall. It
+      will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present, Jackson, good-bye."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+      deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+      hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+      journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a little
+      hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+      he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+      Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had come
+      by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+      leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+      left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and fixed
+      it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he inspected Mike
+      in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible speck of dust
+      from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spoke in a tired voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+      bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever sitting
+      down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these chairs as
+      mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That sort of idea.
+      My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      3 &mdash; PSMITH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led Astray
+      and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I don't
+      know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The boy&mdash;what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes! Why, are you new?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+      yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+      way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion to
+      write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+      P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for Smythe.
+      My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but I've
+      decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty. The
+      resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on the back
+      of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert (though I
+      hope you won't), or simply Smith, the <i>P</i> not being sounded. Compare
+      the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar miss-in-balk. See?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+      courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but a
+      babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse to
+      keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of the
+      first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+      boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+      bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze
+      on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. I was superannuated last term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bad luck."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+      scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a Balliol&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+      told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+      here to get a Balliol too. Do <i>you</i> know Barlitt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+      that I was sent here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you come from Crofton?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+      brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+      human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+      The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+      his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+      at least be tolerable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+      painful story. Now tell me yours."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad reports."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+      every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen of it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+      will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to
+      be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+      collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+      companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+      Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+      Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+      and things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of a
+      stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+      grounds&mdash;he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man&mdash;and
+      I hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+      country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+      Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+      half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+      generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark you,
+      laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off cricket.
+      To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser leg, "was the
+      dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A noble game, but
+      a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field out at the nets
+      till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you are a blood at the
+      game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and so on."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+      fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+      business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+      for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of pleasure.
+      To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were, was one way
+      of treating the situation, and one not without its meed of comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith approved the resolve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will search
+      the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive fossil
+      together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus improve our
+      minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't wonder if one
+      mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a bit of rabbit
+      shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade Outwood during our
+      brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the lynx-eyed contingent.
+      With tact we ought to be able to slip away from the merry throng of fossil
+      chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used to
+      break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+      interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+      nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+      Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+      and look."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+      either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This'll do us well," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+      couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung on a
+      nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You aren't going to collar it!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+      straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+      claims. This is practical socialism."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to pig
+      it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be alone.
+      It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a fatiguing day.
+      And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help me fetch up my box
+      from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various things in it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      4 &mdash; STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+      rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he preferred
+      to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that the wooden
+      bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was Mike who
+      wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who abstracted the key
+      from the door of the next study, though the idea was Psmith's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what we
+      chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door unlocked
+      in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody comes
+      right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think with a
+      little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+      comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think you
+      could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks. We make
+      progress. We make progress."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+      tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+      turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+      insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the evening
+      meal?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something to
+      be at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+      dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+      this, I wonder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+      that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed, and
+      a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+      turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+      to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things to
+      say on the subject."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+      smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On his
+      face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+      stateliness to do the honors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues after
+      our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths. Let me
+      introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in appearance,
+      perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will doubtless come up
+      in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and harangued
+      Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these: 'It
+      might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+      yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+      might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said huskily,
+      'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and said,
+      'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to know what&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+      and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected by
+      his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival, you
+      find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not Spiller."
+      Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of tea. Spiller's
+      sad case had moved him greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it's beastly cheek."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went straight
+      to the root of the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller evaded the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+      studies."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+      prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual and
+      the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place bagging
+      studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption that it is
+      impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a lesson to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here, I tell you what it&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if you
+      trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He said, 'I
+      couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the accelerator.' 'But
+      suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.'
+      So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot brake
+      after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I
+      give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and
+      the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realized the
+      possibility of somebody someday collaring your study, you might have
+      thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is,
+      you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as a surprise. The cry goes
+      round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He cannot cope with the
+      situation.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can't I! I'll&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+      Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's my
+      study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man of
+      Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you intend
+      to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade Jackson before
+      you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an insignificant-looking
+      little weed. And you <i>are</i> an insignificant-looking little weed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+      myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well all
+      go together."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined, Mike
+      sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he walked, and
+      now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by the wayside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently the
+      leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you have
+      already made friends."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+      study-claimer's shoulder&mdash;a proceeding violently resented by Spiller&mdash;"is
+      a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands before one
+      like some beautiful flower."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+      gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys
+      in my house friendly toward one another."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is the
+      heart of a little child."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak to
+      you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" began Spiller
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological Society
+      in the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+      disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+      chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+      be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+      induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over the
+      School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support. Boys
+      came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at times,
+      not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact that it
+      provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+      opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+      main, earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society. I&mdash;er&mdash;in
+      a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become a member?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+      down your name at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And Jackson's, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted. This
+      is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to join."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+      Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+      from the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be there, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Capital!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;" said Spiller.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+      you could spare the time, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+      study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+      evenings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. Quite so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+      list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should have
+      spoken before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+      Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study. He
+      would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+      formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+      comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On Saturday, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+      "is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one of
+      these afternoons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      5 &mdash; GUERRILLA WARFARE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+      position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study with
+      the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than sitting
+      under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on Spiller; he
+      would not have appreciated it properly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you in
+      a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+      other before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+      permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we are
+      now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood is not
+      going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Made it jolly hot for them!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+      an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+      are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+      gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a reasonable
+      number of assailants in defense of the home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+      though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all right
+      while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+      admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at us
+      through the door, and we can lock that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And jam a chair against it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>And</i>, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of
+      the nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+      cart."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the man,
+      Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind&mdash;such foresight!
+      such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+      rooms we're done&mdash;we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not the matron&mdash;Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+      there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+      afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+      followed a knocking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+      parley with the man."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+      vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood giggling
+      with his hands in his pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+      light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+      eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I <i>do</i> wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+      description&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My name's Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mine is Psmith&mdash;P-s-m-i-t-h&mdash;one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The
+      object on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything downstairs.
+      You <i>are</i> chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his study? He's
+      making no end of a row about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of human
+      nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say that he
+      would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the glad throng?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. <i>I</i>
+      think Spiller's an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How many <i>will</i> there be, then?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+      don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+      has been bagged."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+      virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only thing
+      is we must get into the same dormitory."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+      come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with, say,
+      about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five&mdash;there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+      chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+      Outwood and stake out another claim."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+      he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must apologize for disturbing you, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to me
+      when they wish for my advice or help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+      Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+      very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling Jellicoe
+      kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson, Jellicoe and
+      myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it&mdash;I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And we can have the room, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly&mdash;certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that we
+      are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade Jellicoe for
+      his valuable assistance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The handle began to revolve again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+      one's leisure cruelly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+      come down," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The senior day room chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They want us to speak to them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+      down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as the
+      messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door open, I
+      think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what can we do
+      for you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+      the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+      black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We'll risk it," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+      to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been watching.
+      He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against the advancing
+      crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the weight and impetus
+      of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back, and Mike, stepping
+      into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at the
+      looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the first
+      shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A heavy body crashed against the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+      quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+      repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+      instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+      through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+      in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+      have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm and a
+      leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+      windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the flowerbed below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+      guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had pressed
+      against the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson. I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+      always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+      in the corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody hammered on the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you don't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bell rang in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+      "There's no harm in going out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+      evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+      attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was plain
+      that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's face
+      was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of garden mold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element. His
+      demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+      condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to Mike.
+      It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as you can."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+      been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky you
+      two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you into
+      the senior day room and scrag you there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but it
+      can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+      term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+      life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My nerves
+      are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce them to
+      hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign&mdash;the thing must
+      be settled at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it as
+      tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will try to
+      corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could fake up some
+      sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all the trouble
+      over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I don't propose to
+      be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose that we let them
+      come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this meeting with me?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As a matter of fact&mdash;if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at all;
+      he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we have our
+      little wooden <i>châlet</i> to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+      Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+      moral support, but otherwise, <i>ne pas</i>. And now, as there won't be
+      anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write home
+      and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      6 &mdash; UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements of
+      the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for Dormitory
+      One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The rest of the
+      opposing forces were distributed among other and more distant rooms. It
+      was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be the rendezvous. As to
+      the time when an attack might be expected, it was unlikely that it would
+      occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went the round of the
+      dormitories at eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+      conducted in a subdued and <i>sotto voce</i> manner, or may we let
+      ourselves go a bit here and there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you&mdash;he sleeps miles
+      away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often rag
+      half the night and nothing happens."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment. What
+      would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of these
+      reckless youths!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+      stopping the show before it's half started."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up&mdash;I can hear it sizzling. I
+      quite agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as
+      well to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody
+      else who might interfere with our gambols?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who is Barnes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Head of the house&mdash;a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson;
+      they rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+      pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+      vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again, closing the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+      they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+      following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+      would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+      his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+      by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+      directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated imitation
+      of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He would then&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of the
+      steps?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson, the
+      man with the big brain!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+      three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+      examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+      made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+      across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+      Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+      finest purlers in the world's history."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they've got a torch&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then they'll
+      charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire into the
+      brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade Jellicoe's
+      jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not be amiss&mdash;we
+      will enmesh the enemy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will retire
+      to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe like an
+      asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at the top of
+      the steps, listening."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying experience,
+      especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential. Mike was tired
+      after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was jerked back to
+      wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle; the faintest
+      rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight giggle, succeeded by
+      a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe, too, had heard the noise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking sound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+      movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened the
+      door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic; he was
+      flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the true
+      artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+      enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard had
+      reached the second step.... In another moment&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CRASH!
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+      he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+      contents had got to the right address.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+      before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on the
+      nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he ran
+      amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but his left
+      went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick freed his
+      ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a sudden increase
+      in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good work that was
+      being put in by Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+      caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual kind
+      of housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+      over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+      each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+      secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+      that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+      rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that made
+      itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+      light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other dormitories,
+      roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport. They had
+      switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+      enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+      the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a gingerly
+      fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In the direction
+      of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord of a dressing
+      gown, was engaging the remaining three with a patient smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+      cord acutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+      to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having seized
+      and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again with the
+      cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the spectators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+      everywhere&mdash;on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+      passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+      inadvertently trod), on the floor&mdash;he ranged the room, sowing
+      destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this was
+      to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the garrison
+      armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a final rush
+      sent them through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+      in the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood alone
+      in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had pitchforked him
+      so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time since his father had
+      given him his views upon school reports that morning in the Easter
+      holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped, outnumbered as he was,
+      that the enemy would come on again and not give the thing up in disgust;
+      he wanted more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+      action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+      combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+      forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back along
+      the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some clouded
+      cane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+      called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+      the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+      poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+      Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's&mdash;Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+      words; where you pick them up I can't think&mdash;not from me. Well, well,
+      I suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+      night, good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+      whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  <i>Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease.</i>
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      7 &mdash; ADAIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+      three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and wiry,
+      light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to running.
+      Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced eye saw that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was that
+      rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or the
+      passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected to
+      lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very different
+      thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that comes to the
+      top by sheer force of character and determination. He was not naturally
+      clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged resolution which had
+      carried him up the school, and landed him high in the Sixth. As a
+      cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had given him a good
+      eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had triumphed over her
+      failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of more trouble than most
+      people give to their life work he had made himself into a bowler. He read
+      the authorities, and watched first-class players, and thought the thing
+      out on his own account, and he divided the art of bowling into three
+      sections. First, and most important&mdash;pitch. Second on the list&mdash;break.
+      Third&mdash;pace. He set himself to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling
+      at his own pace and without any attempt at break, he could now drop the
+      ball on an envelope seven times out of ten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+      expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could get
+      all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything but a
+      plumb wicket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+      style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+      elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+      sprints and all the rest of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+      school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a small
+      school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him.
+      There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of them in
+      all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been influenced by
+      Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the effects of his
+      work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature to want to get
+      something which somebody else obviously values very much; and when it was
+      observed by members of his form that Adair was going to great trouble and
+      inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or fifteen, they
+      naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in those teams. The
+      consequence was that his form always played hard. This made other forms
+      play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair succeeded to the
+      captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year, Sedleigh, as Mr.
+      Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach to a cricket master
+      that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying, was a keen school. As
+      a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All it wanted now was opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness for
+      his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which really
+      is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average public-school boy
+      <i>likes</i> his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at Rugger and
+      Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry to leave, and
+      he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for any passionate,
+      deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather bad form than
+      otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the back, and cried,
+      "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old school, Jenkins! The
+      dear old school! The old place you love so!" he would feel seriously ill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was the exception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead; his
+      guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia at one
+      end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant times Adair
+      had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to Sedleigh. The place
+      had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike, violently transplanted from
+      Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not to be mentioned in the same
+      breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the future, saw a colossal
+      establishment, a public school among public schools, a lump of human
+      radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars year after year without
+      ceasing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+      not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+      want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+      keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+      should take its rank among <i>the</i> schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+      should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's in
+      the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years running. He
+      would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained his wrist. And
+      he plays fives jolly well!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+      from that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+      hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+      little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with his
+      form master during morning school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+      replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+      self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+      into the man's head; and when I <i>had</i> driven it in, he sent me out of
+      the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+      me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+      persecuted by scoundrels."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+      pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+      mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+      all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Haven't you <i>ever</i> played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+      qualities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this afternoon
+      and seeing what you can do with a hard ball&mdash;if you can manage
+      without your little sister."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+      hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+      This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+      smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+      myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+      National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the Young
+      Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are being
+      carried back to the pavilion after your century against Loamshire&mdash;do
+      you play Loamshire?&mdash;we shall be grubbing in the hard ground for
+      ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty, Comrade Adair. A
+      Boy's Crossroads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+      brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair turned, and walked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+      same question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a general
+      resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable bullfinch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+      new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We want
+      keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy to be
+      keen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excellent."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On archaeology."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing&mdash;for it was no less a celebrity&mdash;started, as one who
+      perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Archaeology!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+      passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we went
+      singing about the house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently. "I
+      don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to interfere
+      with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly that in my
+      opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets him into
+      idle, loafing habits."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the principle
+      of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other boys, not
+      wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and going into low
+      public houses."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+      Psmith, shaking his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in my
+      opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stumped off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now <i>he's</i> cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+      getting ourselves disliked here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good job, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of a
+      lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      8 &mdash; MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+      Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+      with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+      of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+      resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+      And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings for
+      a Kindergarten <i>v</i>. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+      Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun shone,
+      and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and heard the
+      "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to Adair and
+      shouting, "I <i>will</i> be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three years,
+      and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to the
+      nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once or
+      twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the game
+      which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do not
+      make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers more
+      likely, by the law of averages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+      Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a Burgess,
+      but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three years'
+      experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He was a long
+      way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the others who
+      had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+      Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+      Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth&mdash;not
+      unlike what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy&mdash;but he knew how to
+      keep balls out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+      Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+      batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star at
+      Wrykyn.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+      repeat the experiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+      freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the scent
+      of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This is the
+      real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went up to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+      nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+      manner was offensively abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This net,"
+      it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+      embarrassment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge over
+      there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+      corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+      if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked away without a word.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with them
+      the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a poor
+      substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction shouting to
+      him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them hugely, but Mike
+      almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always possible to slip
+      away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked upon them as among
+      the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er with
+      the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the pleased
+      and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him round the
+      garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research struck a new note
+      in the history of that neglected science. He was amiable, but patronizing.
+      He patronized fossils, and he patronized ruins. If he had been confronted
+      with the Great Pyramid, he would have patronized that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+      expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+      old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+      let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+      absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+      putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may lie
+      on his back for a bit."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+      since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+      strolled away down the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+      Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+      Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+      are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement, I
+      can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+      there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound over
+      pebbles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+      sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to the
+      music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to say, I
+      rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these naps by the
+      wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And Psmith, heaving the
+      comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has earned rest, lay down, with
+      his head against a mossy tree stump, and closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making centuries
+      in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up, jumped the
+      brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+      undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when you
+      meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in order that
+      you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread his way back
+      through the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too late.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on, and
+      trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity in
+      the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The dickens you&mdash;Why, you're Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair moustache.
+      Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could not place
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing you
+      seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my nesting
+      pheasants."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm frightfully sorry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course&mdash;I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made
+      fifty-eight not out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was that
+      you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+      are you doing down here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've left Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+      that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to inquire
+      the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of puttering
+      about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you off
+      for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's heart leaped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And he told how matters stood with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+      things"&mdash;Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague&mdash;"but
+      I could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+      get onto my bike&mdash;I've got it down here&mdash;and meet you anywhere
+      you liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my
+      hands off a bat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+      Lower Borlock&mdash;that's the name of the place&mdash;and I'll meet you
+      on the ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off
+      the London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+      Saturday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want to
+      bring mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+      wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and told
+      the news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+      soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+      play for the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+      but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports. I'll
+      borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+      Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a newcomer
+      to the team, M. Jackson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      9 &mdash; THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+      position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+      gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+      fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+      it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+      substitute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+      Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+      arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with, proved
+      more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it grew
+      with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a master
+      ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his official
+      dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes. To Mr.
+      Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for the
+      school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should be
+      implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the healthy
+      boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+      by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+      unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+      "overtime."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that it
+      was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to do
+      with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+      Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple of his
+      eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem of
+      Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe passport
+      to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket was good, but
+      to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+      of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+      vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+      Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+      the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+      members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+      seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+      Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+      Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye, Sammy
+      was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat, an
+      engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which was a
+      happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a tenor
+      voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+      Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+      two minutes' acquaintance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during French
+      lessons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We will now proceed to the painful details.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+      form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading of
+      the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+      according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+      for the disturbing of the peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today they were in very fair form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+      House, held up his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Red, with green stripes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One moment, Stone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+      right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard, and
+      the meeting had divided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+      Stone, sit down&mdash;Wilson, get back to your place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Si-<i>lence!</i> The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the
+      question."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be <i>quiet!</i> Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+      needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+      disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a show
+      of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+      out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+      are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, sir, the danger!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+      man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+      the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+      expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+      that are likely to fall on our heads."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps like
+      the first fifteen have? They&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wilson, leave the room!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, <i>please</i>, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+      lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+      spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not right!
+      If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of this
+      flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be keen.
+      I...? What is that noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling from
+      a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were being
+      prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The sufferer
+      appeared to have a high voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+      near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+      rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the opposite
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well&mdash;be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+      Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you making that whining noise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>sort</i> of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had
+      asked before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just
+      such a case as this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+      can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+      "Perhaps that's it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+      sometimes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silence! Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+      shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like an
+      excited kangaroo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+      to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between the
+      two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in time to
+      see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin worrying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chaos reigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+      dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+      Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+      stirring, bustling scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+      standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all the
+      other noises till in time they gave up the competition and died away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of a
+      Bren gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+      punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+      same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+      will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+      end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain. <i>Quietly</i>,
+      I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that abominable way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crash!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement of
+      your hand&mdash;one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting dispersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+      conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Wilson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk, so
+      I came in&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+      "the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came in,
+      too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to let
+      him go, and he came in after the rat."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+      both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr. Downing
+      liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade, frivolous
+      at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept wicket for
+      the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society, and had
+      refused to play cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun, and
+      paid very little for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+      Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+      it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend their
+      time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen school;
+      this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time. That will
+      do, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+      has a habit of getting the last word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      10 &mdash; ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+      wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+      room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and borrowings
+      to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as something of a
+      blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody. The
+      fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a quid.
+      You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have got, so
+      don't be shy about paying it back."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+      gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+      meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+      Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+      ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+      was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+      Jellicoe&mdash;why on earth did the man want all that?&mdash;meant that,
+      unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the
+      desired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+      regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had made
+      a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a sufficiently
+      softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be stated at once, he
+      did, by return of post.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter&mdash;he was
+      never a very ready writer&mdash;when Stone and Robinson burst into the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+      the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+      Robinson was laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair. Mike's
+      heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was a thing
+      of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius Caesar. He
+      felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and appreciate one
+      another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+      Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+      public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain. They
+      had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits. They
+      looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones and
+      Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about, loud
+      and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to other
+      people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out the
+      tea things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Those Fire Brigade meetings," said Stone, "are a rag. You can do what you
+      like, and you never get more than a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you!" said Mike. "I got Saturday afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Wilson in too?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. He got a hundred lines."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What a beastly swindle!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'We are, above all, a keen school,'" quoted Stone. "Don't you ever play?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have played a bit," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was at Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why on earth did you leave?" asked Stone. "Were you sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. My father took me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wrykyn?" said Robinson. "Are you any relation of the Jacksons there&mdash;J.W.
+      and the others?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brother."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, didn't you play at all there?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and Robinson
+      nearly dropped his teacup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone broke the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But I mean to say&mdash;look here? What I mean is, why aren't you
+      playing? Why don't you play now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do. I play for a village near here. Place called Lower Borlock. A man
+      who played against Wrykyn for the Free Foresters captains them. He asked
+      me if I'd like some games for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But why not for the school?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why should I? It's much better fun for the village. You don't get ordered
+      about by Adair, for a start."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair sticks on side," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough for six," agreed Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," said Stone, "I've got an idea. My word, what a rag!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's wrong now?" inquired Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, look here. Tomorrow'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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bat. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson rocked on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, old Downing fancies himself as a bowler. You <i>must</i> play, and
+      knock the cover off him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Masters don't play in house matches, surely?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This isn't a real house match. Only a friendly. Downing always turns out
+      on Mid-Term Service Day. I say, do play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Think of the rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But the team's full," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The list isn't up yet. We'll nip across to Barnes's study, and make him
+      alter it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They dashed out of the room. From down the passage Mike heard yells of "<i>Barnes</i>!"
+      the closing of a door, and a murmur of excited conversation. Then
+      footsteps returning down the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes appeared, on his face the look of one who has seen visions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "is it true? Or is Stone rotting? About Wrykyn, I mean."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I was in the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his <i>Wisden</i>, and he
+      had an immense respect for Wrykyn cricket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you the M. Jackson, then, who had an average of fifty-one point
+      naught three last year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes's manner became like that of a curate talking to a bishop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," he said, "then&mdash;er&mdash;will you play against Downing's
+      tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      11 &mdash; THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 noncricketing boy for nearly a month that (<i>a</i>) the school is
+      above all a keen school, (<i>b</i>) that all members of it should play
+      cricket, and (<i>c</i>) that by not playing cricket he is ruining his
+      chances in this world and imperiling 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing assumed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was walking to the field with Adair and another member of his team when
+      he came upon Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" he cried. "Our Jackson clad in suit of mail and armed for the
+      fray!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Mr. Downing's No. 2 manner&mdash;the playful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 today. It is the right spirit, sir,"
+      said Psmith earnestly. "I like to see it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed, Smith? You are not playing yourself, I notice. Your enthusiasm
+      has bounds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In our house, sir, competition is fierce, and the Selection Committee
+      unfortunately passed me over."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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 groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. The latter's reformation had dated from
+      that moment.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In stories of the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new boy,
+      who has been found crying in the changing 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;in his walk, in the way he took guard, in his stand at
+      the wicket. 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike started cautiously. He was more than usually anxious to make runs
+      today, 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first over was a maiden, six dangerous balls beautifully played. The
+      fieldsmen changed over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The general interest had now settled on the match between Outwood's and
+      Downing's. The facts in Mike's case had gone around 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Off the first ball of the master's over a leg-bye was run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when delivered, was billed to
+      break from leg, but the program was subject to alterations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His treatment of Adair's next over was freer. He had got a sight of the
+      ball now. Halfway 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crowd was now reluctantly dispersing to its own games, but it stopped
+      as Mr. Downing started his minuet-cakewalk, in the hope that it might see
+      something more sensational.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time the hope was fulfilled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was returned on the installment system by helpers from other games, and
+      the bowler began his maneuvers 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get to them, Jenkins," said Mr. Downing irritably, as the ball came back
+      from the boundary. "Get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, please, sir&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't talk in the field, Jenkins."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 vigor. He charged up to the wicket as a
+      wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea now was to bowl
+      fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be
+      batting, if you can manage it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And a shrill small voice, from the neighborhood of the pavilion, uttered
+      with painful distinctness the words, "Take him off!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was how the most sensational day's cricket began that Sedleigh had
+      known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 lunchtime with a score of eleven. Mike had
+      then made a hundred and three.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      As Mike was taking off his pads in the pavilion, Adair came up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why did you say you didn't play cricket?" he asked abruptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When one has been bowling the whole morning, and bowling well, without the
+      slightest success, one is inclined to be abrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike finished unfastening an obstinate strap. Then he looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was silent for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will you play for us against the Old Sedleighans tomorrow?" he said at
+      length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tossed his pads into his bag and got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Above it, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you won't play?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not keeping you, am I?" said Mike, politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 favoritism. And the dislike
+      deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely individuals. On
+      occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other houses were
+      accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr. Downing distributed his
+      thunderbolts unequally, and the school noticed it. The result was that not
+      only he himself, but also&mdash;which was rather unfair&mdash;his house,
+      too, had acquired a good deal of unpopularity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" said Robinson. "Great Scot, what on earth are you talking
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare!" Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. "I never saw
+      such a chump."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?" suggested Barnes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I won't then," said Barnes unhappily. "Only you know they're rather
+      sick already."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't you worry about that," said Stone with a wide grin. "They'll be a
+      lot sicker before we've finished."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are the things which mark epochs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 <i>our</i>
+      innings." Some even began to edge toward the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gray dismay settled on the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score, too,
+      was mounting steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery," snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fifty
+      went up on the board. "Barnes!" he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barnes!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is absurd. You must declare your innings closed. The game has become
+      a farce."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Declare! Sir, we can't unless Barnes does. He might be awfully annoyed if
+      we did anything like that without consulting him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Absurd."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's very touchy, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is perfect foolery."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The writing on it was as follows:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  OUTWOOD'S <i>v</i>. DOWNING'S
+
+  <i>Outwood's. First innings</i>.
+
+  J.P. Barnes, <i>c</i>. Hammond, <i>b</i>. Hassall      33
+  M. Jackson, not out                         277
+  W.J. Stone, not out                         124
+    Extras                                     37
+        Total (for one wicket)                47
+  Downing's did not bat.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      12 &mdash; THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, leaning against the mantlepiece, discoursed in a desultory way on
+      the day's happenings&mdash;the score off Mr. Downing, the undeniable
+      annoyance of that battered bowler, and the probability of his venting his
+      annoyance on Mike next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't care," murmured Mike, shifting his aching limbs in the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He doesn't deserve to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith smoothed his hair at the glass and turned round again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This interested Mike, tired as he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Three quid!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Three crisp, crackling quid. He wanted four."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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 <i>me</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I got some from my brother at Oxford."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you asleep, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe. I can't get to sleep."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor can I. I'm stiff all over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll come over and sit on your bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a creaking, and then a weight descended in the neighborhood of
+      Mike's toes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you&mdash;oh, nothing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All sorts of things. Especially my father. Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I don't know. So would mine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Everybody's would, I expect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bed creaked, as Jellicoe digested these great thoughts. Then he spoke
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It would be a jolly beastly thing to get sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?" he said. "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you'd say, 'Hello!' And then they'd say, 'What are you doing here?'
+      And you'd say&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About what would happen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Happen when?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When you got home. After being sacked, you know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who's been sacked?" Mike's mind was still under a cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dozed off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello! What's the matter? Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me&mdash;Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I asked you if you'd got any sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose sisters?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yours. I asked if you'd got any."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sisters."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about them?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation was becoming too intricate for Jellicoe. He changed the
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, Jackson!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, you don't know anyone who could lend me a pound, do you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" cried Mike, sitting up in bed and staring through the darkness in
+      the direction whence the numismatist's voice was proceeding. "Do <i>what?</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, look out. You'll wake Psmith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say you wanted someone to lend you a quid?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Jellicoe eagerly. "Do you know anyone?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth do you want a pound for?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want to tell anybody. But it's jolly serious. I shall get sacked
+      if I don't get it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bob's postal order which had arrived that evening, was reposing in the
+      breast pocket of his coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a wrench, but, if the situation was so serious with Jellicoe, it
+      had to be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      13 &mdash; JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;who is that shuffling his feet? I will not have it, I <i>will</i>
+      have silence&mdash;you must hang back in order to make a more effective
+      entrance, like some wretched actor who&mdash;I will <i>not</i> have this
+      shuffling. I have spoken of this before. Macpherson, are you shuffling
+      your feet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir, no, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Parsons?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think it's the noise of the draft under the door, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was through one of these batsmen that an accident occurred which had a
+      good deal of influence on Mike's affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When "Heads!" was called on the present occasion, Mike and Jellicoe
+      instantly assumed the crouching attitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bright-blazered youth walked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry, you know. Hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe was pressing the injured spot tenderly with his fingertips,
+      uttering sharp howls whenever, zeal outrunning discretion, he prodded
+      himself too energetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Silly ass, Dunster," he groaned, "slamming about like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Awfully sorry. But I did yell."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's swelling up rather," said Mike. "You'd better get over to the house
+      and have it looked at. Can you walk?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe tried, but sat down again with a loud "Ow!" At that moment the
+      bell rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall have to be going in," said Mike, "or I'd have helped you over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you a hand," said Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      14 &mdash; MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found Psmith
+      seated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Return of the exile," said Psmith. "A joyful occasion tinged with
+      melancholy. Have a cherry?&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is your name Jackson?" inquired Dunster, "because Jellicoe wants to see
+      you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Alas, poor Jellicoe!" said Psmith. "He is now prone on his bed in the
+      dormitory&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Smith and I," said Dunster, "were at prep school together. I'd no
+      idea I should find him here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You still jaw as much as ever, I notice," said the animal delineator,
+      fondling the beginnings of his moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "More," sighed Psmith, "more. Is anything irritating you?" he added,
+      eyeing the other's maneuvers with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You needn't be a funny ass, man," said Dunster, pained; "heaps of people
+      tell me I ought to have it waxed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What it really wants is top-dressing with guano. Hello! another man out.
+      Adair's bowling better today than he did yesterday."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;Adair's
+      bowling is perfectly simple if you go out to it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Dunster went out to it first ball," said Psmith to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What was it Jellicoe wanted?" asked Mike; "was it anything important?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He seemed to think so&mdash;he kept telling me to tell you to go and see
+      him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I fear Comrade Jellicoe is a bit of a weak-minded blitherer&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you ever hear of a rag we worked off on Jellicoe once?" asked
+      Dunster. "The man has absolutely no sense of humor&mdash;can't see when
+      he's being rotted. Well, it was like this&mdash;hello! We're all out&mdash;I
+      shall have to be going out to field again, I suppose, dash it! I'll tell
+      you when I see you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall count the minutes," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stretched himself; the sun was very soothing after his two hours in
+      the detention room; he felt disinclined for exertion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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&mdash;don't interrupt
+      too much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike tilted his hat over his eyes and abandoned Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike found him in a condition bordering on collapse. "I say, you might
+      have come before!" said Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up? I didn't know there was such a hurry about it&mdash;what did
+      you want?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good now," said Jellicoe gloomily; "it's too late, I shall get
+      sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth are you talking about? What's the row?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's about that money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What about it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had to pay it to a man today, or he said he'd write to the Head&mdash;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&mdash;it's too late now!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike's face fell. "Oh, hang it!" he said, "I'm awfully sorry. I'd no idea
+      it was anything like that&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It doesn't matter," said Jellicoe miserably; "it can't be helped."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it can," said Mike. "I know what I'll do&mdash;it's all right. I'll
+      get out of the house after lights-out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe sat up. "You can't! You'd get sacked if you were caught."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe's face.
+      "I say, do you think you could, really?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course I can! It'll be rather a rag."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, it's frightfully decent of you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What absolute rot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But look here, are you certain&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall be all right. Where do you want me to go?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Lower Borlock?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, do you know it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather! I've been playing cricket for them all the term."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you? Do you know a man called Barley?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Barley? Rather&mdash;he runs the White Boar."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's the chap I owe the money to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Old Barley!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shall bike there, I think," he said, "if I can get into the shed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school's bicycles were stored in a shed by the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Got it on you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith's got it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll get it from him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't tell Smith why you want it, will you? I don't want anybody to know&mdash;if
+      a thing once starts getting about it's all over the place in no time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right, I won't tell him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, thanks most awfully! I don't know what I should have done, I&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it!" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      15 &mdash; ... AND FULFILLS IT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mike pedaled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job done without
+      delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a
+      certain number of hours' sleep a day&mdash;I cannot recall for the moment
+      how many&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;standing
+      out black and mysterious against the light sky&mdash;and the rows of
+      silent cottages, until he came to the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out&mdash;it was
+      sometime past eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Mike had waited for a few minutes there was a rattling of chains and
+      a shooting of bolts and the door opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said the boots, appearing in his shirt sleeves. "Why, 'ello!
+      Mr. Jackson, sir!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I want to see Mr. Barley, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's bin' in bed this half hour back, Mr. Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must see him. Can you get him down?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boots looked doubtful. "Roust the guv'nor outer bed?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike quite admitted the gravity of the task. The landlord of the White
+      Boar was one of those men who need a beauty sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish you would&mdash;it's a thing that can't wait. I've got some money
+      to give to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, if it's <i>that</i> ..." said the boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes later mine host appeared in person, looking more than usually
+      portly in a check dressing gown and red bedroom slippers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can pop off, Jack."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exit boots to his slumbers once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Mr. Jackson, what's it all about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jellicoe asked me to come and bring you the money."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The money? What money?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What he owes you; the five pounds, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The five&mdash;" 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh dear!" he said, "Oh dear! The five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's up?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five pounds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You might tell us the joke."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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
+      ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was reading the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear Mr. Barley," it ran.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was some more to the same effect; it was signed "T.G. Jellicoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's it all about?" said Mike, finishing this curious
+      document.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she's the worst of the two, always up to it, she is&mdash;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&mdash;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."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He proceeded to scale this water pipe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had got about halfway up when a voice from somewhere below cried,
+      "Who's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      16 &mdash; PURSUIT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was the exact remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereby Mike recognized him as the school sergeant. "Oo-oo-oo yer!" was
+      that militant gentleman's habitual way of beginning a conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the sound of footsteps returning, this time at a walk. They passed
+      the gate and went on down the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pursuer had given the thing up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;twelve, he supposed&mdash;on
+      the school clock. He would wait till a quarter past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other appeared startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who the dickens is that?" he asked. "Is that you, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here. Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you, if it comes to that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was adjusting his front light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going for the doctor. One of the chaps in our house is bad."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you doing out here?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just been for a stroll."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be getting back?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose you think you're doing something tremendously brave and
+      dashing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hadn't you better be going to the doctor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you want to know what I think&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't. So long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+      for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+      hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked in that direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+      news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members of
+      Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of acute
+      illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy in the
+      event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get jumpy
+      beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with MacPhee, as
+      a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct and legitimate
+      result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three doughnuts, two ices, an
+      apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the lot down with tea. But Mr.
+      Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of some deadly scourge which
+      would sweep through and decimate the house. He had dispatched Adair for
+      the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes prowling restlessly about
+      his room, was now standing at his front gate, waiting for Adair's return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction of
+      home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by being
+      hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you, Adair?"
+      The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow&mdash;a
+      flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+      grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+      Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+      an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+      sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and, if
+      Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in the
+      first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept ahead.
+      At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards. The
+      procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he was
+      accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of it
+      which had ever illumined his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at Sedleigh,
+      had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into the school
+      officially&mdash;in speeches from the dais&mdash;by the headmaster, and
+      unofficially&mdash;in earnest private conversations&mdash;by Mr. Downing,
+      that at the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every
+      member of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way,
+      and make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+      it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the school
+      had its orders&mdash;to get out into the open at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this feat.
+      Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board to the
+      effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that day.
+      Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the occasion
+      when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had said, "My
+      house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which the
+      Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened the
+      hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr. Downing
+      having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and poured a
+      stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty to turn his
+      attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was his private
+      study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in a miniature
+      lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for realism, and
+      fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most part, of
+      "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes, kept in
+      the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the dormitory
+      would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other end being
+      fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using his elbows
+      as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and these two,
+      standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the rest of the
+      dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except to their
+      digestions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken a
+      rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+      among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+      to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+      headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+      the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient unto
+      the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to ring at
+      night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine alarm of
+      fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+      end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up the
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash that
+      his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his pursuer off
+      for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the rope and tug
+      it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them, and in the
+      subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+      chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+      strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+      length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+      Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in the
+      Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded the
+      pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put all he
+      knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the effort. He
+      worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike reached the
+      gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As far as Mike could judge&mdash;he was not in a condition to make nice
+      calculations&mdash;he had about four seconds in which to get busy with
+      that bell rope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+      than he did then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+      first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+      from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+      on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+      housemaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum, as
+      if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school was awake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      17 &mdash; THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at Outwood's&mdash;since
+      Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had been received as
+      brothers by the center of disorder, so that even Spiller was compelled to
+      look on the hatchet as buried&mdash;and gave his views on the events of
+      the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning, for it was nearer one
+      than twelve when peace had once more fallen on the school.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+      surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+      unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+      in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+      school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got so
+      accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort of
+      affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants can
+      give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind is
+      likely to take place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+      meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+      had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+      the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath against
+      the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood. He hobbled
+      about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+      Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over matter.
+      He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a Boneless
+      Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone gurgled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag, I
+      began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+      about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+      particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+      the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+      knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing a
+      thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved again,
+      time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say Comrade
+      Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency to which
+      he has brought us. At any rate I hope&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+      member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+      Sam! Sam!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+      Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed in a
+      corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+      covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+      was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+      weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and wagging
+      his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular dog, and was
+      always well received when he visited any of the houses, but he had never
+      before met with enthusiasm like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth's been happening to him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who did it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems to
+      have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up like
+      that!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+      scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+      wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through his
+      eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either have to
+      skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great Healer. In a
+      year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why you shouldn't
+      have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of distinction to the
+      place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see him. By charging a
+      small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think I'll suggest it to
+      Comrade Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+      philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+      soon. It's a quarter to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+      going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing to
+      his ankle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+      frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jolly nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+      somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. But, I say, you <i>are</i> a chap!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the matter now?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+      He'll be frightfully sick."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+      What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+      course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      18 &mdash; MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+      junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+      boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+      seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+      the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his reason
+      for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Who&mdash;" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, he came in like that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+      find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+      Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+      Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+      As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+      impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+      difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open, escaped
+      and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all and sundry.
+      You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to your own
+      premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this becomes out of
+      the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private trouble into a row.
+      Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction that Sammy had taken,
+      only, instead of running about the road, he went straight to the
+      headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his pajamas
+      and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a cold in the
+      head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in spite of his
+      strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous night in order to
+      test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves in the event of
+      fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed as the latter
+      related the events which had led up to the ringing of the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school, you
+      think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Was he wearing a school cap?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+      hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very big."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You did not see his face?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was dark and he never looked back&mdash;he was in front of me all the
+      time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is another matter ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the bell&mdash;he
+      had painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He&mdash;he&mdash;<i>what</i>,
+      Mr. Downing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted my dog red&mdash;bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+      anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+      wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+      shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of a
+      malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to ridicule
+      to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his dog,
+      he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there was
+      something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the boy
+      who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall after
+      chapel."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal to
+      come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the school,
+      with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly reminded of
+      Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a wild screech of
+      laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr. Downing
+      was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal discovered,
+      he would have to discover him for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and Fate,
+      feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing, gave him
+      a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a needle in a
+      haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of being set to
+      find it in a mere truss of straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+      archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at close
+      on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+      attempting to get into his house <i>via</i> the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+      whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+      cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded politeness
+      and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some reflections on
+      the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed it on to Mr.
+      Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant that
+      he interrupted him before&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He had broken out."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+      dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+      asleep&mdash;all of them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed excitement
+      and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his colleague's
+      slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had narrowed itself
+      down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively easy. Perhaps Sergeant
+      Collard had actually recognized the boy. On reflection he dismissed this
+      as unlikely, for the sergeant would scarcely have kept a thing like that
+      to himself; but he might very well have seen more of him than he, Downing,
+      had seen. It was only with an effort that he could keep himself from
+      rushing to the sergeant then and there, and leaving the house lunch to
+      look after itself. He resolved to go the moment that meal was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+      functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+      snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+      still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+      helping, found himself at liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions in
+      the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr. Downing
+      arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+      were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+      ensure privacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+      unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a boy
+      endeavoring to enter his house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did, sir&mdash;spotted
+      'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of Connaught, he
+      used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to say, ''e's feeflee
+      good at spottin'.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+      there?'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you didn't catch him?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him&mdash;feeflee
+      fast 'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You noticed nothing else?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+      caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you think?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+      feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+      considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good afternoon to you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything of
+      the kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+      pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant Collard,
+      having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a walk at once,
+      and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the 'ead, if he
+      persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over his face,
+      rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      19 &mdash; THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses,
+      success in the province of detective work must be, to a very large extent,
+      the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of
+      straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got to have it taken
+      out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a label attached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a patronizing
+      manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator, but, as a
+      matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We should not
+      even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard bungler. We should
+      simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes, how...?" and all the
+      rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+      do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the humdrum
+      round of life without having to measure footprints and smile quiet,
+      tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he thinks
+      naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and had
+      thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but, now
+      that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled to
+      admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of Watson's
+      inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard, he
+      thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant Collard, to
+      detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the crime. As he
+      brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor Watson increased
+      with every minute, and he began to feel a certain resentment against Sir
+      Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir Arthur to be so shrewd
+      and infallible about tracing a mystery to its source, but he knew
+      perfectly well who had done the thing before he started!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+      the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+      problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+      got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+      Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+      thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+      Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+      been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a boy
+      and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at twelve
+      o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie&mdash;I was
+      out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+      animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you. It
+      is practically stalemate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+      down the cricket field that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+      is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+      lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard thinking,
+      Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once more
+      intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of his
+      house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+      they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+      air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something particularly
+      shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his bicycle from the
+      shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him irritable.
+      "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+      blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason as
+      a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he wanted
+      his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+      miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+      Sunday afternoons during the term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+      shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it was.
+      What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy soul
+      and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The greater
+      part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea of red
+      paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in the
+      middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+      footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+      plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+      Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle from
+      the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt, leaving
+      Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the detective, to
+      lock the door and resume his perambulation of the cricket field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+      Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+      professional sleuth might have envied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+      decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+      had done the deed of decoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yoicks!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+      must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+      upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been giving
+      a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring box at
+      the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was the direct
+      outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled into him.) In
+      that case the footmark might be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note one</i>: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+      contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor for
+      the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+      contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair went
+      into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Note two</i>: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to
+      the house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Things were moving.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+      from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+      watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his house
+      in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the time for
+      reading in deck chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if you
+      found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house last night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+      and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+      You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened to
+      tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+      go into the shed at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+      Markby live?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a second.
+      It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the right as you
+      turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is the first you
+      come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to Markby
+      for a moment on a small matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+      the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+      blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, Markby!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion last
+      night after the match?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+      scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So I
+      thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+      Marylebone come down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the pot
+      of paint when you had finished?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+      whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you want it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+      business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the floor,
+      with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had better
+      get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I wished to know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+      the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+      successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he had
+      to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house&mdash;the idea of searching a
+      fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+      somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+      exist as a man capable of resenting liberties&mdash;find the
+      paint-splashed shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the
+      headmaster. There could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in
+      Mr. Outwood's house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint
+      without showing some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that
+      the shoe would not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This
+      really was beginning to be something like business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+      fast as he could walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      20 &mdash; A CHECK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+      were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+      the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+      other. Psmith&mdash;for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend&mdash;was
+      wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+      keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+      tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+      Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+      the effort to nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+      window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+      philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of leisure. Hello!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+      bought the place?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+      this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he may
+      sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to them.
+      Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair and book?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+      ground."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+      his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+      who has lost his bearings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er&mdash;Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I&mdash;er&mdash;wish to go round the dormitories."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything, so
+      he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the rooms
+      are."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+      sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron being
+      out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined the
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+      An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy, I
+      understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all to
+      himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a cubic
+      foot of air in vain. He argues justly&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in silence.
+      Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think he's
+      out in the field."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+      the exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+      awed whisper, "is where <i>I</i> sleep!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+      remarks to yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They moved on up the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+      waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The studies, Smith," he cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+      unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+      Here we have&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This is
+      Barnes's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+      gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to our
+      general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+      window attracted his attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+      distant hills ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe at
+      the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen climbing
+      the pipe must have been making for this study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+      Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+      not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+      unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nobody else comes into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+      precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+      And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just about
+      Jackson's size and build!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+      the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in his
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+      causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+      moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+      achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+      and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I should
+      say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket, downstairs.
+      Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I believe, at early
+      dawn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I know Edmund, sir&mdash;no."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+      basket to me here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly was
+      at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did not
+      know. But that there was something, and that that something was directed
+      in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with last night's
+      wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on leaving his bed at
+      the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe were alone in the room.
+      That might mean that Mike had gone out through the door when the bell
+      sounded, or it might mean that he had been out all the time. It began to
+      look as if the latter solution were the correct one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while that
+      it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study floor. Mr.
+      Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the wall, and
+      straightened out the damaged garment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various bootings."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+      task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside the
+      basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+      feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn on
+      being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered footgear,
+      whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as he did so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+      here. You can carry it back when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Shall I carry it, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing reflected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+      on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+      undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but when
+      a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on the
+      following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint splashed
+      shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name inside the
+      shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was only a few
+      miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was Mike's shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith looked at it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come with me, then."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+      shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+      certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+      You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+      Mr. Outwood's house?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have the shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+      look at&mdash;This, you say, is the&mdash;? Just so. Just so. Just ...
+      But, er, Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+      sufficient care, but&mdash;Can <i>you</i> point out to me exactly where
+      this paint is that you speak of?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+      suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and entirely
+      innocent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      21 &mdash; THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+      Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+      is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+      expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+      affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of some
+      kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there was
+      a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in this.
+      Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paint, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! Do you mean to tell me that you did <i>not</i> see it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+      across the toe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace of
+      paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy, not
+      uncommon. Any doctor will tell you&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably subject&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+      positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What did you say, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly out
+      of a trance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You had better be careful, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+      Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On one
+      occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I can
+      assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic cleaning
+      before all traces are removed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+      effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+      the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+      momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects, he
+      did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+      consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+      moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+      mistake...."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the only
+      explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really smeared
+      with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of a few
+      minutes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I go
+      now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+      Cicero's speech <i>De senectute</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith. It
+      is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+      Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith without
+      a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly smile,
+      left the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road between
+      the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw what, if they
+      had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle of Psmith
+      running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified walk. He
+      believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease of
+      his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's gate,
+      bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the top
+      of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+      bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair and
+      panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+      matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+      time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+      and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+      shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+      two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage, and
+      Mr. Downing appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+      another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it had
+      occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's garden.
+      Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse would be to
+      do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling aggrieved with
+      himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too, hurried over to
+      Outwood's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh, laid
+      down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your help."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers, and
+      watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That thing, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+      eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+      his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+      shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+      complaint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, read if you like."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly irritated,
+      pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the second
+      search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as certain
+      as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence was
+      somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank where it
+      was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with evasive
+      answers was quite out of the common.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even for
+      so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be acquitted,
+      on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+      that there was the place to look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What is in this cupboard?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That cupboard, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+      perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Open it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Unlock it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But where is the key, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Have you not got the key?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+      take a long search to find it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where did you see it last?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where is Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+      thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+      from me. I shall break open the door."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard happens
+      to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his permission. He
+      is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am only the acting
+      manager."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule did
+      not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were limits to
+      the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house without his
+      permission and search it to a certain extent was all very well. But when
+      it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+      study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+      house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+      alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the room,
+      he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+      thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+      convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+      standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring into
+      vacancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at all?
+      If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that the
+      cupboard was not tampered with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good enough
+      to come here for a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      22 &mdash; MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+      making any movement in the direction of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Quick</i>, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+      conundrum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith still made no move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+      was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if at
+      any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+      stripling!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+      almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he said
+      did not keep up the standard of docility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+      Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a master. In&mdash;'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+      place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+      your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+      Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+      ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+      cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+      cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+      garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+      crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for the
+      Empire that the jibboom spanker <i>should</i> be spliced at that
+      particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+      matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my case.
+      If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand, and come
+      back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him to be good
+      enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad to go and
+      find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very well, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+      cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+      did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+      shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+      Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+      end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+      the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+      bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+      pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened to
+      the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to this, and
+      let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had stopped
+      swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it up
+      the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and washed
+      off the soot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr. Outwood,
+      the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+      intellectual pressure of the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have been washing my hands, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+      cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it perfectly
+      clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes in
+      a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+      good-gracious-has-the-man-<i>no</i>-sense look on the other's face, "Why
+      he should not do so if he wishes it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+      attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+      painted my dog Sampson red."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+      shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+      to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+      sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if he
+      had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+      propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any objection?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Outwood started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, <i>what</i>
+      is it you wish to do?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+      used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the rest
+      of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing seized one
+      of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door. The wood
+      splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard, with any
+      skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you," he said. "I told you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+      for it for days."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+      surprise and wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+      the shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free from
+      paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+      sideways," he added helpfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I must have done. Then, when I lost the key&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+      "or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+      made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+      little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good, hard
+      knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+      working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr. Outwood's
+      set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had caught sight
+      of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to inspect it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It should
+      have been done before."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+      earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+      went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+      know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+      thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+      and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon his
+      hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his fingers had
+      closed upon what he was seeking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough, after
+      all, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this trouble.
+      You have done yourself no good by it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+      opinion of what constitutes&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+      looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+      and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+      hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+      looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did&mdash;you&mdash;put&mdash;that&mdash;shoe&mdash;there, Smith?" he
+      asked slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what did you <i>MEAN</i> by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      "WHAT?"
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "Animal spirits, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+      can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+      catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+      soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+      you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way to my
+      room."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+      point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against the
+      slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear up
+      against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language of
+      the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more of
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+      towels, soap, and sponges.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+      He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a successfully
+      conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man of refinement,
+      and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it had been worth it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a lot
+      of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary implements
+      for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to do so.
+      Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the madding
+      crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs there
+      would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+      that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place the
+      shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up to
+      the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at about the
+      same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody would think of
+      looking there a second time, and it was improbable that Mr. Outwood really
+      would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The odds were that he had
+      forgotten about it already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling that
+      he had done a good day's work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      23 &mdash; ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most adroit
+      plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to the rule.
+      He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's happenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+      like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where there
+      is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain unrevealed.
+      There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling Mike. He forgot
+      what the consequences might be if he did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+      school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion why
+      only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the subject. He
+      seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow can
+      understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike might
+      be satisfied with a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+      school in one shoe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much as
+      to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+      understand sound reasoning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, what am I to do? Where <i>is</i> the other shoe?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off in
+      the gym shoes he stood in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which one
+      observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize how
+      strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for instance,
+      where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark blue are to be
+      worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most respectable and
+      unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a mixture of awe and
+      repulsion, which would be excessive if he had sandbagged the headmaster.
+      So in the case of shoes. School rules decree that a boy shall go to his
+      form room in shoes. There is no real reason why, if the day is fine, he
+      should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer them. But, if he does, the
+      thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say, "Great Scott, what <i>have</i>
+      you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, <i>what</i> are you wearing on your
+      feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the assembling of the form
+      for call-over and the arrival of the form master, some wag is sure either
+      to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act with some satirical
+      remark, or else to pull one of them off, and inaugurate an impromptu game
+      of football with it. There was once a boy who went to school one morning
+      in elastic-sided boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+      form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+      since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike with
+      respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to undergo at
+      Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who gave trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a boy
+      in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind, just
+      as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them.
+      They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+      list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+      shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention&mdash;every weapon was employed by
+      him in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+      always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he felt
+      shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in the
+      first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten minutes
+      to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked Like Loafers&mdash;which
+      broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one occasion, when a
+      particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of fare, Dunster had
+      entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath slippers, of a vivid
+      crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including his journey over to the
+      house to change the heelless atrocities, had seen him through very nearly
+      to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+      Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>What</i> are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Gym shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+      proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+      comfortably for the address from the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+      moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+      translating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+      unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+      floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction, the
+      form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+      mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+      seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+      appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+      completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+      harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said, "Wal,
+      sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so did Mr.
+      Downing feel at that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+      sped to the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      24 &mdash; THE ADAIR METHOD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+      the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop, came
+      to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the Adair
+      administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt was
+      early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket keenness.
+      Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious interest in life,
+      had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his first term at Wrykyn.
+      And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm attachment to the game, compared
+      with Mike's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+      after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+      been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+      match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose to
+      be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their comfortable
+      beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and had caught
+      catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air, had stung like
+      adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really got to work, it
+      is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the experiment was only
+      equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of the type which likes
+      to undergo hardships for the common good. They played well enough when on
+      the field, but neither cared greatly whether the school had a good season
+      or not. They played the games entirely for their own sakes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+      never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate as
+      to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+      today's must be avoided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+      before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+      Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for the
+      team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd better find
+      somebody else."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+      passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was the first to recover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+      can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+      kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nor do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C. with
+      a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village Jackson
+      plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+      autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+      keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+      being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The majority,
+      consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain runs up
+      against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the team or not,
+      then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless he is a man of
+      action, practically helpless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that they
+      would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The bowling
+      of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the chance of
+      making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are runs,
+      wherever and however made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+      morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+      those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+      there were no signs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond the
+      fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great help.
+      Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+      Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right, was
+      accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with that
+      of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper before the
+      bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of his reading
+      to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen the paper,
+      usually formed an interested and appreciative audience. Today, however,
+      though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of excitement at the
+      news that Sheppard had made a century against Gloucestershire, and that a
+      butter famine was expected in the United States, these world-shaking news
+      items seemed to leave Adair cold. He champed his bread and marmalade with
+      an abstracted air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+      that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe and
+      convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of person
+      who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He never
+      shirked anything, physical or moral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resolved to interview the absentees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He went
+      across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day room,
+      engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and marking the
+      height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided with a record
+      effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance and stagger
+      backward against the captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this morning?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+      spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We didn't turn up," he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know you didn't. Why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the coolness
+      which comes from rehearsal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We decided not to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+      fielding."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's just the word."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sorry it bored you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking of
+      something."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't do
+      anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like, but we
+      don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or Saturday
+      for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the school team
+      aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go chucking people out
+      of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll play
+      for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn out for
+      fielding practice before breakfast."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going to
+      tomorrow morning."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Six sharp. Don't be late."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+      six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any deep
+      conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for his
+      comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've quite made up your minds?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+      standing in the middle of the open space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+      seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+      tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than Stone,
+      but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game. His blow
+      was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his opponent's. At the
+      end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a minute
+      or two."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," said Stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+      maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make up
+      his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances he
+      might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than ordinarily
+      courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must end in his
+      destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match even for
+      Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one minute. It
+      seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was likely to come
+      from an encounter with Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+      is Jackson's study."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which precluded
+      anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied that Mike's
+      study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor at the top of
+      the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+      still there."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he isn't
+      busy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      25 &mdash; ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going on
+      below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that morning
+      from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket captaincy
+      which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a lugubrious
+      strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with Wrykyn. A
+      broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments with a day
+      boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of Dunstable,
+      the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a side out.
+      Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone wrong. The
+      M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three first-class
+      cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty runs.
+      Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs, with a
+      team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch&mdash;not a well-known
+      man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing for the club
+      for nearly half a century&mdash;had got home by two wickets. In fact, it
+      was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was about the most
+      hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition of itself on the
+      school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off, owing to an
+      outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and athletics&mdash;the
+      second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said Strachan, was hard
+      lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for Wrykyn, as it had saved
+      them from what would probably have been a record hammering, Ripton having
+      eight of their last year's team left, including Dixon, the fast bowler,
+      against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had been able to make runs in
+      the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had struck a bad patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+      to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one good
+      batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may take a
+      weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the importance
+      of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+      against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days, returned
+      with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of personal injury
+      which had made him hate his new school on the first day of term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+      Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+      biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial story
+      in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room, made
+      the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand, and went
+      on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was sitting, and
+      contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was the first to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+      should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I seem
+      to see the consommé splashing about his ankles. He's had a note telling
+      him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just off there
+      at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher, is waiting
+      there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair? Or don't you
+      take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+      Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What do you want?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+      school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made this
+      a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of no
+      other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+      afternoon calls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+      present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We must
+      be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Buck up," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but it
+      was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the first round."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this was
+      about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner. For
+      some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was looking
+      for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be a
+      privilege to see that he got it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been <i>brawling</i>
+      with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you and he were
+      like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too. Leave us,
+      Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of thee.'
+      Shakespeare."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+      himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+      are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+      life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice," said
+      Adair, turning to Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn out
+      at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out. He's
+      going to all right. So is Robinson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike remained silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So are you," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+      dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in the
+      study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think. I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Any special reason for my turning out?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+      want you to get some practice."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder how you got that idea!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't think so."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+      he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+      curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm going to make you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+      beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+      Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you <i>will</i> let your
+      angry passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose
+      you must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the
+      midst of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If
+      you really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+      there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know a
+      bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road, where
+      you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on there?
+      Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      26 &mdash; CLEARING THE AIR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+      touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+      enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+      occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+      unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+      the National Sporting Club.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+      into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+      three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is down
+      will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades Adair and
+      Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up to
+      its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been cautious
+      sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds, as if it
+      had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights, when they
+      do occur&mdash;which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you count
+      junior school scuffles&mdash;are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+      blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+      however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent. Up
+      to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly attached to
+      him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume that attitude
+      of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the present
+      battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted was to
+      get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together as if
+      they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves, with
+      his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have lasted
+      three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while Mike had
+      never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used his head,
+      nothing could have prevented his winning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did at
+      the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was the
+      same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength, and,
+      thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet with an
+      unscientific but powerful righthander.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+      science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The Irish
+      blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him merely
+      energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned all attempt
+      at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile form, and as
+      unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a swift exchange
+      of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow, coming into contact
+      with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which kept it tingling for the
+      rest of the day; and then Adair went down in a heap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+      vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the excitement of a fight&mdash;which is, after all, about the most
+      exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life&mdash;it
+      is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+      spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+      only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+      chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would have
+      seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a fraction of
+      an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked out. Mike
+      could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on his feet
+      again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength; and this
+      time Adair went down and stayed down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+      think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+      at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be sitting
+      up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go on with
+      the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to be
+      continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+      alterations and repairs first."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts before
+      in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one on his
+      own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He's</i> all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be
+      skipping about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+      pick flowers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+      perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+      curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking that
+      Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his point
+      of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much. At the
+      same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten him. The
+      feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in a fresh
+      and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and had carried
+      it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the deliverer of
+      knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new acquaintance a
+      man to be respected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+      fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized Mike's
+      view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of him.
+      Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive dignity,
+      he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched kid. There
+      had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of refusing to
+      identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+      stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+      attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass of
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+      entered the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting. He's
+      not a bad cove."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's all right," said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+      seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+      afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+      comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way. I'm
+      not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but everyone to
+      his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get overwhelmingly
+      attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems to have done it.
+      He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up. It's not a bad idea
+      in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him. Apparently he's been
+      sweating since early childhood to buck the school up. And as he's leaving
+      at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly scheme to give him a bit of
+      a send-off, if possible, by making the cricket season a bit of a banger.
+      As a start, why not drop him a line to say that you'll play against the
+      M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+      and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+      prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+      giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+      improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade Adair,
+      to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to understand that
+      you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your village team. You
+      didn't, of course?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told him he didn't know the old <i>noblesse oblige</i> spirit of the
+      Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon by
+      not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return to
+      the point under discussion, why not?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+      unworthy company&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't be an ass."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "&mdash;Dismiss it. <i>I</i> am playing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're <i>what? You</i>?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+      handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Can you play cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You're rotting."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then why haven't you played?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why haven't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+      by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such shock
+      to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing of that
+      sort takes years off my life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+      cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+      year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season came,
+      where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in the
+      night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked watching
+      it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have to
+      overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a habit.
+      Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little by
+      little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against it,
+      but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and drifted
+      with the stream. Last year in a house match"&mdash;Psmith's voice took on
+      a deeper tone of melancholy&mdash;"I took seven for thirteen in the second
+      innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I had found
+      a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow. What Comrade
+      Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest archaeological disciple
+      has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole face
+      of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the recalcitrant,
+      wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here was Psmith, the
+      last person whom he would have expected to be a player, stating calmly
+      that he had been in the running for a place in the Eton eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+      read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+      acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+      the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of his
+      place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off, each in
+      his own way&mdash;Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to their
+      respective natures&mdash;on Sedleigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+      renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+      stop Mike doing so, as&mdash;at the bottom of his heart&mdash;he wanted to
+      do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+      Adair now. But, I say"&mdash;he stopped&mdash;"I'm hanged if I'm going to
+      turn out and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+      not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      27 &mdash; IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      "Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+      instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your elbow
+      was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't know.
+      Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the game
+      tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see anybody
+      downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to the shop,
+      ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell the man to
+      chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at tea is all
+      right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to commit
+      suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+      his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+      willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+      went out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+      patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in earnest.
+      Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At this rate,"
+      he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all tomorrow."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show what
+      it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When Mike
+      woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping. Leaden-colored
+      clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace of blue to be
+      seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle, determined way rain
+      has when it means to make a day of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+      depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin boots,
+      crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped&mdash;he could hardly
+      walk on as if nothing had happened&mdash;and looked down at his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!" said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked on in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born of
+      nervousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "About nine to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good. We've got plenty of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I hate having to hurry over to school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. So do I."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly nuisance when one does."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+      should think, shouldn't you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not much more. Might be three."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Beastly day," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+      wrist."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Does it hurt?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+      smashed me anyhow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you anything you like you would."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+      season."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+      year."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's the time?" asked Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair produced his watch once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Five to."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We've heaps of time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, heaps."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Right ho!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I say."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hello?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+      promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+      couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+      It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower Borlock
+      if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He never even asked me to get him a place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course not."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+      like getting other fellows away from the team."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, I know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+      going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect on
+      Mike's mind&mdash;shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+      in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He might
+      have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+      Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had said,
+      "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have led his
+      hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little hole,
+      isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived that the
+      words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese principle. When a
+      Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by belittling himself
+      and his belongings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He eluded the pitfall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+      ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+      after the way you've sweated."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't suppose
+      I've done anything much."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+      that's any comfort to you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+      aches."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+      humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began to
+      laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You</i> were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+      gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+      doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+      about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky at
+      present."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+      interval, and hang about in case."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got math
+      till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which won't
+      hurt me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing or
+      a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+      black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+      then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're crocked,
+      I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years to get the
+      match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain, with
+      you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending down much
+      of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out, we've got a
+      jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way through, and the
+      bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this M.C.C. lot a really
+      good hammering, it might have been easier to get some good fixtures for
+      next season. You see, it's all right for a school like Wrykyn, but with a
+      small place like this you simply can't get the best teams to give you a
+      match till you've done something to show that you aren't absolute rotters
+      at the game. As for the schools, they're worse. They'd simply laugh at
+      you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn last year. What would you have
+      done if you'd had a challenge from Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed
+      till you were sick, or else had a fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+      thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What! They wouldn't play us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+      from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+      had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date. Shall
+      I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they aren't
+      strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      28 &mdash; MR. DOWNING MOVES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+      hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+      the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+      the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+      considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+      to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that there
+      should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the first
+      Sedleigh <i>v</i>. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+      from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as soon
+      as he was changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+      him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+      glad if Mike would step across.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+      worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A meal
+      on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against your
+      return."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of simple
+      pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle which had
+      been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize for a
+      solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed Mike
+      with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+      Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+      abusive comments on its inventor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+      "but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type. You
+      come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies round
+      the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Me, do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What <i>are</i> you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+      old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type? What
+      has he been doing to you?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's off his nut."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump at
+      you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he say he
+      was a teapot?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He thinks I did it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as asked
+      me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage later on if
+      I behaved sensibly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master wants
+      you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't enough
+      evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+      stand-off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+      ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+      see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for all
+      he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain that I
+      painted Sammy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Did</i> you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+      almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+      prove that I did."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Such as what?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+      you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+      pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag you
+      into it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining him.
+      But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+      and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who hasn't
+      got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know where the
+      dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs, but one's
+      being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym shoes. That's
+      how he spotted me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows the
+      folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to save
+      you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud, right
+      in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you aren't,
+      just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike stared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What the dickens are you talking about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender and
+      groping, "but&mdash;<i>Hello</i>!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i>," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+      the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "How on earth did&mdash;By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+      something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+      must have been the paint pot."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then you were out that night?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell you
+      now&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up to
+      his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+      opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's why
+      he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're <i>absolutely</i>
+      certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any chance, in a
+      moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No? No, I suppose
+      not. I wonder who did!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was why
+      I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the chap he
+      chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the same. I
+      shall get landed both ways."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith pondered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>is</i> a tightish place," he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it with
+      disfavor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not for a pretty considerable time."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose not. I say, I <i>am</i> in the cart. If I can't produce this
+      shoe, they're bound to guess why."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you and
+      Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass rags?
+      Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot, and
+      I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said very
+      well, then, he must take steps, and&mdash;well, that was about all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+      he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+      round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his move
+      will be?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>He'll</i> want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on
+      confession. The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about
+      the time the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing
+      Round-and-round-the- mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs
+      thought. You had better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the
+      dandelions growing. I will think over the matter."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Possibly. You never know."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tap at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+      entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a panel.
+      Come in."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+      answered the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you he
+      wants to see you."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you today."
+      He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr. Jackson
+      will be with him in a moment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emissary departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>You're</i> all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+      saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+      airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in his
+      chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a moment
+      straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his hat and
+      moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at the same
+      dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at Downing's front
+      gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+      conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+      postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight of
+      him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+      professional manner, passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+      the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+      Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+      toward the painting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+      about?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+      his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      29 &mdash; THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+      line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not lead
+      to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between accuser
+      and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a feeling that
+      the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and conversation
+      showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened brightly enough, with
+      a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had laid before him, but after
+      that a massive silence had been the order of the day. There is nothing in
+      this world quite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up
+      his mind to be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat
+      and looked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt
+      awkward. It was a scene which needed either a dramatic interruption or a
+      neat exit speech. As it happened, what it got was the dramatic
+      interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+      Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."&mdash;which was practically
+      going back to the beginning and starting again&mdash;when there was a
+      knock at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir,"
+      and the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+      Jackson, who committed the&mdash;who painted my dog."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling of
+      relief&mdash;for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+      wearing game to play&mdash;the headmaster with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+      nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+      of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+      merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+      rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+      imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog with
+      red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They had both
+      been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but anybody, except
+      possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it funny at first. After
+      the first surprise, their feeling had been that it was a rotten thing to
+      have done and beastly rough luck on the poor brute. It was a kid's trick.
+      As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply did not believe it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy himself
+      came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+      in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+      was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was done
+      for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy it meant
+      that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was not likely
+      that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at Sedleigh than
+      at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if possible, worse than he
+      had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar occasion. It seemed as if
+      Fate had a special grudge against his best friends. He did not make
+      friends very quickly or easily, though he had always had scores of
+      acquaintances&mdash;and with Wyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home
+      from the first moment he had met them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+      hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+      rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er&mdash;if you
+      are going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Come in," said the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, Adair?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was about Sammy&mdash;Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was Dunster, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+      astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to their
+      fullest extent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+      suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+      despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+      perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform him,
+      two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's confession, that
+      Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal was Dunster&mdash;it
+      was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words of an American
+      author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted for his brain a
+      side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people? Dunster, who, he
+      remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas. And why, if Dunster
+      had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that he himself was the
+      culprit? Why&mdash;why anything? He concentrated his mind on Adair as the
+      only person who could save him from impending brain fever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Adair!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What&mdash;<i>what</i> do you mean?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It <i>was</i> Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes
+      ago, in which he said that he had painted Sammy&mdash;Sampson, the dog,
+      sir, for a rag&mdash;for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here
+      to get into a row&mdash;be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at
+      once. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met
+      Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to
+      see you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+      Dunster?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He laughed, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>Laughed</i>!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing snorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+      could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+      night in the village."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And that was the night the&mdash;it happened?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to any
+      boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+      foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if any
+      boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+      attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+      write to him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I cannot
+      understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not do it,
+      what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his own accord
+      and deliberately confessing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+      thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+      appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that I
+      should like to see him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "In the hall!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+      wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+      was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+      seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the room
+      to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of rain
+      could be heard outside the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+      opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Smith, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+      moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+      gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+      some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with a
+      gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sit down, Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thank you, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided in
+      favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+      fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself time
+      has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+      you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was absolutely untrue?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I am afraid so, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+      offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith sighed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the present
+      age."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What!" replied the headmaster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+      of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has been
+      committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it is out
+      of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of the most
+      interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted. Human
+      nature&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+      Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a motion toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+      comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot on
+      the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+      again. Then he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+      er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ... er
+      ... severe illness? Any ... er ... <i>mental</i> illness?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "No, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There is no&mdash;forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject&mdash;there
+      is no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+      er ... have described?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+      mean to suggest&mdash;quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+      confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+      impulse which you cannot explain?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+      disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, Smith?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+      existing between boy and&mdash;Well, never mind that for the present. We
+      can return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say.
+      I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+      that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's dog,
+      and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+      wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it. That
+      was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain amount
+      of confusion."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+      "but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+      downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to time
+      and cultivate him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?" said Mike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You <i>are</i> the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Not a thing."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+      Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What's that?" asked Psmith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+      "They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+      love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what it is."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      "I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+      you'd done it?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The craving for&mdash;"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+      simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe. I'm
+      surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from Michael
+      Jackson."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+      was jolly good of you, too."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      30 &mdash; SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+      Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+      Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led on
+      the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be influenced
+      by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more school matches
+      than good play ever won. There is a certain type of school batsman who is
+      a gift to any bowler when he once lets his imagination run away with him.
+      Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair, Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon
+      this match in a state of the most azure funk. Ever since Mike had received
+      Strachan's answer and Adair had announced on the notice board that on
+      Saturday, July the twentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had
+      been all on the jump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did
+      repeatedly, on Mike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and
+      that on their present form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team
+      listened, but were not comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual
+      strength, but then Wrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard
+      that this probably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be&mdash;for
+      them&mdash;there was a very firm impression among the members of the
+      Sedleigh first eleven that the other school was quite strong enough to
+      knock the cover off <i>them</i>. Experience counts enormously in school
+      matches. Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the
+      sort of sides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn,
+      from time immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters
+      teams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men to Oxford
+      and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+      to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and the
+      wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during the
+      day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+      itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+      nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the surroundings
+      lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes magnified.
+      Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse almost
+      invariably ensues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+      side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+      whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was expected&mdash;Mike,
+      going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had played inside one
+      from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been caught at short slip off
+      his second ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+      others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed them
+      to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out at
+      anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to half
+      volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not equal to
+      his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven wickets were
+      down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he was
+      undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+      reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+      full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+      had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total to
+      seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+      minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+      seventy-nine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+      finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+      thirty-one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team had
+      looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair and
+      Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially Psmith, who
+      had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with the tail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the game
+      out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate, having
+      another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their nervousness had
+      vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in the first
+      innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+      the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if they
+      could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+      sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in the
+      second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so bad then
+      that they easily might.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit. The
+      deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was bowled,
+      and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated all the
+      bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper frame of
+      mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the rest, it
+      looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a hundred and
+      twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one to Strachan at
+      cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+      make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during which
+      to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and go for
+      a win on the first innings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+      forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he hit
+      into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two runs
+      later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over with a
+      c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen for three,
+      with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too dangerous. So
+      Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with caution, and the
+      collapse ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter opened.
+      Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the hands of the
+      clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had been tried,
+      but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's defence. They
+      were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at the bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which altered
+      the game completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+      crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot. You
+      can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+      breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball from
+      him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+      suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The next
+      moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five. Adair was
+      absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first ball right
+      on the worn patch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion, while
+      the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+      atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic and
+      without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground. There
+      were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down. Sedleigh was
+      on top again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+      walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+      out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+      feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to the
+      right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+      next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+      collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+      minutes in hand.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+      general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+      playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+      jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+      sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at the
+      shop."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He bowled awfully well."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this joyful
+      occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give Sedleigh a
+      fixture again next year?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+      left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+      swamp them."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the thing
+      started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten Wrykyn,
+      he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and work up to
+      playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's all right,
+      you see."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+      always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+      and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+      Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it would
+      be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall we stagger?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They staggered.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mike and Psmith
+
+Author: P. G. Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10586]
+[Date last updated: December 10, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE AND PSMITH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Christine Gehring, Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+MIKE AND PSMITH
+
+By P.G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+MEREDITH PRESS / NEW YORK
+
+Copyright 1909 by A. & C. Black
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+  1.  MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+  2.  SEDLEIGH
+  3.  PSMITH
+  4.  STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+  5.  GUERRILLA WARFARE
+  6.  UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+  7.  ADAIR
+  8.  MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+  9.  THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+ 10.  ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+ 11.  THE MATCH WITH DOWNING'S
+ 12.  THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOR OF JELLICOE
+ 13.  JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK LIST
+ 14.  MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
+ 15.  ... AND FULFILLS IT
+ 16.  PURSUIT
+ 17.  THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+ 18.  MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+ 19.  THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+ 20.  A CHECK
+ 21.  THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+ 22.  MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+ 23.  ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+ 24.  THE ADAIR METHOD
+ 25.  ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+ 26.  CLEARING THE AIR
+ 27.  IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+ 28.  MR. DOWNING MOVES
+ 29.  THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+ 30.  SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In Evelyn Waugh's book _Decline and Fall_ his hero, applying for a post
+as a schoolmaster, is told by the agent, "We class schools in four
+grades--leading school, first-rate school, good school, and school."
+Sedleigh in Mike and Psmith would, I suppose, come into the last-named
+class, though not quite as low in it as Mr. Waugh's Llanabba. It is one
+of those small English schools with aspirations one day to be able to
+put the word "public" before their name and to have their headmaster
+qualified to attend the annual Headmaster's Conference. All it needs is
+a few more Adairs to get things going. And there is this to be noted,
+that even at a "school" one gets an excellent education. Its only
+drawback is that it does not play the leading schools or the first-rate
+schools or even the good schools at cricket. But to Mike, fresh from
+Wrykyn (a "first-rate school") and Psmith, coming from Eton (a "leading
+school") Sedleigh naturally seemed something of a comedown. It took Mike
+some time to adjust himself to it, though Psmith, the philosopher,
+accepted the change of conditions with his customary equanimity.
+
+This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books,
+_Psmith in the City_ and _Psmith, Journalist_, before becoming happily
+married in _Leave It to Psmith_, but I have always thought that he was
+most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play to
+his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash
+with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an
+English school.
+
+Psmith has the distinction of being the only one of my numerous
+characters to be drawn from a living model. A cousin of mine was at Eton
+with the son of D'Oyly Carte, the man who produced the Gilbert and
+Sullivan operettas, and one night he told me about this peculiar
+schoolboy who dressed fastidiously and wore a monocle and who, when one
+of the masters inquired after his health, replied "Sir, I grow thinnah
+and thinnah." It was all the information I required in order to start
+building him in a star part.
+
+If anyone is curious as to what became of Mike and Psmith in later life,
+I can supply the facts. Mike, always devoted to country life, ran a
+prosperous farm. Psmith, inevitably perhaps, became an equally
+prosperous counselor at the bar like Perry Mason, specializing, like
+Perry, in appearing for the defense.
+
+I must apologize, as I did in the preface to _Mike at Wrykyn,_ for all
+the cricket in this book. It was unavoidable. There is, however, not
+quite so much of it this time.
+
+P.G. Wodehouse.
+
+
+
+1
+
+MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
+
+
+If Mike had been in time for breakfast that fatal Easter morning he
+might have gathered from the expression on his father's face, as Mr.
+Jackson opened the envelope containing his school report and read the
+contents, that the document in question was not exactly a paean of
+praise from beginning to end. But he was late, as usual. Mike always was
+late for breakfast in the holidays.
+
+When he came down on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over.
+Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs.
+Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had
+resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for
+the jam, while Marjory, recently affecting a grown-up air, looked on in
+a detached sort of way, as if these juvenile gambols distressed her.
+
+"Hello, Mike," she said, jumping up as he entered, "here you are--I've
+been keeping everything hot for you."
+
+"Have you? Thanks awfully. I say ..." His eye wandered in mild surprise
+round the table. "I'm a bit late."
+
+Marjory was bustling about, fetching and carrying for Mike, as she
+always did. She had adopted him at an early age, and did the thing
+thoroughly. She was fond of her other brothers, especially when they
+made centuries in first-class cricket, but Mike was her favorite. She
+would field out in the deep as a natural thing when Mike was batting at
+the net in the paddock, though for the others, even for Joe, who had
+played in all five Test Matches in the previous summer, she would do it
+only as a favor.
+
+Phyllis and Ella finished their dispute and went out. Marjory sat on the
+table and watched Mike eat.
+
+"Your report came this morning, Mike," she said.
+
+The kidneys failed to retain Mike's undivided attention. He looked up
+interested. "What did it say?"
+
+"I didn't see--I only caught sight of the Wrykyn crest on the envelope.
+Father didn't say anything."
+
+Mike seemed concerned. "I say, that looks rather rotten! I wonder if it
+was awfully bad. It's the first I've had from Appleby."
+
+"It can't be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when
+you were in his form."
+
+"No, that's a comfort," said Mike philosophically. "Think there's any
+more tea in that pot?"
+
+"I call it a shame," said Marjory; "they ought to be jolly glad to have
+you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that
+make father angry and don't do any good to anybody."
+
+"Last Christmas he said he'd take me away if I got another one."
+
+"He didn't mean it really, I _know_ he didn't! He couldn't! You're the
+best bat Wrykyn's ever had."
+
+"What ho!" interpolated Mike.
+
+"You _are_. Everybody says you are. Why, you got your first the very
+first term you were there--even Joe didn't do anything nearly so good as
+that. Saunders says you're simply bound to play for England in another
+year or two."
+
+"Saunders is a jolly good chap. He bowled me a half volley on the off
+the first ball I had in a school match. By the way, I wonder if he's out
+at the net now. Let's go and see."
+
+Saunders the professional was setting up the net when they arrived. Mike
+put on his pads and went to the wicket, while Marjory and the dogs
+retired as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.
+
+She was kept busy. Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor
+match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike
+considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons
+now, and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting. He had
+filled out in three years. He had always had the style, and now he had
+the strength as well, Saunder's bowling on a true wicket seemed simple
+to him. It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was
+beginning to find his form. Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own
+special invention, was delighted.
+
+"If you don't be worried by being too anxious now that you're captain,
+Master Mike," he said, "you'll make a century every match next term."
+
+"I wish I wasn't; it's a beastly responsibility."
+
+Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not
+returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the
+prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring
+responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the
+fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the
+wrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no
+light thing to captain a public school at cricket.
+
+As he was walking toward the house, Phyllis met him. "Oh, I've been
+hunting for you, Mike; Father wants you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"He's in the study. He seems ..." added Phyllis, throwing in the
+information by a way of a makeweight, "in a beastly temper."
+
+Mike's jaw fell slightly. "I hope the dickens it's nothing to do with
+that bally report," was his muttered exclamation.
+
+Mike's dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant
+nature. Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his
+sons as companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to
+ruffle the placid sea of good fellowship. Mike's end-of-term report was
+an unfailing wind raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake's
+sarcastic resume of Mike's shortcomings at the end of the previous term,
+there had been something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion
+that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike
+from Wrykyn unless the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson
+was a man of his word.
+
+It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson
+entered the study.
+
+"Come in, Mike," said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; "I
+want to speak to you."
+
+Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of
+emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
+
+There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he
+had carted a half volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge
+that morning.
+
+"It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out--may I
+bag the paper knife for a jiffy? I'll just show--"
+
+"Never mind about cricket now," said Mr. Jackson; "I want you to listen
+to this report."
+
+"Oh, is that my report, Father?" said Mike, with a sort of sickly
+interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.
+
+"It is," replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, "your report; what is
+more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had."
+
+"Oh, I say!" groaned the record-breaker.
+
+"'His conduct,'" quoted Mr. Jackson, "'has been unsatisfactory in the
+extreme, both in and out of school.'"
+
+"It wasn't anything really. I only happened--"
+
+Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a
+cannonball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on
+several occasions, he paused.
+
+"'French bad; conduct disgraceful--'"
+
+"Everybody rags in French."
+
+"'Mathematics bad. Inattentive and idle.'"
+
+"Nobody does much work in Math."
+
+"'Latin poor. Greek, very poor.'"
+
+"We were doing Thucydides, Book Two, last term--all speeches and
+doubtful readings, and cruxes and things--beastly hard! Everybody
+says so."
+
+"Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he
+declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
+
+Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
+
+"'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire
+in him to realize the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the
+same effect."
+
+Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted
+a public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He
+understood cricket, and some of Mike's strokes on the off gave him
+thrills of pure aesthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his
+habit to regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an
+unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form room was about as
+near the extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in
+a clear firm hand.
+
+"You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
+said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in
+its envelope.
+
+Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
+
+"I shall abide by what I said."
+
+Mike's heart thumped.
+
+"You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
+
+Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
+somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
+their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that
+moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of
+the earth.
+
+The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
+to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
+when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
+normally easygoing man.
+
+Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason
+he said very little now.
+
+"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
+
+Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name--one of
+those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
+when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
+Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What
+had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they
+play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps
+they didn't even _play_ cricket!
+
+"But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.
+
+Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
+plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
+and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide
+his sympathy.
+
+"It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
+Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit--boys work there. Young Barlitt
+won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was the
+vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
+into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
+much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
+of conversation were not Mike's.
+
+"Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.
+
+Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he
+would have liked to have said.
+
+
+
+2
+
+SEDLEIGH
+
+
+The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,
+pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up,
+opened the door, and hurled a bag out on to the platform in an emphatic
+and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
+
+"For the school, sir?" inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if
+he hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveler into thinking that
+Sedleigh station was staffed by a great army of porters.
+
+Mike nodded. A somber nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody
+had met him in 1812, and said, "So you're back from Moscow, eh?" Mike
+was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And,
+so far from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself
+deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he
+had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously
+incompetent than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to
+the handle of the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage
+van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and the color of his hair.
+Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, and the man who took
+his ticket.
+
+"Young gents at the school, sir," said the porter, perceiving from
+Mike's _distrait_ air that the boy was a stranger to the place, "goes up
+in the bus mostly. It's waiting here, sir. Hi, George!"
+
+"I'll walk, thanks," said Mike frigidly.
+
+"It's a goodish step, sir."
+
+"Here you are."
+
+"Thank you, sir. I'll send up your luggage by the bus, sir. Which 'ouse
+was it you was going to?"
+
+"Outwood's."
+
+"Right, sir. It's straight on up this road to the school. You can't miss
+it, sir."
+
+"Worse luck," said Mike.
+
+He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such
+absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a
+place where they probably ran a Halma team instead of a cricket eleven,
+and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the point of
+arriving at Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which was the
+bitter part of it. He had never been in command. For the last two
+seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading the
+averages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains under
+whom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby,
+and Henfrey, had always been sportsmen to him. But it was not the same
+thing. He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He
+had had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind. Now it might
+never be used. He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who would be
+captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some scheme of
+his own. There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the ideal way;
+and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own about cricket
+coaching at school.
+
+Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.
+Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few
+overs, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended
+upon. There was no doubt that Mike's sudden withdrawal meant that Wrykyn
+would have a bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched
+athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless,
+and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points.
+Sheen's victory in the light weights at Aldershot had been their one
+success. And now, on top of all this, the captain of cricket was removed
+during the Easter holidays. Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found
+himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works with a great loathing.
+
+The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set
+in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country,
+but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and
+past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he
+caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore
+an unmistakably schoollike look.
+
+This must be Sedleigh.
+
+Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
+directed him to Mr. Outwood's.
+
+There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by
+a cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.
+
+Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
+in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
+reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.
+
+He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
+Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.
+
+There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance
+he reminded Mike of Smee in _Peter Pan_. He had the same eyebrows and
+pince-nez and the same motherly look.
+
+"Jackson?" he said mildly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a
+cup of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea. You
+come from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near
+Brindleford? It is a part of the country which I have always wished to
+visit. I dare say you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St.
+Ambrose at Brindleford?"
+
+Mike, who would not have recognized a Cluniac Priory if you had handed
+him one on a tray, said he had not.
+
+"Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad
+to have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of England,
+and it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of St. Ambrose.
+A deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century. Bishop Geoffrey,
+1133-40--"
+
+"Shall I go across to the boys' part, sir?"
+
+"What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea
+after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of
+visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,
+Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is
+unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful
+preservation. It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long and
+two and a half wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free from the
+apse wall. It will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the present,
+Jackson, good-bye."
+
+Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly
+deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played
+hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one's
+journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a
+little hard.
+
+He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room which
+he took to be the equivalent of the senior day room at a Wrykyn house.
+Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently he had
+come by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was occupied.
+
+A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes, was
+leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in his top
+left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a cord, and
+fixed it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to vision he
+inspected Mike in silence for a while, then, having flicked an invisible
+speck of dust from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.
+
+"Hello," he said.
+
+He spoke in a tired voice.
+
+"Hello," said Mike.
+
+"Take a seat," said the immaculate one. "If you don't mind dirtying your
+bags, that's to say. Personally, I don't see any prospect of ever
+sitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these
+chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That
+sort of idea. My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"
+
+
+
+3
+
+PSMITH
+
+
+"Jackson," said Mike.
+
+"Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led
+Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"
+
+"The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I
+don't know."
+
+"The boy--what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"
+
+"Yes! Why, are you new?"
+
+"Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
+yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
+way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion
+to write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
+P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for
+Smythe. My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but
+I've decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty.
+The resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on
+the back of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert
+(though I hope you won't), or simply Smith, the _P_ not being sounded.
+Compare the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar
+miss-in-balk. See?"
+
+Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
+courtesy.
+
+"Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but
+a babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse
+to keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of
+the first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
+boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
+bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like
+gaze on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
+
+"No?" said Mike.
+
+"No. I was superannuated last term."
+
+"Bad luck."
+
+"For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
+
+"But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
+
+"This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain
+scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a
+Balliol--"
+
+"Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
+
+"That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who
+told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off
+here to get a Balliol too. Do _you_ know Barlitt?"
+
+"His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol
+that I was sent here."
+
+"Do you come from Crofton?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
+brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"
+
+Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow
+human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith.
+The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for
+his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might
+at least be tolerable.
+
+"Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my
+painful story. Now tell me yours."
+
+"Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad
+reports."
+
+"My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in
+every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen
+of it?"
+
+"Rotten."
+
+"I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade,
+will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought
+to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by
+collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are
+companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray.
+Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor
+Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"
+
+"He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses
+and things."
+
+"And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of
+a stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the
+grounds--he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man--and I
+hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the
+country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an
+Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
+half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
+generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark
+you, laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off
+cricket. To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser
+leg, "was the dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A
+noble game, but a bit too thick for me. At Eton I used to have to field
+out at the nets till the soles of my boots wore through. I suppose you
+are a blood at the game? Play for the school against Loamshire, and
+so on."
+
+"I'm not going to play here, at any rate," said Mike.
+
+He had made up his mind on this point in the train. There is a certain
+fascination about making the very worst of a bad job. Achilles knew his
+business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket
+for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of
+pleasure. To stand by with folded arms and a somber frown, as it were,
+was one way of treating the situation, and one not without its meed
+of comfort.
+
+Psmith approved the resolve.
+
+"Stout fellow," he said. "'Tis well. You and I, hand in hand, will
+search the countryside for ruined abbeys. We will snare the elusive
+fossil together. Above all, we will go out of bounds. We shall thus
+improve our minds, and have a jolly good time as well. I shouldn't
+wonder if one mightn't borrow a gun from some friendly native, and do a
+bit of rabbit shooting here and there. From what I saw of Comrade
+Outwood during our brief interview, I shouldn't think he was one of the
+lynx-eyed contingent. With tact we ought to be able to slip away from
+the merry throng of fossil chasers, and do a bit on our own account."
+
+"Good idea," said Mike. "We will. A chap at Wrykyn, called Wyatt, used
+to break out at night and shoot at cats with an air pistol."
+
+"It would take a lot to make me do that. I am all against anything that
+interferes with my sleep. But rabbits in the daytime is a scheme. We'll
+nose about for a gun at the earliest opp. Meanwhile we'd better go up to
+Comrade Outwood, and get our names shoved down for the Society."
+
+"I vote we get some tea first somewhere."
+
+"Then let's beat up a study. I suppose they have studies here. Let's go
+and look."
+
+They went upstairs. On the first floor there was a passage with doors on
+either side. Psmith opened the first of these.
+
+"This'll do us well," he said.
+
+It was a biggish room, looking out over the school grounds. There were a
+couple of deal tables, two empty bookcases, and a looking glass, hung
+on a nail.
+
+"Might have been made for us," said Psmith approvingly.
+
+"I suppose it belongs to some rotter."
+
+"Not now."
+
+"You aren't going to collar it!"
+
+"That," said Psmith, looking at himself earnestly in the mirror, and
+straightening his tie, "is the exact program. We must stake out our
+claims. This is practical socialism."
+
+"But the real owner's bound to turn up some time or other."
+
+"His misfortune, not ours. You can't expect two masterminds like us to
+pig it in that room downstairs. There are moments when one wants to be
+alone. It is imperative that we have a place to retire to after a
+fatiguing day. And now, if you want to be really useful, come and help
+me fetch up my box from downstairs. It's got a gas ring and various
+things in it."
+
+
+
+4
+
+STAKING OUT A CLAIM
+
+
+Psmith, in the matter of decorating a study and preparing tea in it, was
+rather a critic than an executant. He was full of ideas, but he
+preferred to allow Mike to carry them out. It was he who suggested that
+the wooden bar which ran across the window was unnecessary, but it was
+Mike who wrenched it from its place. Similarly, it was Mike who
+abstracted the key from the door of the next study, though the idea
+was Psmith's.
+
+"Privacy," said Psmith, as he watched Mike light the gas ring, "is what
+we chiefly need in this age of publicity. If you leave a study door
+unlocked in these strenuous times, the first thing you know is, somebody
+comes right in, sits down, and begins to talk about himself. I think
+with a little care we ought to be able to make this room quite decently
+comfortable. That putrid calendar must come down, though. Do you think
+you could make a long arm, and haul it off the parent tintack? Thanks.
+We make progress. We make progress."
+
+"We shall jolly well make it out of the window," said Mike, spooning up
+tea from a paperbag with a postcard, "if a sort of young Hackenschmidt
+turns up and claims the study. What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Don't let us worry about it. I have a presentiment that he will be an
+insignificant-looking little weed. How are you getting on with the
+evening meal?"
+
+"Just ready. What would you give to be at Eton now? I'd give something
+to be at Wrykyn."
+
+"These school reports," said Psmith sympathetically, "are the very
+dickens. Many a bright young lad has been soured by them. Hello, what's
+this, I wonder."
+
+A heavy body had plunged against the door, evidently without a suspicion
+that there would be any resistance. A rattling of the handle followed,
+and a voice outside said, "Dash the door!"
+
+"Hackenschmidt!" said Mike.
+
+"The weed," said Psmith. "You couldn't make a long arm, could you, and
+turn the key? We had better give this merchant audience. Remind me later
+to go on with my remarks on school reports. I had several bright things
+to say on the subject."
+
+Mike unlocked the door, and flung it open. Framed in the entrance was a
+smallish, freckled boy, wearing a pork-pie hat and carrying a bag. On
+his face was an expression of mingled wrath and astonishment.
+
+Psmith rose courteously from his chair, and moved forward with slow
+stateliness to do the honors.
+
+"What the dickens," inquired the newcomer, "are you doing here?"
+
+"We were having a little tea," said Psmith, "to restore our tissues
+after our journey. Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths.
+Let me introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in
+appearance, perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will
+doubtless come up in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
+
+"My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and
+harangued Spiller in a philosophical vein.
+
+"Of all sad words of tongue or pen," said he, "the saddest are these:
+'It might have been.' Too late! That is the bitter cry. If you had torn
+yourself from the bosom of the Spiller family by an earlier train, all
+might have been well. But no. Your father held your hand and said
+huskily, 'Edwin, don't leave us!' Your mother clung to you weeping, and
+said, 'Edwin, stay!' Your sisters--"
+
+"I want to know what--"
+
+"Your sisters froze on to your knees like little octopuses (or octopi),
+and screamed, 'Don't go, Edwin!' And so," said Psmith, deeply affected
+by his recital, "you stayed on till the later train; and, on arrival,
+you find strange faces in the familiar room, a people that know not
+Spiller." Psmith went to the table, and cheered himself with a sip of
+tea. Spiller's sad case had moved him greatly.
+
+The victim of Fate seemed in no way consoled.
+
+"It's beastly cheek, that's what I call it. Are you new chaps?"
+
+"The very latest thing," said Psmith.
+
+"Well, it's beastly cheek."
+
+Mike's outlook on life was of the solid, practical order. He went
+straight to the root of the matter.
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" he asked.
+
+Spiller evaded the question.
+
+"It's beastly cheek," he repeated. "You can't go about the place bagging
+studies."
+
+"But we do," said Psmith. "In this life, Comrade Spiller, we must be
+prepared for every emergency. We must distinguish between the unusual
+and the impossible. It is unusual for people to go about the place
+bagging studies, so you have rashly ordered your life on the assumption
+that it is impossible. Error! Ah, Spiller, Spiller, let this be a
+lesson to you."
+
+"Look here, I tell you what it--"
+
+"I was in a car with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if
+you trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He
+said, 'I couldn't. One's the foot brake, and the other's the
+accelerator.' 'But suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now
+we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out
+to be the foot brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a
+ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never
+confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you
+had only realized the possibility of somebody someday collaring your
+study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing
+with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared. The thing comes on you as
+a surprise. The cry goes round: 'Spiller has been taken unawares. He
+cannot cope with the situation.'"
+
+"Can't I! I'll--"
+
+"What _are_ you going to do about it?" said Mike.
+
+"All I know is, I'm going to have it. It was Simpson's last term, and
+Simpson's left, and I'm next on the house list, so, of course, it's
+my study."
+
+"But what steps," said Psmith, "are you going to take? Spiller, the man
+of Logic, we know. But what of Spiller, the Man of Action? How do you
+intend to set about it? Force is useless. I was saying to Comrade
+Jackson before you came in, that I didn't mind betting you were an
+insignificant-looking little weed. And you _are_ an
+insignificant-looking little weed."
+
+"We'll see what Outwood says about it."
+
+"Not an unsound scheme. By no means a scaly project. Comrade Jackson and
+myself were about to interview him upon another point. We may as well
+all go together."
+
+The trio made their way to the Presence, Spiller pink and determined,
+Mike sullen, Psmith particularly debonair. He hummed lightly as he
+walked, and now and then pointed out to Spiller objects of interest by
+the wayside.
+
+Mr. Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently
+the leading characteristic of his normal manner.
+
+"Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you
+have already made friends."
+
+"Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the
+study-claimer's shoulder--a proceeding violently resented by
+Spiller--"is a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands
+before one like some beautiful flower."
+
+Mr. Outwood received this eulogy with rather a startled expression, and
+gazed at the object of the tribute in a surprised way.
+
+"Er--quite so, Smith, quite so," he said at last. "I like to see boys in
+my house friendly toward one another."
+
+"There is no vice in Spiller," pursued Psmith earnestly. "His heart is
+the heart of a little child."
+
+"Please, sir," burst out this paragon of all the virtues, "I--"
+
+"But it was not entirely with regard to Spiller that I wished to speak
+to you, sir, if you were not too busy."
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all. Is there anything ..."
+
+"Please, sir--" began Spiller
+
+"I understand, sir," said Psmith, "that there is an Archaeological
+Society in the school."
+
+Mr. Outwood's eyes sparkled behind their pince-nez. It was a
+disappointment to him that so few boys seemed to wish to belong to his
+chosen band. Cricket and football, games that left him cold, appeared to
+be the main interest in their lives. It was but rarely that he could
+induce new boys to join. His colleague, Mr. Downing, who presided over
+the School Fire Brigade, never had any difficulty in finding support.
+Boys came readily at his call. Mr. Outwood pondered wistfully on this at
+times, not knowing that the Fire Brigade owed its support to the fact
+that it provided its lighthearted members with perfectly unparalleled
+opportunities for ragging, while his own band, though small, was, in the
+main, earnest.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said, "Yes. We have a small Archaeological Society.
+I--er--in a measure look after it. Perhaps you would care to become
+a member?"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. Do you want to join, Smith?"
+
+"Intensely, sir. Archaeology fascinates me. A grand pursuit, sir."
+
+"Undoubtedly, Smith. I am very pleased, very pleased indeed. I will put
+down your name at once."
+
+"And Jackson's, sir."
+
+"Jackson, too!" Mr. Outwood beamed. "I am delighted. Most delighted.
+This is capital. This enthusiasm is most capital."
+
+"Spiller, sir," said Psmith sadly, "I have been unable to induce to
+join."
+
+"Oh, he is one of our oldest members."
+
+"Ah," said Psmith, tolerantly, "that accounts for it."
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller. We shall have the first outing of the term on
+Saturday. We intend to inspect the Roman Camp at Embury Hill, two miles
+from the school."
+
+"We shall be there, sir."
+
+"Capital!"
+
+"Please, sir--" said Spiller.
+
+"One moment, Spiller," said Psmith. "There is just one other matter, if
+you could spare the time, sir."
+
+"Certainly, Smith. What is that?"
+
+"Would there be any objection to Jackson and myself taking Simpson's old
+study?"
+
+"By all means, Smith. A very good idea."
+
+"Yes, sir. It would give us a place where we could work quietly in the
+evenings."
+
+"Quite so. Quite so."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir. We will move our things in."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir," said Mike.
+
+"Please, sir," shouted Spiller, "aren't I to have it? I'm next on the
+list, sir. I come next after Simpson. Can't I have it?"
+
+"I'm afraid I have already promised it to Smith, Spiller. You should
+have spoken before."
+
+"But sir--"
+
+Psmith eyed the speaker pityingly.
+
+"This tendency to delay, Spiller," he said, "is your besetting fault.
+Correct it, Edwin. Fight against it."
+
+He turned to Mr. Outwood.
+
+"We should, of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study.
+He would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no
+formality between ourselves and Spiller."
+
+"Quite so. An excellent arrangement, Smith. I like this spirit of
+comradeship in my house. Then you will be with us on Saturday?"
+
+"On Saturday, sir."
+
+"All this sort of thing, Spiller," said Psmith, as they closed the door,
+"is very, very trying for a man of culture. Look us up in our study one
+of these afternoons."
+
+
+
+5
+
+GUERRILLA WARFARE
+
+
+"There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favorite
+position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study
+with the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than
+sitting under one's own rooftree. This place would have been wasted on
+Spiller; he would not have appreciated it properly."
+
+Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you
+in a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each
+other before."
+
+"The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your
+permission, face the future for a while. I suppose you realize that we
+are now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood
+is not going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."
+
+"What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."
+
+"What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"
+
+"Made it jolly hot for them!"
+
+"So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make
+an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we
+are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's
+gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a
+reasonable number of assailants in defense of the home."
+
+Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is,
+though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all
+right while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
+
+"That's just what I was about to point out when you put it with such
+admirable clearness. Here we are in a stronghold; they can only get at
+us through the door, and we can lock that."
+
+"And jam a chair against it."
+
+"_And_, as you rightly remark, jam a chair against it. But what of the
+nightfall? What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
+
+"Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the
+cart."
+
+Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the
+man, Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind--such foresight!
+such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different
+rooms we're done--we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of
+the night."
+
+"We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
+
+"Not the matron--Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him;
+there is nothing he can deny us. I'm afraid we are quite spoiling his
+afternoon by these interruptions, but we must rout him out once more."
+
+As they got up, the door handle rattled again, and this time there
+followed a knocking.
+
+"This must be an emissary of Comrade Spiller's," said Psmith. "Let us
+parley with the man."
+
+Mike unlocked the door. A light-haired youth with a cheerful, rather
+vacant face and a receding chin strolled into the room, and stood
+giggling with his hands in his pockets.
+
+"I just came up to have a look at you," he explained.
+
+"If you move a little to the left," said Psmith, "you will catch the
+light-and-shade effects on Jackson's face better."
+
+The newcomer giggled with renewed vigor. "Are you the chap with the
+eyeglass who jaws all the time?"
+
+"I _do_ wear an eyeglass," said Psmith; "as to the rest of the
+description--"
+
+"My name's Jellicoe."
+
+"Mine is Psmith--P-s-m-i-t-h--one of the Shropshire Psmiths. The object
+on the skyline is Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Old Spiller," giggled Jellicoe, "is cursing you like anything
+downstairs. You _are_ chaps! Do you mean to say you simply bagged his
+study? He's making no end of a row about it."
+
+"Spiller's fiery nature is a byword," said Psmith.
+
+"What's he going to do?" asked Mike, in his practical way.
+
+"He's going to get the chaps to turn you out."
+
+"As I suspected," sighed Psmith, as one mourning over the frailty of
+human nature. "About how many horny-handed assistants should you say
+that he would be likely to bring? Will you, for instance, join the
+glad throng?"
+
+"Me? No fear! I think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"There's nothing like a common thought for binding people together. _I_
+think Spiller's an ass."
+
+"How many _will_ there be, then?" asked Mike.
+
+"He might get about half a dozen, not more, because most of the chaps
+don't see why they should sweat themselves just because Spiller's study
+has been bagged."
+
+"Sturdy common sense," said Psmith approvingly, "seems to be the chief
+virtue of the Sedleigh character."
+
+"We shall be able to tackle a crowd like that," said Mike. "The only
+thing is we must get into the same dormitory."
+
+"This is where Comrade Jellicoe's knowledge of the local geography will
+come in useful. Do you happen to know of any snug little room, with,
+say, about four beds in it? How many dormitories are there?"
+
+"Five--there's one with three beds in it, only it belongs to three
+chaps."
+
+"I believe in the equal distribution of property. We will go to Comrade
+Outwood and stake out another claim."
+
+Mr. Outwood received them even more beamingly than before. "Yes, Smith?"
+he said.
+
+"We must apologize for disturbing you, sir--"
+
+"Not at all, Smith, not at all! I like the boys in my house to come to
+me when they wish for my advice or help."
+
+"We were wondering, sir, if you would have any objection to Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself sharing the dormitory with the three beds in it. A
+very warm friendship ..." explained Psmith, patting the gurgling
+Jellicoe kindly on the shoulder, "has sprung up between Jackson,
+Jellicoe and myself."
+
+"You make friends easily, Smith. I like to see it--I like to see it."
+
+"And we can have the room, sir?"
+
+"Certainly--certainly! Tell the matron as you go down."
+
+"And now," said Psmith, as they returned to the study, "we may say that
+we are in a fairly winning position. A vote of thanks to Comrade
+Jellicoe for his valuable assistance."
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" said Jellicoe.
+
+The handle began to revolve again.
+
+"That door," said Psmith, "is getting a perfect incubus! It cuts into
+one's leisure cruelly."
+
+This time it was a small boy. "They told me to come up and tell you to
+come down," he said.
+
+Psmith looked at him searchingly through his eyeglass.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The senior day room chaps."
+
+"Spiller?"
+
+"Spiller and Robinson and Stone, and some other chaps."
+
+"They want us to speak to them?"
+
+"They told me to come up and tell you to come down."
+
+"Go and give Comrade Spiller our compliments and say that we can't come
+down, but shall be delighted to see him up here. Things," he said, as
+the messenger departed, "are beginning to move. Better leave the door
+open, I think; it will save trouble. Ah, come in, Comrade Spiller, what
+can we do for you?"
+
+Spiller advanced into the study; the others waited outside, crowding in
+the doorway.
+
+"Look here," said Spiller, "are you going to clear out of here or not?"
+
+"After Mr. Outwood's kindly thought in giving us the room? You suggest a
+black and ungrateful action, Comrade Spiller."
+
+"You'll get it hot, if you don't."
+
+"We'll risk it," said Mike.
+
+Jellicoe giggled in the background; the drama in the atmosphere appealed
+to him. His was a simple and appreciative mind.
+
+"Come on, you chaps," cried Spiller suddenly.
+
+There was an inward rush on the enemy's part, but Mike had been
+watching. He grabbed Spiller by the shoulders and ran him back against
+the advancing crowd. For a moment the doorway was blocked, then the
+weight and impetus of Mike and Spiller prevailed, the enemy gave back,
+and Mike, stepping into the room again, slammed the door and locked it.
+
+"A neat piece of work," said Psmith approvingly, adjusting his tie at
+the looking glass. "The preliminaries may now be considered over, the
+first shot has been fired. The dogs of war are now loose."
+
+A heavy body crashed against the door.
+
+"They'll have it down," said Jellicoe.
+
+"We must act, Comrade Jackson! Might I trouble you just to turn that key
+quietly, and the handle, and then to stand by for the next attack."
+
+There was a scrambling of feet in the passage outside, and then a
+repetition of the onslaught on the door. This time, however, the door,
+instead of resisting, swung open, and the human battering ram staggered
+through into the study. Mike, turning after relocking the door, was just
+in time to see Psmith, with a display of energy of which one would not
+have believed him capable, grip the invader scientifically by an arm
+and a leg.
+
+Mike jumped to help, but it was needless; the captive was already on the
+windowsill. As Mike arrived, Psmith dropped him onto the
+flowerbed below.
+
+Psmith closed the window gently and turned to Jellicoe. "Who was our
+guest?" he asked, dusting the knees of his trousers where they had
+pressed against the wall.
+
+"Robinson. I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"Robinson, was it? Well, we are always glad to see Comrade Robinson,
+always. I wonder if anybody else is thinking of calling?"
+
+Apparently frontal attack had been abandoned. Whisperings could be heard
+in the corridor.
+
+Somebody hammered on the door.
+
+"Yes?" called Psmith patiently.
+
+"You'd better come out, you know; you'll only get it hotter if you
+don't."
+
+"Leave us, Spiller; we would be alone."
+
+A bell rang in the distance.
+
+"Tea," said Jellicoe; "we shall have to go now."
+
+"They won't do anything till after tea, I shouldn't think," said Mike.
+"There's no harm in going out."
+
+The passage was empty when they opened the door; the call to food was
+evidently a thing not to be treated lightly by the enemy.
+
+In the dining room the beleaguered garrison were the object of general
+attention. Everybody turned to look at them as they came in. It was
+plain that the study episode had been a topic of conversation. Spiller's
+face was crimson, and Robinson's coat sleeve still bore traces of
+garden mold.
+
+Mike felt rather conscious of the eyes, but Psmith was in his element.
+His demeanor throughout the meal was that of some whimsical monarch
+condescending for a freak to revel with his humble subjects.
+
+Toward the end of the meal Psmith scribbled a note and passed it to
+Mike. It read: "Directly this is over, nip upstairs as quickly as
+you can."
+
+Mike followed the advice; they were first out of the room. When they had
+been in the study a few moments, Jellicoe knocked at the door. "Lucky
+you two cut away so quick," he said. "They were going to try and get you
+into the senior day room and scrag you there."
+
+"This," said Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, "is exciting, but
+it can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole
+term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time,
+life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My
+nerves are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce
+them to hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign--the thing
+must be settled at once."
+
+"Shall we go down to the senior day room, and have it out?" said Mike.
+
+"No, we will play the fixture on our own ground. I think we may take it
+as tolerably certain that Comrade Spiller and his hired ruffians will
+try to corner us in the dormitory tonight. Well, of course, we could
+fake up some sort of barricade for the door, but then we should have all
+the trouble over again tomorrow and the day after that. Personally I
+don't propose to be chivied about indefinitely like this, so I propose
+that we let them come into the dormitory, and see what happens. Is this
+meeting with me?"
+
+"I think that's sound," said Mike. "We needn't drag Jellicoe into it."
+
+"As a matter of fact--if you don't mind ..." began that man of peace.
+
+"Quite right," said Psmith; "this is not Comrade Jellicoe's scene at
+all; he has got to spend the term in the senior day room, whereas we
+have our little wooden _chalet_ to retire to in times of stress. Comrade
+Jellicoe must stand out of the game altogether. We shall be glad of his
+moral support, but otherwise, _ne pas_. And now, as there won't be
+anything doing till bedtime, I think I'll collar this table and write
+home and tell my people that all is well with their Rupert."
+
+
+
+6
+
+UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
+
+
+Jellicoe, that human encyclopedia, consulted on the probable movements
+of the enemy, deposed that Spiller, retiring at ten, would make for
+Dormitory One in the same passage, where Robinson also had a bed. The
+rest of the opposing forces were distributed among other and more
+distant rooms. It was probable, therefore, that Dormitory One would be
+the rendezvous. As to the time when an attack might be expected, it was
+unlikely that it would occur before half past eleven. Mr. Outwood went
+the round of the dormitories at eleven.
+
+"And touching," said Psmith, "the matter of noise, must this business be
+conducted in a subdued and _sotto voce_ manner, or may we let ourselves
+go a bit here and there?"
+
+"I shouldn't think old Outwood's likely to hear you--he sleeps miles
+away on the other side of the house. He never hears anything. We often
+rag half the night and nothing happens."
+
+"This appears to be a thoroughly nice, well-conducted establishment.
+What would my mother say if she could see her Rupert in the midst of
+these reckless youths!"
+
+"All the better," said Mike; "we don't want anybody butting in and
+stopping the show before it's half started."
+
+"Comrade Jackson's berserk blood is up--I can hear it sizzling. I quite
+agree these things are all very disturbing and painful, but it's as well
+to do them thoroughly when one's once in for them. Is there nobody else
+who might interfere with our gambols?"
+
+"Barnes might," said Jellicoe, "only he won't."
+
+"Who is Barnes?"
+
+"Head of the house--a rotter. He's in a funk of Stone and Robinson; they
+rag him; he'll simply sit tight."
+
+"Then I think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very
+pleasant evening. Shall we be moving?"
+
+Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicoe, beaming
+vaguely into the darkness over a torch, and disappeared again,
+closing the door.
+
+"How about that door?" said Mike. "Shall we leave it open for them?"
+
+"Not so, but far otherwise. If it's shut we shall hear them at it when
+they come. Subject to your approval, Comrade Jackson, I have evolved the
+following plan of action. I always ask myself on these occasions, 'What
+would Napoleon have done?' I think Napoleon would have sat in a chair by
+his washhand stand, which is close to the door; he would have posted you
+by your washhand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicoe,
+directly he heard the door handle turned, to give his celebrated
+imitation of a dormitory breathing heavily in its sleep. He
+would then--"
+
+"I tell you what," said Mike, "How about tying a string at the top of
+the steps?"
+
+"Yes, Napoleon would have done that, too. Hats off to Comrade Jackson,
+the man with the big brain!"
+
+The floor of the dormitory was below the level of the door. There were
+three steps leading down to it. Psmith switched on his torch and they
+examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicoe's bed
+made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner
+across the lower step. Psmith surveyed the result with approval.
+
+"Dashed neat!" he said. "Practically the sunken road which dished the
+Cuirassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the
+finest purlers in the world's history."
+
+"If they've got a torch--"
+
+"They won't have. If they have, stand by and grab it at once; then
+they'll charge forward and all will be well. If they have no light, fire
+into the brown with a jug of water. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade
+Jellicoe's jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not
+be amiss--we will enmesh the enemy!"
+
+"Right ho!" said Mike.
+
+"These humane preparations being concluded," said Psmith, "we will
+retire to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicoe, don't forget to breathe
+like an asthmatic sheep when you hear the door opened; they may wait at
+the top of the steps, listening."
+
+"You _are_ a lad!" said Jellicoe.
+
+Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying
+experience, especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential.
+Mike was tired after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was
+jerked back to wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle;
+the faintest rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight
+giggle, succeeded by a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe,
+too, had heard the noise.
+
+There was a creaking sound.
+
+It was pitch-dark in the dormitory, but Mike could follow the invaders'
+movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened
+the door and were listening. Jellicoe's breathing grew more asthmatic;
+he was flinging himself into his part with the wholeheartedness of the
+true artist.
+
+The creak was followed by a sound of whispering, then another creak. The
+enemy had advanced to the top step.... Another creak.... The vanguard
+had reached the second step.... In another moment--
+
+CRASH!
+
+And at that point the proceedings may be said to have formally opened.
+
+A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair;
+he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the
+contents had got to the right address.
+
+Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing
+before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on
+the nose.
+
+Mike had not been well disposed toward the invaders before, but now he
+ran amok, hitting out right and left at random. His right missed, but
+his left went home hard on some portion of somebody's anatomy. A kick
+freed his ankle and he staggered to his feet. At the same moment a
+sudden increase in the general volume of noise spoke eloquently of good
+work that was being put in by Psmith.
+
+Even at that crisis, Mike could not help feeling that if a row of this
+caliber did not draw Mr. Outwood from his bed, he must be an unusual
+kind of housemaster.
+
+He plunged forward again with outstretched arms, and stumbled and fell
+over one of the on-the-floor section of the opposing force. They seized
+each other earnestly and rolled across the room till Mike, contriving to
+secure his adversary's head, bumped it on the floor with such abandon
+that, with a muffled yell, the other let go, and for the second time he
+rose. As he did so he was conscious of a curious thudding sound that
+made itself heard through the other assorted noises of the battle.
+
+All this time the fight had gone on in the blackest darkness, but now a
+light shone on the proceedings. Interested occupants of other
+dormitories, roused from their slumbers, had come to observe the sport.
+They had switched on the light and were crowding in the doorway.
+
+By the light of this Mike got a swift view of the theater of war. The
+enemy appeared to number five. The warrior whose head Mike had bumped on
+the floor was Robinson, who was sitting up feeling his skull in a
+gingerly fashion. To Mike's right, almost touching him, was Stone. In
+the direction of the door, Psmith, wielding in his right hand the cord
+of a dressing gown, was engaging the remaining three with a
+patient smile.
+
+They were clad in pajamas, and appeared to be feeling the dressing-gown
+cord acutely.
+
+The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first
+to recover, Mike, with a swing, upsetting Stone, and Psmith, having
+seized and emptied Jellicoe's jug over Spiller, getting to work again
+with the cord in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the
+spectators.
+
+Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Psmith's tactics. He was
+everywhere--on Mike's bed, on his own, on Jellicoe's (drawing a
+passionate complaint from that noncombatant, on whose face he
+inadvertently trod), on the floor--he ranged the room, sowing
+destruction.
+
+The enemy were disheartened; they had started with the idea that this
+was to be a surprise attack, and it was disconcerting to find the
+garrison armed at all points. Gradually they edged to the door, and a
+final rush sent them through.
+
+"Hold the door for a second," cried Psmith, and vanished. Mike was alone
+in the doorway.
+
+It was a situation which exactly suited his frame of mind; he stood
+alone in direct opposition to the community into which Fate had
+pitchforked him so abruptly. He liked the feeling; for the first time
+since his father had given him his views upon school reports that
+morning in the Easter holidays, he felt satisfied with life. He hoped,
+outnumbered as he was, that the enemy would come on again and not give
+the thing up in disgust; he wanted more.
+
+On an occasion like this there is rarely anything approaching concerted
+action on the part of the aggressors. When the attack came, it was not a
+combined attack; Stone, who was nearest to the door, made a sudden dash
+forward, and Mike hit him under the chin.
+
+Stone drew back, and there was another interval for rest and reflection.
+
+It was interrupted by the reappearance of Psmith, who strolled back
+along the passage swinging his dressing-gown cord as if it were some
+clouded cane.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, Comrade Jackson," he said politely. "Duty
+called me elsewhere. With the kindly aid of a guide who knows the lie of
+the land, I have been making a short tour of the dormitories. I have
+poured divers jugfuls of water over Comrade Spiller's bed, Comrade
+Robinson's bed, Comrade Stone's--Spiller, Spiller, these are harsh
+words; where you pick them up I can't think--not from me. Well, well, I
+suppose there must be an end to the pleasantest of functions. Good
+night, good night."
+
+The door closed behind Mike and himself. For ten minutes shufflings and
+whisperings went on in the corridor, but nobody touched the handle.
+
+Then there was a sound of retreating footsteps, and silence reigned.
+
+On the following morning there was a notice on the house board. It ran:
+
+  INDOOR GAMES
+
+  _Dormitory raiders are informed that in future neither Mr. Psmith
+  nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now
+  cease._
+
+  R. PSMITH.
+  M. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+7
+
+ADAIR
+
+
+On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time.
+
+He was going across to school with Psmith and Jellicoe, when a group of
+three came out of the gate of the house next door.
+
+"That's Adair," said Jellicoe, "in the middle."
+
+His voice had assumed a tone almost of awe.
+
+"Who's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Captain of cricket, and lots of other things."
+
+Mike could only see the celebrity's back. He had broad shoulders and
+wiry, light hair, almost white. He walked well, as if he were used to
+running. Altogether a fit-looking sort of man. Even Mike's jaundiced
+eye saw that.
+
+As a matter of fact, Adair deserved more than a casual glance. He was
+that rare type, the natural leader. Many boys and men, if accident, or
+the passage of time, places them in a position where they are expected
+to lead, can handle the job without disaster; but that is a very
+different thing from being a born leader. Adair was of the sort that
+comes to the top by sheer force of character and determination. He was
+not naturally clever at work, but he had gone at it with a dogged
+resolution which had carried him up the school, and landed him high in
+the Sixth. As a cricketer he was almost entirely self-taught. Nature had
+given him a good eye, and left the thing at that. Adair's doggedness had
+triumphed over her failure to do her work thoroughly. At the cost of
+more trouble than most people give to their life work he had made
+himself into a bowler. He read the authorities, and watched first-class
+players, and thought the thing out on his own account, and he divided
+the art of bowling into three sections. First, and most
+important--pitch. Second on the list--break. Third--pace. He set himself
+to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling at his own pace and without
+any attempt at break, he could now drop the ball on an envelope seven
+times out of ten.
+
+Break was a more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the
+expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could
+get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything
+but a plumb wicket.
+
+Running he had acquired in a similar manner. He had nothing approaching
+style, but he had twice won the mile and half mile at the Sports off
+elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the
+sprints and all the rest of it.
+
+Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.
+
+A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public
+school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a
+small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before
+him. There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of
+them in all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been
+influenced by Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the
+effects of his work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature
+to want to get something which somebody else obviously values very much;
+and when it was observed by members of his form that Adair was going to
+great trouble and inconvenience to secure a place in the form eleven or
+fifteen, they naturally began to think, too, that it was worth being in
+those teams. The consequence was that his form always played hard. This
+made other forms play hard. And the net result was that, when Adair
+succeeded to the captaincy of Rugger and cricket in the same year,
+Sedleigh, as Mr. Downing, Adair's housemaster and the nearest approach
+to a cricket master that Sedleigh possessed, had a fondness for saying,
+was a keen school. As a whole, it both worked and played with energy.
+
+All it wanted now was opportunity.
+
+This Adair was determined to give it. He had that passionate fondness
+for his school which every boy is popularly supposed to have, but which
+really is implanted in about one in every thousand. The average
+public-school boy _likes_ his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at
+Rugger and Malvern at cricket, but he rather bets it won't. He is sorry
+to leave, and he likes going back at the end of the holidays, but as for
+any passionate, deep-seated love of the place, he would think it rather
+bad form than otherwise. If anybody came up to him, slapped him on the
+back, and cried, "Come along, Jenkins, my boy! Play up for the old
+school, Jenkins! The dear old school! The old place you love so!" he
+would feel seriously ill.
+
+Adair was the exception.
+
+To Adair, Sedleigh was almost a religion. Both his parents were dead;
+his guardian, with whom he spent the holidays, was a man with neuralgia
+at one end of him and gout at the other; and the only really pleasant
+times Adair had had, as far back as he could remember, he owed to
+Sedleigh. The place had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike,
+violently transplanted from Wrykyn, saw only a wretched little hole not
+to be mentioned in the same breath with Wrykyn, Adair, dreaming of the
+future, saw a colossal establishment, a public school among public
+schools, a lump of human radium, shooting out Blues and Balliol Scholars
+year after year without ceasing.
+
+It would not be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did
+not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not
+want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow,
+keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it
+should take its rank among _the_ schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan
+should be a badge passing its owner everywhere.
+
+"He's captain of cricket and Rugger," said Jellicoe impressively. "He's
+in the shooting eight. He's won the mile and half mile two years
+running. He would have boxed at Aldershot last term, only he sprained
+his wrist. And he plays fives jolly well!"
+
+"Sort of little tin god," said Mike, taking a violent dislike to Adair
+from that moment.
+
+Mike's actual acquaintance with this all-round man dated from the dinner
+hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Psmith. Psmith was a
+little ruffled on account of a slight passage-of-arms he had had with
+his form master during morning school.
+
+"'There's a P before the Smith,' I said to him. 'Ah, P. Smith, I see,'
+replied the goat. 'Not Peasmith,' I replied, exercising wonderful
+self-restraint, 'just Psmith.' It took me ten minutes to drive the thing
+into the man's head; and when I _had_ driven it in, he sent me out of
+the room for looking at him through my eyeglass. Comrade Jackson, I fear
+me we have fallen among bad men. I suspect that we are going to be much
+persecuted by scoundrels."
+
+"Both you chaps play cricket, I suppose?"
+
+They turned. It was Adair. Seeing him face to face, Mike was aware of a
+pair of very bright blue eyes and a square jaw. In any other place and
+mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however, against
+all things Sedleighan was too much for him. "I don't," he said shortly.
+
+"Haven't you _ever_ played?"
+
+"My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home."
+
+Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his numerous
+qualities.
+
+"Oh," he said. "Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind turning out this
+afternoon and seeing what you can do with a hard ball--if you can manage
+without your little sister."
+
+"I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
+hers. But I don't happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told you."
+
+Adair's jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
+
+Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
+
+"My dear old comrades," he said, "Don't let us brawl over this matter.
+This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
+smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson and
+myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare of our
+National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to be the
+Young Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you are
+being carried back to the pavilion after your century against
+Loamshire--do you play Loamshire?--we shall be grubbing in the hard
+ground for ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty,
+Comrade Adair. A Boy's Crossroads."
+
+"Then you won't play?"
+
+"No," said Mike.
+
+"Archaeology," said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "will
+brook no divided allegiance from her devotees."
+
+Adair turned, and walked on.
+
+Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the
+same question.
+
+"Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
+
+It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a
+general resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable
+bullfinch.
+
+"I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every
+new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We
+want keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy
+to be keen."
+
+"We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor.
+
+"Excellent."
+
+"On archaeology."
+
+Mr. Downing--for it was no less a celebrity--started, as one who
+perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
+
+"Archaeology!"
+
+"We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
+passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we
+went singing about the house."
+
+"I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys," said Mr. Downing vehemently.
+"I don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to
+interfere with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly
+that in my opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets
+him into idle, loafing habits."
+
+"I never loaf, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the
+principle of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other
+boys, not wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and
+going into low public houses."
+
+"A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here," sighed
+Psmith, shaking his head.
+
+"If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can't hinder you. But in
+my opinion it is foolery, nothing else."
+
+He stumped off.
+
+"Now _he's_ cross," said Psmith, looking after him. "I'm afraid we're
+getting ourselves disliked here."
+
+"Good job, too."
+
+"At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let's go on and see what sort of
+a lunch that large-hearted fossil fancier is going to give us."
+
+
+
+8
+
+MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
+
+
+There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
+Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
+with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realize the eternal truth
+of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first flush of his
+resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to play cricket.
+And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a game. An innings
+for a Kindergarten _v_. the Second Eleven of a Home of Rest for
+Centenarians would have soothed him. There were times, when the sun
+shone, and he caught sight of white flannels on a green ground, and
+heard the "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt like rushing to
+Adair and shouting, "I _will_ be good. I was in the Wrykyn team three
+years, and had an average of over fifty the last two seasons. Lead me to
+the nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my hands again."
+
+But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.
+
+What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets once
+or twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of the
+game which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers do
+not make good cricket. They only make the presence of good cricketers
+more likely, by the law of averages.
+
+Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
+Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a
+Burgess, but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three
+years' experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He
+was a long way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and the
+others who had taken wickets for Wrykyn.
+
+The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
+Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
+Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth--not unlike
+what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy--but he knew how to keep balls
+out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding type.
+
+Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now treated
+Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair
+batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.
+
+There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.
+
+Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star
+at Wrykyn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did not
+repeat the experiment.
+
+It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school. The day was warm, but
+freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze. The air was full of the
+scent of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets. This
+is the real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of
+the game.
+
+Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.
+
+He went up to Adair.
+
+"May I have an innings at this net?" he asked. He was embarrassed and
+nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that his
+manner was offensively abrupt.
+
+Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. "This
+net," it may be observed, was the first eleven net.
+
+"What?" he said.
+
+Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased
+embarrassment.
+
+"This is the first eleven net," said Adair coldly. "Go in after Lodge
+over there."
+
+"Over there" was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a
+corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as
+if he were taking his first lesson at the game.
+
+Mike walked away without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with
+them the privilege of listening to Psmith's views of life, proved but a
+poor substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counterattraction
+shouting to him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them
+hugely, but Mike almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not always
+possible to slip away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked
+upon them as among the very faithful, and kept them by his side.
+
+Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow "sicklied o'er
+with the pale cast of care." But Psmith followed his leader with the
+pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him
+round the garden. Psmith's attitude toward archaeological research
+struck a new note in the history of that neglected science. He was
+amiable, but patronizing. He patronized fossils, and he patronized
+ruins. If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would have
+patronized that.
+
+He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.
+
+That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved in the third
+expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an
+old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.
+
+"Having inspired confidence," he said, "by the docility of our demeanor,
+let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps, to be
+absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see another
+putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a man may
+lie on his back for a bit."
+
+Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long
+since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they
+strolled away down the hill.
+
+Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.
+Their departure had passed unnoticed.
+
+"A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementos of the past," said
+Psmith. "And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine
+are like some furrowed field. It's a great grief to a man of refinement,
+I can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely spot."
+
+They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the farther end
+there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound
+over pebbles.
+
+"Thus far," said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and
+sitting down, "and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to
+the music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to
+say, I rather think I'll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these
+naps by the wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour." And
+Psmith, heaving the comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has
+earned rest, lay down, with his head against a mossy tree stump, and
+closed his eyes.
+
+Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making
+centuries in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up,
+jumped the brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.
+
+He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the
+undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.
+
+Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when
+you meet a dog in someone else's wood, it is as well not to stop in
+order that you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread
+his way back through the trees.
+
+He was too late.
+
+"Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?" shouted a voice behind him.
+
+In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on,
+and trusted to speed to save him. But now there seemed a lack of dignity
+in the action. He came back to where the man was standing.
+
+"I'm sorry if I'm trespassing," he said. "I was just having a look
+round."
+
+"The dickens you--Why, you're Jackson!"
+
+Mike looked at him. He was a short, broad young man with a fair
+moustache. Mike knew that he had seen him before somewhere, but he could
+not place him.
+
+"I played against you, for the Free Foresters last summer. In passing
+you seem to be a bit of a free forester yourself, dancing in among my
+nesting pheasants."
+
+"I'm frightfully sorry."
+
+"That's all right. Where do you spring from?"
+
+"Of course--I remember you now. You're Prendergast. You made fifty-eight
+not out."
+
+"Thanks. I was afraid the only thing you would remember about me was
+that you took a century mostly off my bowling."
+
+"You ought to have had me second ball, only cover dropped it."
+
+"Don't rake up forgotten tragedies. How is it you're not at Wrykyn? What
+are you doing down here?"
+
+"I've left Wrykyn."
+
+Prendergast suddenly changed the conversation. When a fellow tells you
+that he has left school unexpectedly, it is not always tactful to
+inquire the reason. He began to talk about himself.
+
+"I hang out down here. I do a little farming and a good deal of
+puttering about."
+
+"Get any cricket?" asked Mike, turning to the subject next his heart.
+
+"Only village. Very keen, but no great shakes. By the way, how are you
+off for cricket now? Have you ever got a spare afternoon?"
+
+Mike's heart leaped.
+
+"Any Wednesday or Saturday. Look here, I'll tell you how it is."
+
+And he told how matters stood with him.
+
+"So, you see," he concluded, "I'm supposed to be hunting for ruins and
+things"--Mike's ideas on the subject of archaeology were vague--"but I
+could always slip away. We all start out together, but I could nip back,
+get onto my bike--I've got it down here--and meet you anywhere you
+liked. By Jove, I'm simply dying for a game. I can hardly keep my hands
+off a bat."
+
+"I'll give you all you want. What you'd better do is to ride straight to
+Lower Borlock--that's the name of the place--and I'll meet you on the
+ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlock is. It's just off the
+London road. There's a signpost where you turn off. Can you come next
+Saturday?"
+
+"Rather. I suppose you can fix me up with a bat and pads? I don't want
+to bring mine."
+
+"I'll lend you everything. I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn
+wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
+
+"I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and
+told the news.
+
+"I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a
+soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to
+play for the school."
+
+"My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike,
+but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports.
+I'll borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
+Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a
+newcomer to the team, M. Jackson.
+
+
+
+9
+
+THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
+
+
+Cricket is the great safety valve. If you like the game, and are in a
+position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
+gray. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
+fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted
+it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very decent
+substitute.
+
+The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
+Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
+arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form master to get on with,
+proved more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.
+
+They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it
+grew with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a
+master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his
+official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes.
+To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing for
+the school and apparently had none of the healthy instincts which should
+be implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the
+healthy boy.
+
+The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at intervals
+by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to play some
+unskilled laborer in place of their star batsman, employed doing
+"overtime."
+
+One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that
+it was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had to
+do with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.
+
+It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under Mr.
+Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the apple
+of his eye.
+
+Just as you had to join the Archaeological Society to secure the esteem
+of Mr. Outwood, so to become a member of the Fire Brigade was a safe
+passport to the regard of Mr. Downing. To show a keenness for cricket
+was good, but to join the Fire Brigade was best of all.
+
+The Brigade was carefully organized. At its head was Mr. Downing, a sort
+of high priest; under him was a captain, and under the captain a
+vice-captain. These two officials were those sportive allies, Stone and
+Robinson, of Outwood's house, who, having perceived at a very early date
+the gorgeous opportunities for ragging which the Brigade offered to its
+members, had joined young and worked their way up.
+
+Under them were the rank and file, about thirty in all, of whom perhaps
+seven were earnest workers, who looked on the Brigade in the right, or
+Downing, spirit. The rest were entirely frivolous.
+
+The weekly meetings were always full of life and excitement.
+
+At this point it is as well to introduce Sammy to the reader.
+
+Sammy, short for Sampson, was a young bull terrier belonging to Mr.
+Downing. If it is possible for a man to have two apples of his eye,
+Sammy was the other. He was a large, lighthearted dog with a white coat,
+an engaging expression, the tongue of an anteater, and a manner which
+was a happy blend of hurricane and circular saw. He had long legs, a
+tenor voice, and was apparently made of India rubber.
+
+Sammy was a great favorite in the school, and a particular friend of
+Mike's, the Wrykynian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after
+two minutes' acquaintance.
+
+In passing, Jellicoe owned a clockwork rat, much in request during
+French lessons.
+
+We will now proceed to the painful details.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meetings of the Fire Brigade were held after school in Mr. Downing's
+form room. The proceedings always began in the same way, by the reading
+of the minutes of the last meeting. After that the entertainment varied
+according to whether the members happened to be fertile or not in ideas
+for the disturbing of the peace.
+
+Today they were in very fair form.
+
+As soon as Mr. Downing had closed the minute book, Wilson, of the School
+House, held up his hand.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, couldn't we have a uniform for the Brigade?"
+
+"A uniform?" Mr. Downing pondered.
+
+"Red, with green stripes, sir."
+
+Red, with a thin green stripe, was the Sedleigh color.
+
+"Shall I put it to the vote, sir?" asked Stone.
+
+"One moment, Stone."
+
+"Those in favor of the motion move to the left, those against it to the
+right."
+
+A scuffling of feet, a slamming of desk lids and an upset blackboard,
+and the meeting had divided.
+
+Mr. Downing rapped irritably on his desk.
+
+"Sit down!" he said. "Sit down! I won't have this noise and disturbance.
+Stone, sit down--Wilson, get back to your place."
+
+"Please, sir, the motion is carried by twenty-five votes to six."
+
+"Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening?"
+
+"Please, sir--"
+
+"Si-_lence!_ The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the question."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"Be _quiet!_ Entirely out of the question. We cannot plunge into
+needless expense. Stone, listen to me. I cannot have this noise and
+disturbance! Another time when a point arises it must be settled by a
+show of hands. Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Very useful as a protection against falling timbers, sir," said
+Robinson.
+
+"I don't think my people would be pleased, sir, if they knew I was going
+out to fires without a helmet," said Stone.
+
+The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
+
+"Those in favor ..." began Stone.
+
+Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets
+are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
+
+"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
+
+"But, sir, the danger!"
+
+"Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
+
+The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of
+man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as
+the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant.
+
+"Silence!"
+
+"Then, please, sir, couldn't we have an honor cap? It wouldn't be
+expensive, and it would be just as good as a helmet for all the timbers
+that are likely to fall on our heads."
+
+Mr. Downing smiled a wry smile.
+
+"Our Wilson is facetious," he remarked frostily.
+
+"Sir, no, sir! I wasn't facetious! Or couldn't we have tasseled caps
+like the first fifteen have? They--"
+
+"Wilson, leave the room!"
+
+"Sir, _please_, sir!"
+
+"This moment, Wilson. And," as he reached the door, "do me one hundred
+lines."
+
+A pained "OO-oo-oo, sir-r-r," was cut off by the closing door.
+
+Mr. Downing proceeded to improve the occasion. "I deplore this growing
+spirit of flippancy," he said. "I tell you I deplore it! It is not
+right! If this Fire Brigade is to be of solid use, there must be less of
+this flippancy. We must have keenness. I want you boys above all to be
+keen. I...? What is that noise?"
+
+From the other side of the door proceeded a sound like water gurgling
+from a bottle, mingled with cries half suppressed, as if somebody were
+being prevented from uttering them by a hand laid over his mouth. The
+sufferer appeared to have a high voice.
+
+There was a tap at the door and Mike walked in. He was not alone. Those
+near enough to see, saw that he was accompanied by Jellicoe's clockwork
+rat, which moved rapidly over the floor in the direction of the
+opposite wall.
+
+"May I fetch a book from my desk, sir?" asked Mike.
+
+"Very well--be quick, Jackson; we are busy."
+
+Being interrupted in one of his addresses to the Brigade irritated Mr.
+Downing.
+
+The muffled cries grew more distinct.
+
+"What ... is ... that ... noise?" shrilled Mr. Downing.
+
+"Noise, sir?" asked Mike, puzzled.
+
+"I think it's something outside the window, sir," said Stone helpfully.
+
+"A bird, I think, sir," said Robinson.
+
+"Don't be absurd!" snapped Mr. Downing. "It's outside the door. Wilson!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" said a voice "off."
+
+"Are you making that whining noise?"
+
+"Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I'm not making a whining noise."
+
+"What _sort_ of noise, sir?" inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians had asked
+before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in just such a
+case as this.
+
+"I do not propose," said Mr. Downing acidly, "to imitate the noise; you
+can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise."
+
+"They are mowing the cricket field, sir," said the invisible Wilson.
+"Perhaps that's it."
+
+"It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir," put in Stone. "They do
+sometimes."
+
+"Or somebody's shoes, sir," added Robinson.
+
+"Silence! Wilson?"
+
+"Yes, sir?" bellowed the unseen one.
+
+"Don't shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in."
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor
+shrieks, and the India-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like
+an excited kangaroo.
+
+Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the wall
+to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alleyway between
+the two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was just in
+time to see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and begin
+worrying it.
+
+Chaos reigned.
+
+"A rat!" shouted Robinson.
+
+The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly
+dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to him.
+Some leaped onto forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was a
+stirring, bustling scene.
+
+Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now
+standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.
+
+The banging on Mr. Downing's desk resembled thunder. It rose above all
+the other noises till in time they gave up the competition and
+died away.
+
+Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity of
+a Bren gun.
+
+"Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down you will be severely
+punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder! Windham, the
+same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton-Knight? I
+will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder! The meeting is at an
+end; go quietly from the room, all of you. Jackson and Wilson, remain.
+_Quietly_, I said, Durand! Don't shuffle your feet in that
+abominable way."
+
+Crash!
+
+"Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a movement
+of your hand--one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room, everybody."
+
+The meeting dispersed.
+
+"Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
+conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."
+
+Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.
+
+"Well, Wilson?"
+
+"Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat--"
+
+"What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"
+
+"Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk,
+so I came in--"
+
+"And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
+"the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came
+in, too."
+
+"I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."
+
+"I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to
+let him go, and he came in after the rat."
+
+It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
+both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr.
+Downing liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade,
+frivolous at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept
+wicket for the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society,
+and had refused to play cricket.
+
+Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.
+
+"One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."
+
+Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun,
+and paid very little for it.
+
+Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
+Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
+it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend
+their time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen
+school; this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time.
+That will do, Jackson."
+
+And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
+has a habit of getting the last word.
+
+
+
+10
+
+ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
+
+
+They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
+wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
+room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
+
+When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and
+borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as
+something of a blow.
+
+"What on earth for?" asked Mike.
+
+"I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody.
+The fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."
+
+"Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a
+quid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have
+got, so don't be shy about paying it back."
+
+Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
+gratitude.
+
+Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
+meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
+Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
+ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he
+was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to
+Jellicoe--why on earth did the man want all that?--meant that, unless a
+carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the desired
+effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
+
+In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
+regularly for the Varsity this season, and only the previous week had
+made a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a
+sufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be
+stated at once, he did, by return of post.)
+
+Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter--he was
+never a very ready writer--when Stone and Robinson burst into the room.
+
+Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and welcomed
+the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they should have it.
+
+But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone beamed.
+Robinson was laughing.
+
+"You're a sportsman," said Robinson.
+
+"What did he give you?" asked Stone.
+
+They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith's deck chair.
+Mike's heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory was
+a thing of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with Julius
+Caesar. He felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know and
+appreciate one another.
+
+There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
+Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
+public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain.
+They had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal spirits.
+They looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging. The Stones
+and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world. They go about,
+loud and boisterous, with a wholehearted and cheerful indifference to
+other people's feelings, treading on the toes of their neighbor 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 father 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 teacup.
+
+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 Lower 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. Tomorrow'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's 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
+naught 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 tomorrow?"
+
+"Rather," said Mike. "Thanks awfully. Have some tea?"
+
+
+
+11
+
+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 noncricketing 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 imperiling 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 today. 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
+groundsman 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 neighboring 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 groundsman. 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 changing 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 wicket. 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
+today, 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 facts in Mike's case had gone around 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 vigor of a cakewalk. The ball, when
+delivered, was billed to break from leg, but the program 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. Halfway 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-cakewalk, 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 installment system by helpers from other games,
+and the bowler began his maneuvers 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 vigor. 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 neighborhood 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 lunchtime 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.
+
+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 tomorrow?" 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 favoritism.
+And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he favors and not merely
+individuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other
+houses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, 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 Scot, 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 toward 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 gray 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 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 L5, 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
+gate. The school clock struck the quarter.
+
+It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to wait
+for him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half an
+hour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
+
+He walked in that direction.
+
+Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by the
+news, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior members
+of Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms of
+acute illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasy
+in the event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to get
+jumpy beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong with
+MacPhee, as a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the direct
+and legitimate result of eating six buns, half a coconut, three
+doughnuts, two ices, an apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing the
+lot down with tea. But Mr. Downing saw in his attack the beginnings of
+some deadly scourge which would sweep through and decimate the house. He
+had dispatched Adair for the doctor, and, after spending a few minutes
+prowling restlessly about his room, was now standing at his front gate,
+waiting for Adair's return.
+
+It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the direction
+of home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated by
+being hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you,
+Adair?" The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
+
+Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow--a
+flying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed to
+grasp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?
+Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian at
+an extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being a
+sprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and,
+if Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over in
+the first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, kept
+ahead. At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards.
+The procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before for
+the pavilion.
+
+As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which he
+was accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash of
+it which had ever illumined his life.
+
+It was this.
+
+One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade at
+Sedleigh, had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed into
+the school officially--in speeches from the dais--by the headmaster, and
+unofficially--in earnest private conversations--by Mr. Downing, that at
+the sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every member
+of the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way, and
+make for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, or
+it might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, the
+school had its orders--to get out into the open at once.
+
+Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at this
+feat. Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the board
+to the effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour that
+day. Sometimes the performance was bright and interesting, as on the
+occasion when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, had
+said, "My house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" which
+the Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastened
+the hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr.
+Downing having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), and
+poured a stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at liberty
+to turn his attention to the matter, he found that the room selected was
+his private study, most of the light furniture of which was floating in
+a miniature lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion for
+realism, and fire drill since then had taken the form, for the most
+part, of "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes,
+kept in the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of the
+dormitory would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the other
+end being fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, using
+his elbows as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, and
+these two, standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that the
+rest of the dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, except
+to their digestions.
+
+After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had taken
+a rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulation
+among them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmaster
+to allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. The
+headmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary for
+the growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficient
+unto the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were to
+ring at night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuine
+alarm of fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
+
+So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
+
+The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. The
+end of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway up
+the wall.
+
+Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flash
+that his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake his
+pursuer off for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to the
+rope and tug it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them,
+and in the subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
+
+The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of the
+chase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in the
+strictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for any
+length of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?
+Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend in
+the Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He rounded
+the pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he put
+all he knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to the
+effort. He worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mike
+reached the gate, a good forty yards separated them.
+
+As far as Mike could judge--he was not in a condition to make nice
+calculations--he had about four seconds in which to get busy with that
+bell rope.
+
+Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four seconds
+than he did then.
+
+The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and the
+first clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders falling
+from a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eye
+on the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of the
+housemaster.
+
+And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum,
+as if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
+
+The school was awake.
+
+
+
+17
+
+THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
+
+
+Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece in the senior day room at
+Outwood's--since Mike's innings against Downing's the Lost Lambs had
+been received as brothers by the center of disorder, so that even
+Spiller was compelled to look on the hatchet as buried--and gave his
+views on the events of the preceding night, or, rather, of that morning,
+for it was nearer one than twelve when peace had once more fallen on
+the school.
+
+"Nothing that happens in this loony bin," said Psmith, "has power to
+surprise me now. There was a time when I might have thought it a little
+unusual to have to leave the house through a canvas chute at one o'clock
+in the morning, but I suppose it's quite the regular thing here. Old
+school tradition, etc. Men leave the school, and find that they've got
+so accustomed to jumping out of windows that they look on it as a sort
+of affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of you merchants
+can give me any idea when the next knockabout entertainment of this kind
+is likely to take place?"
+
+"I wonder who rang that bell!" said Stone. "Jolly sporting idea."
+
+"I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he's satisfied."
+
+Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked
+meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare. Mike
+had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr. Barley at
+the White Boar, and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter of wrath
+against the practical joker, was now in a particular lighthearted mood.
+He hobbled about, giggling at nothing and at peace with all the world.
+
+"It was a stirring scene," said Psmith. "The agility with which Comrade
+Jellicoe boosted himself down the chute was a triumph of mind over
+matter. He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing to a
+Boneless Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen."
+
+"I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you."
+
+Stone gurgled.
+
+"So was I," he said, "for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a rag,
+I began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I emptied
+about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window."
+
+"I rushed into Downing's, and ragged some of the beds," said Robinson.
+
+"It was an invigorating time," said Psmith. "A sort of pageant. I was
+particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold of
+the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain
+knowledge, went down the chute a dozen times. There's nothing like doing
+a thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be saved
+again, time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I should say
+Comrade Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state of efficiency
+to which he has brought us. At any rate I hope--"
+
+There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a
+member of the senior day room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.
+
+"I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?"
+
+"Seen who?" said Stone. "Sammy? Why?"
+
+"You'll know in a second. He's just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!
+Sam! Sam!"
+
+A bark and a patter of feet outside.
+
+"Come on, Sammy. Good dog."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst forth.
+Even Psmith's massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he sobbed
+in a corner.
+
+Sammy's beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick
+covering of bright-red paint. His head, with the exception of the ears,
+was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to emphasise the
+weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway, barking and
+wagging his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was a popular
+dog, and was always well received when he visited any of the houses, but
+he had never before met with enthusiasm like this.
+
+"Good old Sammy!"
+
+"What on earth's been happening to him?"
+
+"Who did it?"
+
+Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.
+
+"I found him outside Downing's, with a crowd round him. Everybody seems
+to have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him up
+like that!"
+
+Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.
+
+"Poor old Sammy," he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim, and
+scratching him under the ear. "What a beastly shame! It'll take hours to
+wash all that off him, and he'll hate it."
+
+"It seems to me," said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through
+his eyeglass, "that it's not a case for mere washing. They'll either
+have to skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great
+Healer. In a year or two he'll fade to a delicate pink. I don't see why
+you shouldn't have a pink bull terrier. It would lend a touch of
+distinction to the place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see
+him. By charging a small fee you might make him self-supporting. I think
+I'll suggest it to Comrade Downing."
+
+"There'll be a row about this," said Stone.
+
+"Rows are rather sport when you're not mixed up in them," said Robinson,
+philosophically. "There'll be another if we don't start off for chapel
+soon. It's a quarter to."
+
+There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he was
+going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday, owing
+to his ankle.
+
+"I say," said Jellicoe, "I just wanted to thank you again about that--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right."
+
+"No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into a
+frightful row. Were you nearly caught?"
+
+"Jolly nearly."
+
+"It _was_ you who rang the bell, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it was. But for goodness' sake don't go gassing about it, or
+somebody will get to hear who oughtn't to, and I shall be sacked."
+
+"All right. But, I say, you _are_ a chap!"
+
+"What's the matter now?"
+
+"I mean about Sammy, you know. It's a jolly good score off old Downing.
+He'll be frightfully sick."
+
+"Sammy!" cried Mike. "My good man, you don't think I did that, do you?
+What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Jellicoe. "But I wasn't going to tell anyone, of
+course."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You _are_ a chap!" giggled Jellicoe.
+
+Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+18
+
+MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
+
+
+There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the
+junior day room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was
+boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was
+seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down at
+the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his
+reason for one second as a drowning man clutches at a life belt.
+
+Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.
+
+"Who--" he shouted, "WHO has done this?"
+
+"Please, sir, we don't know," shrilled the chorus.
+
+"Please, sir, he came in like that."
+
+"Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red."
+
+A voice from the crowd: "Look at old Sammy!"
+
+The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could not
+find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The possibility of
+Sammy being painted red during the night had never occurred to Mr.
+Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no scheme of action.
+As Psmith would have said, he had confused the unusual with the
+impossible, and the result was that he was taken by surprise.
+
+While he was pondering on this, the situation was rendered still more
+difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open,
+escaped and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all
+and sundry. You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to
+your own premises, but once it has mixed with the great public, this
+becomes out of the question. Sammy's state advanced from a private
+trouble into a row. Mr. Downing's next move was in the same direction
+that Sammy had taken, only, instead of running about the road, he went
+straight to the headmaster.
+
+The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his
+pajamas and a dressing gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a
+cold in the head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in
+spite of his strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous
+night in order to test the efficiency of the school in saving themselves
+in the event of fire. He received the housemaster frostily, but thawed
+as the latter related the events which had led up to the ringing of
+the bell.
+
+"Dear me!" he said, deeply interested. "One of the boys at the school,
+you think?"
+
+"I am certain of it," said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Was he wearing a school cap?"
+
+"He was bareheaded. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would
+hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap."
+
+"No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?"
+
+"Very big."
+
+"You did not see his face?"
+
+"It was dark and he never looked back--he was in front of me all the
+time."
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+"There is another matter ..."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the
+bell--he had painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He--he--_what_, Mr.
+Downing?"
+
+"He painted my dog red--bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
+anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been
+wounded in his tenderest feelings, his Fire Brigade system had been most
+shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of
+a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to
+ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile; he wanted revenge.
+
+The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his
+dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him there
+was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a red dog.
+
+"It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the
+boy who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall
+after chapel."
+
+Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal
+to come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the
+school, with the exception of Johnson III, of Outwood's, who, suddenly
+reminded of Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words, broke into a
+wild screech of laughter, and was instantly awarded two hundred lines.
+
+The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr.
+Downing was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal
+discovered, he would have to discover him for himself.
+
+The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and
+Fate, feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing,
+gave him a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a
+needle in a haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of
+being set to find it in a mere truss of straw.
+
+It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the
+archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at
+close on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,
+attempting to get into his house _via_ the water pipe. Mr. Outwood,
+whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention
+cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent minded
+politeness and passed on. Later he remembered the fact apropos of some
+reflections on the subject of burglars in medieval England, and passed
+it on to Mr. Downing as they walked back to lunch.
+
+"Then the boy was in your house!" exclaimed Mr. Downing.
+
+"Not actually in, as far as I understand. I gather from the sergeant
+that he interrupted him before--"
+
+"I mean he must have been one of the boys in your house."
+
+"But what was he doing out at that hour?"
+
+"He had broken out."
+
+"Impossible, I think. Oh yes, quite impossible! I went around the
+dormitories as usual at eleven o'clock last night, and all the boys were
+asleep--all of them."
+
+Mr. Downing was not listening. He was in a state of suppressed
+excitement and exultation, which made it hard for him to attend to his
+colleague's slow utterances. He had a clue! Now that the search had
+narrowed itself down to Outwood's house, the rest was comparatively
+easy. Perhaps Sergeant Collard had actually recognized the boy. On
+reflection he dismissed this as unlikely, for the sergeant would
+scarcely have kept a thing like that to himself; but he might very well
+have seen more of him than he, Downing, had seen. It was only with an
+effort that he could keep himself from rushing to the sergeant then and
+there, and leaving the house lunch to look after itself. He resolved to
+go the moment that meal was at an end.
+
+Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest
+functions in existence. It drags its slow length along like a languid
+snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting
+still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second
+helping, found himself at liberty.
+
+Regardless of the claims of digestion, he rushed forth on the trail.
+
+Sergeant Collard lived with his wife and a family of unknown dimensions
+in the lodge at the school front gate. Dinner was just over when Mr.
+Downing arrived, as a blind man could have told.
+
+The sergeant received his visitor with dignity, ejecting the family, who
+were torpid after roast beef and resented having to move, in order to
+ensure privacy.
+
+Having requested his host to smoke, which the latter was about to do
+unasked, Mr. Downing stated his case.
+
+"Mr. Outwood," he said, "tells me that last night, Sergeant, you saw a
+boy endeavoring to enter his house."
+
+The sergeant blew a cloud of smoke. "Oo-oo-oo, yer," he said; "I did,
+sir--spotted 'im, I did. Feeflee good at spottin', I am, sir. Dook of
+Connaught, he used to say, ''Ere comes Sergeant Collard,' 'e used to
+say, ''e's feeflee good at spottin'.'"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Do? Oo-oo-oo! I shouts 'Oo-oo-oo yer, yer young monkey, what yer doin'
+there?'"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But 'e was off in a flash, and I doubles after 'im prompt."
+
+"But you didn't catch him?"
+
+"No, sir," admitted the sergeant reluctantly.
+
+"Did you catch sight of his face, Sergeant?"
+
+"No, sir, 'e was doublin' away in the opposite direction."
+
+"Did you notice anything at all about his appearance?"
+
+"'E was a long young chap, sir, with a pair of legs on him--feeflee fast
+'e run, sir. Oo-oo-oo, feeflee!"
+
+"You noticed nothing else?"
+
+"'E wasn't wearing no cap of any sort, sir."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Bare'eaded, sir," added the sergeant, rubbing the point in.
+
+"It was undoubtedly the same boy, undoubtedly! I wish you could have
+caught a glimpse of his face, Sergeant."
+
+"So do I, sir."
+
+"You would not be able to recognize him again if you saw him, you
+think?"
+
+"Oo-oo-oo! Wouldn't go as far as to say that, sir, 'cos yer see, I'm
+feeflee good at spottin', but it was a dark night."
+
+Mr. Downing rose to go.
+
+"Well," he said, "the search is now considerably narrowed down,
+considerably! It is certain that the boy was one of the boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house."
+
+"Young monkeys!" interjected the sergeant helpfully
+
+"Good afternoon, Sergeant."
+
+"Good afternoon to you, sir."
+
+"Pray do not move, Sergeant."
+
+The sergeant had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything
+of the kind.
+
+"I will find my way out. Very hot today, is it not?"
+
+"Feeflee warm, sir; weather's goin' to break' workin' up for thunder."
+
+"I hope not. The school plays the M.C.C. on Wednesday, and it would be a
+pity if rain were to spoil our first fixture with them. Good afternoon."
+
+And Mr. Downing went out into the baking sunlight, while Sergeant
+Collard, having requested Mrs. Collard to take the children out for a
+walk at once, and furthermore to give young Ernie a clip side of the
+'ead, if he persisted in making so much noise, put a handkerchief over
+his face, rested his feet on the table, and slept the sleep of the just.
+
+
+
+19
+
+THE SLEUTH-HOUND
+
+
+For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock
+Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must be, to a very
+large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue
+from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar ash. But Doctor Watson has got
+to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a
+label attached.
+
+The average man is a Doctor Watson. We are wont to scoff in a
+patronizing manner at that humbler follower of the great investigator,
+but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves. We
+should not even have risen to the modest level of a Scotland Yard
+bungler. We should simply have hung around, saying: "My dear Holmes,
+how...?" and all the rest of it, just as the downtrodden medico did.
+
+It is not often that the ordinary person has any need to see what he can
+do in the way of detection. He gets along very comfortably in the
+humdrum round of life without having to measure footprints and smile
+quiet, tight-lipped smiles. But if ever the emergency does arise, he
+thinks naturally of Sherlock Holmes, and his methods.
+
+Mr. Downing had read all the Holmes stories with great attention, and
+had thought many times what an incompetent ass Doctor Watson was; but,
+now that he had started to handle his own first case, he was compelled
+to admit that there was a good deal to be said in extenuation of
+Watson's inability to unravel tangles. It certainly was uncommonly hard,
+he thought, as he paced the cricket field after leaving Sergeant
+Collard, to detect anybody, unless you knew who had really done the
+crime. As he brooded over the case in hand, his sympathy for Doctor
+Watson increased with every minute, and he began to feel a certain
+resentment against Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was all very well for Sir
+Arthur to be so shrewd and infallible about tracing a mystery to its
+source, but he knew perfectly well who had done the thing before
+he started!
+
+Now that he began really to look into this matter of the alarm bell and
+the painting of Sammy, the conviction was creeping over him that the
+problem was more difficult than a casual observer might imagine. He had
+got as far as finding that his quarry of the previous night was a boy in
+Mr. Outwood's house, but how was he to get any further? That was the
+thing. There was, of course, only a limited number of boys in Mr.
+Outwood's house as tall as the one he had pursued; but even if there had
+been only one other, it would have complicated matters. If you go to a
+boy and say, "Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at
+twelve o'clock," the boy does not reply, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie--I
+was out of my house last night at twelve o'clock." He simply assumes the
+animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you.
+It is practically stalemate.
+
+All these things passed through Mr. Downing's mind as he walked up and
+down the cricket field that afternoon.
+
+What he wanted was a clue. But it is so hard for the novice to tell what
+is a clue and what isn't. Probably, if he only knew, there were clues
+lying all over the place, shouting to him to pick them up.
+
+What with the oppressive heat of the day and the fatigue of hard
+thinking, Mr. Downing was working up for a brainstorm when Fate once
+more intervened, this time in the shape of Riglett, a junior member of
+his house.
+
+Riglett slunk up in the shamefaced way peculiar to some boys, even when
+they have done nothing wrong, and, having "capped" Mr. Downing with the
+air of one who had been caught in the act of doing something
+particularly shady, requested that he might be allowed to fetch his
+bicycle from the shed.
+
+"Your bicycle?" snapped Mr. Downing. Much thinking had made him
+irritable. "What do you want with your bicycle?"
+
+Riglett shuffled, stood first on his left foot, then on his right,
+blushed, and finally remarked, as if it were not so much a sound reason
+as a sort of feeble excuse for the low and blackguardly fact that he
+wanted his bicycle, that he had got leave for tea that afternoon.
+
+Then Mr. Downing remembered. Riglett had an aunt resident about three
+miles from the school, whom he was accustomed to visit occasionally on
+Sunday afternoons during the term.
+
+He felt for his bunch of keys, and made his way to the shed, Riglett
+shambling behind at an interval of two yards.
+
+Mr. Downing unlocked the door, and there on the floor was the Clue!
+
+A clue that even Doctor Watson could not have overlooked.
+
+Mr. Downing saw it, but did not immediately recognize it for what it
+was. What he saw at first was not a clue, but just a mess. He had a tidy
+soul and abhorred messes. And this was a particularly messy mess. The
+greater part of the flooring in the neighborhood of the door was a sea
+of red paint. The tin from which it had flowed was lying on its side in
+the middle of the shed. The air was full of the pungent scent.
+
+"Pah!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+Then suddenly, beneath the disguise of the mess, he saw the clue. A
+footmark! No less. A crimson footmark on the gray concrete!
+
+Riglett, who had been waiting patiently two yards away, now coughed
+plaintively. The sound recalled Mr. Downing to mundane matters.
+
+"Get your bicycle, Riglett," he said, "and be careful where you tread.
+Somebody has upset a pot of paint on the floor."
+
+Riglett, walking delicately through dry places, extracted his bicycle
+from the rack, and presently departed to gladden the heart of his aunt,
+leaving Mr. Downing, his brain fizzing with the enthusiasm of the
+detective, to lock the door and resume his perambulation of the
+cricket field.
+
+Give Doctor Watson a fair start, and he is a demon at the game. Mr.
+Downing's brain was now working with a rapidity and clearness which a
+professional sleuth might have envied.
+
+Paint. Red paint. Obviously the same paint with which Sammy had been
+decorated. A footmark. Whose footmark? Plainly that of the criminal who
+had done the deed of decoration.
+
+Yoicks!
+
+There were two things, however, to be considered. Your careful detective
+must consider everything. In the first place, the paint might have been
+upset by the groundsman. It was the groundsman's paint. He had been
+giving a fresh coating to the woodwork in front of the pavilion scoring
+box at the conclusion of yesterday's match. (A labor of love which was
+the direct outcome of the enthusiasm for work which Adair had instilled
+into him.) In that case the footmark might be his.
+
+_Note one_: Interview the groundsman on this point.
+
+In the second place Adair might have upset the tin and trodden in its
+contents when he went to get his bicycle in order to fetch the doctor
+for the suffering MacPhee. This was the more probable of the two
+contingencies, for it would have been dark in the shed when Adair
+went into it.
+
+_Note two_: Interview Adair as to whether he found, on returning to the
+house, that there was paint on his shoes.
+
+Things were moving.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He resolved to take Adair first. He could get the groundsman's address
+from him.
+
+Passing by the trees under whose shade Mike and Psmith and Dunster had
+watched the match on the previous day, he came upon the Head of his
+house in a deck chair reading a book. A summer Sunday afternoon is the
+time for reading in deck chairs.
+
+"Oh, Adair," he said. "No, don't get up. I merely wished to ask you if
+you found any paint on your shoes when you returned to the house
+last night."
+
+"Paint, sir?" Adair was plainly puzzled. His book had been interesting,
+and had driven the Sammy incident out of his head.
+
+"I see somebody has spilled some paint on the floor of the bicycle shed.
+You did not do that, I suppose, when you went to fetch your bicycle?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"It is spilled all over the floor. I wondered whether you had happened
+to tread in it. But you say you found no paint on your shoes
+this morning?"
+
+"No, sir, my bicycle is always quite near the door of the shed. I didn't
+go into the shed at all."
+
+"I see. Quite so. Thank you, Adair. Oh, by the way, Adair, where does
+Markby live?"
+
+"I forget the name of his cottage, sir, but I could show you in a
+second. It's one of those cottages just past the school gates, on the
+right as you turn out into the road. There are three in a row. His is
+the first you come to. There's a barn just before you get to them."
+
+"Thank you. I shall be able to find them. I should like to speak to
+Markby for a moment on a small matter."
+
+A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at
+the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves,
+blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
+
+"Oh, Markby!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion
+last night after the match?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will
+scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So
+I thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the
+Marylebone come down."
+
+"Just so. An excellent idea. Tell me, Markby, what did you do with the
+pot of paint when you had finished?"
+
+"Put it in the bicycle shed, sir."
+
+"On the floor?"
+
+"On the floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of
+whitening what I use for marking out the wickets, sir."
+
+"Of course, yes. Quite so. Just as I thought."
+
+"Do you want it, sir?"
+
+"No, thank you, Markby, no, thank you. The fact is, somebody who had no
+business to do so has moved the pot of paint from the shelf to the
+floor, with the result that it has been kicked over and spilled. You had
+better get some more tomorrow. Thank you, Markby. That is all I
+wished to know."
+
+Mr. Downing walked back to the school thoroughly excited. He was hot on
+the scent now. The only other possible theories had been tested and
+successfully exploded. The thing had become simple to a degree. All he
+had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's house--the idea of searching a
+fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task;
+somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really
+exist as a man capable of resenting liberties--find the paint-splashed
+shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster. There
+could be no doubt that a paint-splashed shoe must be in Mr. Outwood's
+house somewhere. A boy cannot tread in a pool of paint without showing
+some signs of having done so. It was Sunday, too, so that the shoe would
+not yet have been cleaned. Yoicks! Also tally-ho! This really was
+beginning to be something like business.
+
+Regardless of the heat, the sleuth-hound hurried across to Outwood's as
+fast as he could walk.
+
+
+
+20
+
+A CHECK
+
+
+The only two members of the house not out in the grounds when he arrived
+were Mike and Psmith. They were standing on the gravel drive in front of
+the boys' entrance. Mike had a deck chair in one hand and a book in the
+other. Psmith--for even the greatest minds will sometimes unbend--was
+wrestling with a Yo-Yo. That is to say, he was trying without success to
+keep the spool spinning. He smoothed a crease out of his waistcoat and
+tried again. He had just succeeded in getting the thing to spin when Mr.
+Downing arrived. The sound of his footsteps disturbed Psmith and brought
+the effort to nothing.
+
+"Enough of this spoolery," said he, flinging the spool through the open
+window of the senior day room. "I was an ass ever to try it. The
+philosophical mind needs complete repose in its hours of
+leisure. Hello!"
+
+He stared after the sleuth-hound, who had just entered the house.
+
+"What the dickens," said Mike, "does he mean by barging in as if he'd
+bought the place?"
+
+"Comrade Downing looks pleased with himself. What brings him around in
+this direction, I wonder! Still, no matter. The few articles which he
+may sneak from our study are of inconsiderable value. He is welcome to
+them. Do you feel inclined to wait awhile till I have fetched a chair
+and book?"
+
+"I'll be going on. I shall be under the trees at the far end of the
+ground."
+
+"'Tis well. I will be with you in about two ticks."
+
+Mike walked on toward the field, and Psmith, strolling upstairs to fetch
+his novel, found Mr. Downing standing in the passage with the air of one
+who has lost his bearings.
+
+"A warm afternoon, sir," murmured Psmith courteously, as he passed.
+
+"Er--Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I--er--wish to go round the dormitories."
+
+It was Psmith's guiding rule in life never to be surprised at anything,
+so he merely inclined his head gracefully, and said nothing.
+
+"I should be glad if you would fetch the keys and show me where the
+rooms are."
+
+"With acute pleasure, sir," said Psmith. "Or shall I fetch Mr. Outwood,
+sir?"
+
+"Do as I tell you Smith," snapped Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith said no more, but went down to the matron's room. The matron
+being out, he abstracted the bunch of keys from her table and rejoined
+the master.
+
+"Shall I lead the way, sir?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Downing nodded.
+
+"Here, sir," said Psmith, opening the door, "we have Barnes's dormitory.
+An airy room, constructed on the soundest hygienic principles. Each boy,
+I understand, has quite a considerable number of cubic feet of air all
+to himself. It is Mr. Outwood's boast that no boy has ever asked for a
+cubic foot of air in vain. He argues justly--"
+
+He broke off abruptly and began to watch the other's maneuvers in
+silence. Mr. Downing was peering rapidly beneath each bed in turn.
+
+"Are you looking for Barnes, sir?" inquired Psmith politely. "I think
+he's out in the field."
+
+Mr. Downing rose, having examined the last bed, crimson in the face with
+the exercise.
+
+"Show me the next dormitory, Smith," he said, panting slightly.
+
+"This," said Psmith, opening the next door and sinking his voice to an
+awed whisper, "is where _I_ sleep!"
+
+Mr. Downing glanced swiftly beneath the three beds.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," said Psmith, "but are we chasing anything?"
+
+"Be good enough, Smith," said Mr. Downing with asperity, "to keep your
+remarks to yourself."
+
+"I was only wondering sir. Shall I show you the next in order?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+They moved on up the passage.
+
+Drawing blank at the last dormitory, Mr. Downing paused, baffled. Psmith
+waited patiently by. An idea struck the master.
+
+"The studies, Smith," he cried.
+
+"Aha!" said Psmith. "I beg your pardon, sir. The observation escaped me
+unawares. The frenzy of the chase is beginning to enter into my blood.
+Here we have--"
+
+Mr. Downing stopped short.
+
+"Is this impertinence studied, Smith?"
+
+"Ferguson's study, sir? No, sir. That's farther down the passage. This
+is Barnes's."
+
+Mr. Downing looked at him closely. Psmith's face was wooden in its
+gravity. The master snorted suspiciously, then moved on.
+
+"Whose is this?" he asked, rapping a door.
+
+"This, sir, is mine and Jackson's."
+
+"What! Have you a study? You are low down in the school for it."
+
+"I think, sir, that Mr. Outwood gave it us rather as a testimonial to
+our general worth than to our proficiency in schoolwork."
+
+Mr. Downing raked the room with a keen eye. The absence of bars from the
+window attracted his attention.
+
+"Have you no bars to your windows here, such as there are in my house?"
+
+"There appears to be no bar, sir," said Psmith, putting up his eyeglass.
+
+Mr. Downing was leaning out of the window.
+
+"A lovely view, is it not, sir?" said Psmith. "The trees, the field, the
+distant hills ..."
+
+Mr. Downing suddenly started. His eye had been caught by the water pipe
+at the side of the window. The boy whom Sergeant Collard had seen
+climbing the pipe must have been making for this study.
+
+He spun around and met Psmith's blandly inquiring gaze. He looked at
+Psmith carefully for a moment. No. The boy he had chased last night had
+not been Psmith. That exquisite's figure and general appearance were
+unmistakable, even in the dusk.
+
+"Whom did you say you shared this study with, Smith?"
+
+"Jackson, sir. The cricketer."
+
+"Never mind about his cricket, Smith," said Mr. Downing with irritation.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"He is the only other occupant of the room?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Nobody else comes into it?"
+
+"If they do, they go out extremely quickly, sir."
+
+"Ah! Thank you, Smith."
+
+"Not at all, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing pondered. Jackson! The boy bore him a grudge. The boy was
+precisely the sort of boy to revenge himself by painting the dog Sammy.
+And, gadzooks! The boy whom he had pursued last night had been just
+about Jackson's size and build!
+
+Mr. Downing was as firmly convinced at that moment that Mike's had been
+the hand to wield the paintbrush as he had ever been of anything in
+his life.
+
+"Smith!" he said excitedly.
+
+"On the spot, sir," said Psmith affably.
+
+"Where are Jackson's shoes?"
+
+There are moments when the giddy excitement of being right on the trail
+causes the amateur (or Watsonian) detective to be incautious. Such a
+moment came to Mr. Downing then. If he had been wise, he would have
+achieved his object, the getting a glimpse of Mike's shoes, by a devious
+and snaky route. As it was, he rushed straight on.
+
+"His shoes, sir? He has them on. I noticed them as he went out just
+now."
+
+"Where is the pair he wore yesterday?"
+
+"Where are the shoes of yesteryear?" murmured Psmith to himself. "I
+should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket,
+downstairs. Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I
+believe, at early dawn."
+
+"Would they have been cleaned yet?"
+
+"If I know Edmund, sir--no."
+
+"Smith," said Mr. Downing, trembling with excitement, "go and bring that
+basket to me here."
+
+Psmith's brain was working rapidly as he went downstairs. What exactly
+was at the back of the sleuth's mind, prompting these maneuvers, he did
+not know. But that there was something, and that that something was
+directed in a hostile manner against Mike, probably in connection with
+last night's wild happenings, he was certain. Psmith had noticed, on
+leaving his bed at the sound of the alarm bell, that he and Jellicoe
+were alone in the room. That might mean that Mike had gone out through
+the door when the bell sounded, or it might mean that he had been out
+all the time. It began to look as if the latter solution were the
+correct one.
+
+He staggered back with the basket, painfully conscious all the while
+that it was creasing his waistcoat, and dumped it down on the study
+floor. Mr. Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the
+wall, and straightened out the damaged garment.
+
+"We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various
+bootings."
+
+Mr. Downing looked up.
+
+"You dropped none of the shoes on your way up, Smith?"
+
+"Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
+task. Shoes flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside
+the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rathole.
+
+At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to his
+feet. In his hand he held a shoe.
+
+"Put those back again, Smith," he said.
+
+The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn
+on being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered
+footgear, whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as
+he did so.
+
+"That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
+
+"Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
+here. You can carry it back when you return."
+
+"Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
+
+"Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
+
+"Shall I carry it, sir?"
+
+Mr. Downing reflected.
+
+"Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
+
+It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
+on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
+undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
+
+Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
+him.
+
+Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
+
+He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but
+when a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on
+the following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint
+splashed shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name
+inside the shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was
+only a few miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was
+Mike's shoe.
+
+"Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr. Downing.
+
+Psmith looked at it again.
+
+"No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."
+
+"Come with me, then."
+
+Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.
+
+The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way, the
+shoe-bearing Psmith in close attendance.
+
+The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.
+
+"Indeed?" he said, when Mr. Downing had finished, "Indeed? Dear me! It
+certainly seems ... It is a curiously well-connected thread of evidence.
+You are certain that there was red paint on this shoe you discovered in
+Mr. Outwood's house?"
+
+"I have it with me. I brought it on purpose to show to you. Smith!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"You have the shoe?"
+
+"Ah," said the headmaster, putting on a pair of pince-nez, "now let me
+look at--This, you say, is the--? Just so. Just so. Just ... But, er,
+Mr. Downing, it may be that I have not examined this shoe with
+sufficient care, but--Can _you_ point out to me exactly where this paint
+is that you speak of?"
+
+Mr. Downing stood staring at the shoe with a wild, fixed stare. Of any
+suspicion of paint, red or otherwise, it was absolutely and
+entirely innocent.
+
+
+
+21
+
+THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
+
+
+The shoe became the center of attention, the cynosure of all eyes. Mr.
+Downing fixed it with the piercing stare of one who feels that his brain
+is tottering. The headmaster looked at it with a mildly puzzled
+expression. Psmith, putting up his eyeglass, gazed at it with a sort of
+affectionate interest, as if he were waiting for it to do a trick of
+some kind.
+
+Mr. Downing was the first to break the silence.
+
+"There was paint on this shoe," he said vehemently. "I tell you there
+was a splash of red paint across the toe. Smith will bear me out in
+this. Smith, you saw the paint on this shoe?"
+
+"Paint, sir?"
+
+"What! Do you mean to tell me that you did _not_ see it?"
+
+"No, sir. There was no paint on this shoe."
+
+"This is foolery. I saw it with my own eyes. It was a broad splash right
+across the toe."
+
+The headmaster interposed.
+
+"You must have made a mistake, Mr. Downing. There is certainly no trace
+of paint on this shoe. These momentary optical delusions are, I fancy,
+not uncommon. Any doctor will tell you--"
+
+"I had an aunt, sir," said Psmith chattily, "who was remarkably
+subject--"
+
+"It is absurd. I cannot have been mistaken," said Mr. Downing. "I am
+positively certain the toe of this shoe was red when I found it."
+
+"It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing."
+
+"A sort of chameleon shoe," murmured Psmith.
+
+The goaded housemaster turned on him.
+
+"What did you say, Smith?"
+
+"Did I speak, sir?" said Psmith, with the start of one coming suddenly
+out of a trance.
+
+Mr. Downing looked searchingly at him.
+
+"You had better be careful, Smith."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I strongly suspect you of having something to do with this."
+
+"Really, Mr. Downing," said the headmaster, "this is surely improbable.
+Smith could scarcely have cleaned the shoe on his way to my house. On
+one occasion I inadvertently spilled some paint on a shoe of my own. I
+can assure you that it does not brush off. It needs a very systematic
+cleaning before all traces are removed."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith. "My theory, if I may...?"
+
+"Certainly Smith."
+
+Psmith bowed courteously and proceeded.
+
+"My theory, sir, is that Mr. Downing was deceived by the light-and-shade
+effects on the toe of the shoe. The afternoon sun, streaming in through
+the window, must have shone on the shoe in such a manner as to give it a
+momentary and fictitious aspect of redness. If Mr. Downing recollects,
+he did not look long at the shoe. The picture on the retina of the eye,
+consequently, had not time to fade. I remember thinking myself, at the
+moment, that the shoe appeared to have a certain reddish tint. The
+mistake...."
+
+"Bag!" said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+"Well, really," said the headmaster, "it seems to me that that is the
+only explanation that will square with the facts. A shoe that is really
+smeared with red paint does not become black of itself in the course of
+a few minutes."
+
+"You are very right, sir," said Psmith with benevolent approval. "May I
+go now, sir? I am in the middle of a singularly impressive passage of
+Cicero's speech _De senectute_."
+
+"I am sorry that you should leave your preparation till Sunday, Smith.
+It is a habit of which I altogether disapprove."
+
+"I am reading it, sir," said Psmith, with simple dignity, "for pleasure.
+Shall I take the shoe with me, sir?"
+
+"If Mr. Downing does not want it?"
+
+The housemaster passed the fraudulent piece of evidence to Psmith
+without a word, and the latter, having included both masters in a kindly
+smile, left the garden.
+
+Pedestrians who had the good fortune to be passing along the road
+between the headmaster's house and Mr. Outwood's at that moment saw
+what, if they had but known it, was a most unusual sight, the spectacle
+of Psmith running. Psmith's usual mode of progression was a dignified
+walk. He believed in the contemplative style rather than the hustling.
+
+On this occasion, however, reckless of possible injuries to the crease
+of his trousers, he raced down the road, and turning in at Outwood's
+gate, bounded upstairs like a highly trained professional athlete.
+
+On arriving at the study, his first act was to remove a shoe from the
+top of the pile in the basket, place it in the small cupboard under the
+bookshelf, and lock the cupboard. Then he flung himself into a chair
+and panted.
+
+"Brain," he said to himself approvingly, "is what one chiefly needs in
+matters of this kind. Without brain, where are we? In the soup, every
+time. The next development will be when Comrade Downing thinks it over,
+and is struck with the brilliant idea that it's just possible that the
+shoe he gave me to carry and the shoe I did carry were not one shoe but
+two shoes. Meanwhile ..."
+
+He dragged up another chair for his feet and picked up his novel.
+
+He had not been reading long when there was a footstep in the passage,
+and Mr. Downing appeared.
+
+The possibility, in fact the probability, of Psmith's having substituted
+another shoe for the one with the incriminating splash of paint on it
+had occurred to him almost immediately on leaving the headmaster's
+garden. Psmith and Mike, he reflected, were friends. Psmith's impulse
+would be to do all that lay in his power to shield Mike. Feeling
+aggrieved with himself that he had not thought of this before, he, too,
+hurried over to Outwood's.
+
+Mr. Downing was brisk and peremptory.
+
+"I wish to look at these shoes again," he said. Psmith, with a sigh,
+laid down his novel, and rose to assist him.
+
+"Sit down, Smith," said the housemaster. "I can manage without your
+help."
+
+Psmith sat down again, carefully tucking up the knees of his trousers,
+and watched him with silent interest through his eyeglass.
+
+The scrutiny irritated Mr. Downing.
+
+"Put that thing away, Smith," he said.
+
+"That thing, sir?"
+
+"Yes, that ridiculous glass. Put it away."
+
+"Why, sir?"
+
+"Why! Because I tell you to do so."
+
+"I guessed that that was the reason, sir," sighed Psmith, replacing the
+eyeglass in his waistcoat pocket. He rested his elbows on his knees, and
+his chin on his hands, and resumed his contemplative inspection of the
+shoe expert, who, after fidgeting for a few moments, lodged another
+complaint.
+
+"Don't sit there staring at me, Smith."
+
+"I was interested in what you were doing, sir."
+
+"Never mind. Don't stare at me in that idiotic way."
+
+"May I read, sir?" asked Psmith, patiently.
+
+"Yes, read if you like."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+Psmith took up his book again, and Mr. Downing, now thoroughly
+irritated, pursued his investigations in the boot basket.
+
+He went through it twice, but each time without success. After the
+second search, he stood up, and looked wildly round the room. He was as
+certain as he could be of anything that the missing piece of evidence
+was somewhere in the study. It was no use asking Psmith point-blank
+where it was, for Psmith's ability to parry dangerous questions with
+evasive answers was quite out of the common.
+
+His eye roamed about the room. There was very little cover there, even
+for so small a fugitive as a number nine shoe. The floor could be
+acquitted, on sight, of harboring the quarry.
+
+Then he caught sight of the cupboard, and something seemed to tell him
+that there was the place to look.
+
+"Smith!" he said.
+
+Psmith had been reading placidly all the while.
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What is in this cupboard?"
+
+"That cupboard, sir?"
+
+"Yes. This cupboard." Mr. Downing rapped the door irritably.
+
+"Just a few odd trifles, sir. We do not often use it. A ball of string,
+perhaps. Possibly an old notebook. Nothing of value or interest.
+
+"Open it."
+
+"I think you will find that it is locked, sir."
+
+"Unlock it."
+
+"But where is the key, sir?"
+
+"Have you not got the key?"
+
+"If the key is not in the lock, sir, you may depend upon it that it will
+take a long search to find it."
+
+"Where did you see it last?"
+
+"It was in the lock yesterday morning. Jackson might have taken it."
+
+"Where is Jackson?"
+
+"Out in the field somewhere, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing thought for a moment.
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," he said shortly. "I have my reasons for
+thinking that you are deliberately keeping the contents of that cupboard
+from me. I shall break open the door."
+
+Psmith got up.
+
+"I'm afraid you mustn't do that, sir."
+
+Mr. Downing stared, amazed.
+
+"Are you aware whom you are talking to, Smith?" he inquired icily.
+
+"Yes, sir. And I know it's not Mr. Outwood, to whom that cupboard
+happens to belong. If you wish to break it open, you must get his
+permission. He is the sole lessee and proprietor of that cupboard. I am
+only the acting manager."
+
+Mr. Downing paused. He also reflected. Mr. Outwood in the general rule
+did not count much in the scheme of things, but possibly there were
+limits to the treating of him as if he did not exist. To enter his house
+without his permission and search it to a certain extent was all very
+well. But when it came to breaking up his furniture, perhaps...!
+
+On the other hand, there was the maddening thought that if he left the
+study in search of Mr. Outwood, in order to obtain his sanction for the
+house-breaking work which he proposed to carry through, Smith would be
+alone in the room. And he knew that if Smith were left alone in the
+room, he would instantly remove the shoe to some other hiding place. He
+thoroughly disbelieved the story of the lost key. He was perfectly
+convinced that the missing shoe was in the cupboard.
+
+He stood chewing these thoughts for a while, Psmith in the meantime
+standing in a graceful attitude in front of the cupboard, staring
+into vacancy.
+
+Then he was seized with a happy idea. Why should he leave the room at
+all? If he sent Smith, then he himself could wait and make certain that
+the cupboard was not tampered with.
+
+"Smith," he said, "go and find Mr. Outwood, and ask him to be good
+enough to come here for a moment."
+
+
+
+22
+
+MAINLY ABOUT SHOES
+
+
+"Be quick, Smith," he said, as the latter stood looking at him without
+making any movement in the direction of the door.
+
+"_Quick_, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been asked a
+conundrum.
+
+"Go and find Mr. Outwood at once."
+
+Psmith still made no move.
+
+"Do you intend to disobey me, Smith?" Mr. Downing's voice was steely.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop silences. Psmith
+was staring reflectively at the ceiling. Mr. Downing was looking as if
+at any moment he might say, "Thwarted to me face, ha, ha! And by a very
+stripling!"
+
+It was Psmith, however, who resumed the conversation. His manner was
+almost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what he
+said did not keep up the standard of docility.
+
+"I take my stand," he said, "on a technical point. I say to myself, 'Mr.
+Downing is a man I admire as a human being and respect as a
+master. In--'"
+
+"This impertinence is doing you no good, Smith."
+
+Psmith waved a hand deprecatingly.
+
+"If you will let me explain, sir. I was about to say that in any other
+place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I would fly to do
+your bidding. If you pressed a button, I would do the rest. But in Mr.
+Outwood's house I cannot do anything except what pleases me or what is
+ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered that before. One
+cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one
+cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the
+garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the
+crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be an admirable thing for
+the Empire that the jibboom spanker _should_ be spliced at that
+particular juncture, but the crew would naturally decline to move in the
+matter until the order came from the commander of the ship. So in my
+case. If you will go to Mr. Outwood, explain to him how matters stand,
+and come back and say to me, 'Psmith, Mr. Outwood wishes you to ask him
+to be good enough to come to this study,' then I shall be only too glad
+to go and find him. You see my difficulty, sir?"
+
+"Go and fetch Mr. Outwood, Smith. I shall not tell you again."
+
+Psmith flicked a speck of dust from his coat sleeve.
+
+"Very well, Smith."
+
+"I can assure you, sir, at any rate, that if there is a shoe in that
+cupboard now, there will be a shoe there when you return."
+
+Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.
+
+"But," added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, "I
+did not promise that it would be the same shoe."
+
+He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the
+shoe. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen.
+Placing this in the cupboard, he relocked the door.
+
+His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attaching one
+end of this to the shoe that he had taken from the cupboard, he went to
+the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard key out into the
+bushes. Then he turned to the shoe. On a level with the sill the water
+pipe, up which Mike had started to climb the night before, was fastened
+to the wall by an iron band. He tied the other end of the string to
+this, and let the shoe swing free. He noticed with approval, when it had
+stopped swinging, that it was hidden from above by the windowsill.
+
+He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
+
+As an afterthought he took another shoe from the basket, and thrust it
+up the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackening
+his hand.
+
+The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, and
+washed off the soot.
+
+When he returned, Mr. Downing was in the study, and with him Mr.
+Outwood, the latter looking dazed, as if he were not quite equal to the
+intellectual pressure of the situation.
+
+"Where have you been, Smith?" asked Mr. Downing sharply.
+
+"I have been washing my hands, sir."
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Downing suspiciously.
+
+"Yes, I saw Smith go into the bathroom," said Mr. Outwood. "Smith, I
+cannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do."
+
+"My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made it
+perfectly clear. Where is the difficulty?"
+
+"I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his shoes
+in a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight of a
+good-gracious-has-the-man-_no_-sense look on the other's face, "Why he
+should not do so if he wishes it."
+
+"Exactly, sir," said Psmith, approvingly. "You have touched the spot."
+
+"If I must explain again, my dear Outwood, will you kindly give me your
+attention for a moment. Last night a boy broke out of your house, and
+painted my dog Sampson red."
+
+"He painted...!" said Mr. Outwood, round-eyed. "Why?"
+
+"I don't know why. At any rate, he did. During the escapade one of his
+shoes was splashed with the paint. It is that shoe which I believe Smith
+to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"
+
+Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Psmith, and Psmith shook his head
+sorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith's expression said, as plainly as if
+he had spoken the words, "We must humor him."
+
+"So with your permission, as Smith declares that he has lost the key, I
+propose to break open the door of this cupboard. Have you any
+objection?"
+
+Mr. Outwood started.
+
+"Objection? None at all, my dear fellow, none at all. Let me see, _what_
+is it you wish to do?"
+
+"This," said Mr. Downing shortly.
+
+There was a pair of dumbbells on the floor, belonging to Mike. He never
+used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed with the
+rest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr. Downing
+seized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at the cupboard door.
+The wood splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsy lock. The cupboard,
+with any skeletons it might contain, was open for all to view.
+
+Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the shoe from its resting
+place.
+
+"I told you," he said. "I told you."
+
+"I wondered where that shoe had got to," said Psmith. "I've been looking
+for it for days."
+
+Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamation of
+surprise and wrath.
+
+"This shoe has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This is not
+the shoe."
+
+"It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be free
+from paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look at it
+sideways," he added helpfully.
+
+"Did you place that shoe there, Smith?"
+
+"I must have done. Then, when I lost the key--"
+
+"Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood with asperity,
+"or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"
+
+The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumbbell had
+made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for the moment. A
+little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing a good,
+hard knock.
+
+The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain was
+working with the rapidity of a buzz saw. A chance remark of Mr.
+Outwood's set him fizzing off on the trail once more. Mr. Outwood had
+caught sight of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down to
+inspect it.
+
+"Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. It
+should have been done before."
+
+Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, from
+earth to heaven, also focused itself on the pile of soot; and a thrill
+went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing his hands! ("You
+know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")
+
+Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; and that
+thought was, "What ho for the chimney!"
+
+He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off his feet,
+and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fell upon
+his hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instant his
+fingers had closed upon what he was seeking.
+
+"Ah," he said. "I thought as much. You were not quite clever enough,
+after all, Smith."
+
+"No, sir," said Psmith patiently. "We all make mistakes."
+
+"You would have done better, Smith, not to have given me all this
+trouble. You have done yourself no good by it."
+
+"It's been great fun, though, sir," argued Psmith.
+
+"Fun!" Mr. Downing laughed grimly. "You may have reason to change your
+opinion of what constitutes--"
+
+His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the shoe. He
+looked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightened himself
+and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his
+hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was that he
+looked like a chimney sweep at work.
+
+"Did--you--put--that--shoe--there, Smith?" he asked slowly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Then what did you _MEAN_ by putting it there?" roared Mr. Downing.
+
+"Animal spirits, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"WHAT?"
+
+"Animal spirits, sir."
+
+What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one
+can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood,
+catching sight of his soot-covered countenance, intervened.
+
+"My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered with
+soot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black. Really
+you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way
+to my room."
+
+In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a
+point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against
+the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear
+up against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language
+of the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
+
+"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
+
+"Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
+
+"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith.
+
+His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.
+
+"You will hear more of this, Smith," he said. "I say you will hear more
+of it."
+
+Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were
+towels, soap, and sponges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string.
+He felt the calm afterglow which comes to the general after a
+successfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man
+of refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it
+had been worth it.
+
+The problem now was what to do with the painted shoe. It would take a
+lot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary
+implements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to
+do so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell far from the
+madding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot cupboard downstairs
+there would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
+
+His fears were realized. The boot cupboard was empty. It seemed to him
+that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place
+the shoe in safe hiding, until he would have thought out a scheme.
+
+Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up
+to the study again, and placed the red-toed shoe in the chimney, at
+about the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody
+would think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable that
+Mr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The
+odds were that he had forgotten about it already.
+
+Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling
+that he had done a good day's work.
+
+
+
+23
+
+ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
+
+
+The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most
+adroit plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to
+the rule. He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon's
+happenings.
+
+It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who
+like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where
+there is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain
+unrevealed. There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling
+Mike. He forgot what the consequences might be if he did not.
+
+So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
+school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
+
+Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion
+why only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the
+subject. He seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow
+can understand.
+
+"'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike
+might be satisfied with a compromise.
+
+"One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
+school in one shoe."
+
+Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much
+as to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
+understand sound reasoning."
+
+"Well, what am I to do? Where _is_ the other shoe?"
+
+"Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
+
+"Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off
+in the gym shoes he stood in.
+
+It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which
+one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize
+how strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for
+instance, where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark
+blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most
+respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a
+mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if he had
+sandbagged the headmaster. So in the case of shoes. School rules decree
+that a boy shall go to his form room in shoes. There is no real reason
+why, if the day is fine, he should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer
+them. But, if he does, the thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say,
+"Great Scott, what _have_ you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, _what_ are
+you wearing on your feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the
+assembling of the form for call-over and the arrival of the form master,
+some wag is sure either to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act
+with some satirical remark, or else to pull one of them off, and
+inaugurate an impromptu game of football with it. There was once a boy
+who went to school one morning in elastic-sided boots.
+
+Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his
+form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form,
+since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike
+with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to
+undergo at Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who
+gave trouble.
+
+There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a
+boy in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind,
+just as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with
+them. They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.
+
+Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole
+list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym
+shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention--every weapon was employed by him
+in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice
+always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he
+felt shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in
+the first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten
+minutes to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked
+Like Loafers--which broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one
+occasion, when a particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of
+fare, Dunster had entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath
+slippers, of a vivid crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including
+his journey over to the house to change the heelless atrocities, had
+seen him through very nearly to the quarter-to-eleven interval.
+
+Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.
+Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
+
+"Yes, sir?" said Mike.
+
+"_What_ are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"
+
+"Gym shoes, sir."
+
+"You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the
+proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"
+
+The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself
+comfortably for the address from the throne.
+
+"I have lost one of my shoes, sir."
+
+A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a
+moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start
+translating.
+
+Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken
+unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he
+floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction,
+the form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"
+mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his
+seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.
+
+Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's
+appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe,
+completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into
+harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said,
+"Wal, sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so
+did Mr. Downing feel at that moment.
+
+When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and
+sped to the headmaster.
+
+
+
+24
+
+THE ADAIR METHOD
+
+
+It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing
+the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop,
+came to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the
+Adair administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt
+was early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket
+keenness. Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious
+interest in life, had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his
+first term at Wrykyn. And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm
+attachment to the game, compared with Mike's.
+
+As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon
+after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had
+been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.
+match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose
+to be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their
+comfortable beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and
+had caught catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air,
+had stung like adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really
+got to work, it is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the
+experiment was only equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of
+the type which likes to undergo hardships for the common good. They
+played well enough when on the field, but neither cared greatly whether
+the school had a good season or not. They played the games entirely for
+their own sakes.
+
+The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a
+never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate
+as to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like
+today's must be avoided.
+
+"It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about
+before breakfast? It only makes you tired."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.
+Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for
+the team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd
+better find somebody else."
+
+"Yes."
+
+At this moment Adair came into the shop.
+
+"Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."
+
+"Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
+
+"Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he
+passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
+
+Stone was the first to recover.
+
+"I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He
+can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only
+kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C.
+with a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village
+Jackson plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."
+
+"All right," said Robinson. "Let's."
+
+Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an
+autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the
+keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of
+being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The
+majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain
+runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the
+team or not, then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless
+he is a man of action, practically helpless.
+
+Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that
+they would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The
+bowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the
+chance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are
+runs, wherever and however made.
+
+The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
+morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
+those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
+there were no signs.
+
+Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond
+the fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great
+help. Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.
+
+At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
+Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right,
+was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with
+that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper
+before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of
+his reading to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen
+the paper, usually formed an interested and appreciative audience.
+Today, however, though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of
+excitement at the news that Sheppard had made a century against
+Gloucestershire, and that a butter famine was expected in the United
+States, these world-shaking news items seemed to leave Adair cold. He
+champed his bread and marmalade with an abstracted air.
+
+He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.
+
+Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
+that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe
+and convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of
+person who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He
+never shirked anything, physical or moral.
+
+He resolved to interview the absentees.
+
+It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He
+went across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day
+room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and
+marking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided
+with a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance
+and stagger backward against the captain.
+
+"Sorry," said Stone. "Hello, Adair!"
+
+"Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding practice this
+morning?"
+
+Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone
+spoke.
+
+"We didn't turn up," he said.
+
+"I know you didn't. Why not?"
+
+Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the
+coolness which comes from rehearsal.
+
+"We decided not to."
+
+"Oh?"
+
+"Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morning
+fielding."
+
+Adair's manner became ominously calm.
+
+"You were rather fed up, I suppose?"
+
+"That's just the word."
+
+"Sorry it bored you."
+
+"It didn't. We didn't give it the chance to."
+
+Robinson laughed appreciatively.
+
+"What's the joke, Robinson?" asked Adair.
+
+"There's no joke," said Robinson, with some haste. "I was only thinking
+of something."
+
+"I'll give you something else to think about soon."
+
+Stone intervened.
+
+"It's no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can't
+do anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like,
+but we don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or
+Saturday for the village he plays for. So we're all right. And the
+school team aren't such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go
+chucking people out of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?"
+
+"You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you."
+
+"What are you going to do? Kick us out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good. I thought you'd see it was no good making a beastly row. We'll
+play for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turn
+out for fielding practice before breakfast."
+
+"You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you're going
+to tomorrow morning."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Six sharp. Don't be late."
+
+"Don't be an ass, Adair. We've told you we aren't going to."
+
+"That's only your opinion. I think you are. I'll give you till five past
+six, as you seem to like lying in bed."
+
+"You can turn out if you feel like it. You won't find me there."
+
+"That'll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?"
+
+"No," said the junior partner in the firm; but he said it without any
+deep conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for
+his comfort.
+
+"You've quite made up your minds?"
+
+"Yes," said Stone.
+
+"Right," said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.
+
+He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was
+standing in the middle of the open space.
+
+"You cad," said Stone. "I wasn't ready."
+
+"Well, you are now. Shall we go on?"
+
+Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have
+seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science
+tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than
+Stone, but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game.
+His blow was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his
+opponent's. At the end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.
+
+He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.
+
+"Suppose we say ten past six!" said Adair. "I'm not particular to a
+minute or two."
+
+Stone made no reply.
+
+"Will ten past six suit you for fielding practice tomorrow?" said Adair.
+
+"All right," said Stone.
+
+"Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"
+
+Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like
+maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make
+up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances
+he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than
+ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must
+end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match
+even for Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one
+minute. It seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was
+likely to come from an encounter with Adair.
+
+"All right," he said hastily, "I'll turn up."
+
+"Good," said Adair. "I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which
+is Jackson's study."
+
+Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which
+precluded anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied
+that Mike's study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor
+at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, I suppose?"
+
+"He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he's
+still there."
+
+"I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if he
+isn't busy."
+
+
+
+25
+
+ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
+
+
+Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been going
+on below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received that
+morning from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricket
+captaincy which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in a
+lugubrious strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly with
+Wrykyn. A broken arm, contracted in the course of some rash experiments
+with a day boy's motor bicycle, had deprived the team of the services of
+Dunstable, the only man who had shown any signs of being able to bowl a
+side out. Since this calamity, wrote Strachan, everything had gone
+wrong. The M.C.C., led by Mike's brother Reggie, the least of the three
+first-class cricketing Jacksons, had smashed them by a hundred and fifty
+runs. Geddington had wiped them off the face of the earth. The Incogs,
+with a team recruited exclusively from the rabbit hutch--not a
+well-known man on the side except Stacey, a veteran who had been playing
+for the club for nearly half a century--had got home by two wickets. In
+fact, it was Strachan's opinion that the Wrykyn team that summer was
+about the most hopeless gang of deadbeats that had ever made exhibition
+of itself on the school grounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off,
+owing to an outbreak of mumps at that shrine of learning and
+athletics--the second outbreak of the malady in two terms. Which, said
+Strachan, was hard lines on Ripton, but a bit of jolly good luck for
+Wrykyn, as it had saved them from what would probably have been a record
+hammering, Ripton having eight of their last year's team left, including
+Dixon, the fast bowler, against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had
+been able to make runs in the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had
+struck a bad patch.
+
+Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there
+to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one
+good batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may
+take a weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the
+importance of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
+
+As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness
+against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days,
+returned with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling of
+personal injury which had made him hate his new school on the first
+day of term.
+
+And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, that
+Adair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, entered
+the room.
+
+There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be the
+biggest kind of row. This was one of them.
+
+Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serial
+story in a daily paper which he had abstracted from the senior day room,
+made the intruder free of the study with a dignified wave of the hand,
+and went on reading. Mike remained in the deck chair in which he was
+sitting, and contented himself with glaring at the newcomer.
+
+Psmith was the first to speak.
+
+"If you ask my candid opinion," he said, looking up from his paper, "I
+should say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. I
+seem to see the consomme splashing about his ankles. He's had a note
+telling him to be under the oak tree in the Park at midnight. He's just
+off there at the end of this installment. I bet Long Jack, the poacher,
+is waiting there with a sandbag. Care to see the paper, Comrade Adair?
+Or don't you take any interest in contemporary literature?"
+
+"Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for a minute."
+
+"Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. This is
+Comrade Jackson, the Pride of the School, sitting before you."
+
+"What do you want?" said Mike.
+
+He suspected that Adair had come to ask him once again to play for the
+school. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day made
+this a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could think of
+no other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing's paying
+afternoon calls.
+
+"I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long."
+
+"That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the keynote of the
+present age. Promptitude. Dispatch. This is no time for loitering. We
+must be strenuous. We must hustle. We must Do It Now. We--"
+
+"Buck up," said Mike.
+
+"Certainly," said Adair. "I've just been talking to Stone and Robinson."
+
+"An excellent way of passing an idle half hour," said Psmith.
+
+"We weren't exactly idle," said Adair grimly. "It didn't last long, but
+it was pretty lively while it did. Stone chucked it after the
+first round."
+
+Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all this
+was about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair's manner.
+For some reason, which might possibly be made clear later, Adair was
+looking for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt that it would be
+a privilege to see that he got it.
+
+Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain and surprise.
+
+"Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you have been
+_brawling_ with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. I thought that you
+and he were like brothers. Such a bad example for Comrade Robinson, too.
+Leave us, Adair. We would brood. 'Oh, go thee, knave, I'll none of
+thee.' Shakespeare."
+
+Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at
+himself mournfully in the looking glass.
+
+"I'm not the man I was," he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. "There
+are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of
+life at Sedleigh is wasting me away."
+
+"Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding practice,"
+said Adair, turning to Mike.
+
+Mike said nothing.
+
+"I thought his fielding wanted working up a bit, so I told him to turn
+out at six tomorrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued it out.
+He's going to all right. So is Robinson."
+
+Mike remained silent.
+
+"So are you," said Adair.
+
+"I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
+
+Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner of two
+dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silence in
+the study. Psmith peered with increased earnestness into the glass.
+
+"Oh?" said Mike at last. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"I don't think. I know."
+
+"Any special reason for my turning out?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"You're going to play for the school against the M.C.C. tomorrow, and I
+want you to get some practice."
+
+"I wonder how you got that idea!"
+
+"Curious I should have done, isn't it?"
+
+"Very. You aren't building on it much, are you?" said Mike politely.
+
+"I am, rather," replied Adair, with equal courtesy.
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"My eyes," said Psmith regretfully, "are a bit close together. However,"
+he added philosophically, "it's too late to alter that now."
+
+Mike drew a step closer to Adair.
+
+"What makes you think I shall play against the M.C.C.?" he asked
+curiously.
+
+"I'm going to make you."
+
+Mike took another step forward. Adair moved to meet him.
+
+"Would you care to try now?" said Mike.
+
+For just one second the two drew themselves together preparatory to
+beginning the serious business of the interview, and in that second
+Psmith, turning from the glass, stepped between them.
+
+"Get out of the light, Smith," said Mike.
+
+Psmith waved him back with a deprecating gesture.
+
+"My dear young friends," he said placidly, "if you _will_ let your angry
+passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts, I suppose you
+must. But when you propose to claw each other in my study, in the midst
+of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, I lodge a protest. If you
+really feel that you want to scrap, for goodness' sake do it where
+there's some room. I don't want all the study furniture smashed. I know
+a bank whereon the wild thyme grows, only a few yards down the road,
+where you can scrap all night if you want to. How would it be to move on
+there? Any objections? None. Then shift ho! And let's get it over."
+
+
+
+26
+
+CLEARING THE AIR
+
+
+Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they
+touch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow
+enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present
+occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere
+unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of
+the National Sporting Club.
+
+"The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through a gate
+into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "will be of
+three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A man who is
+down will have ten seconds in which to rise. Are you ready, Comrades
+Adair and Jackson? Very well, then. Time."
+
+After which, it was a pity that the actual fight did not quite live up
+to its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have been
+cautious sparring for openings and a number of tensely contested rounds,
+as if it had been the final of a boxing competition. But school fights,
+when they do occur--which is only once in a decade nowadays, unless you
+count junior school scuffles--are the outcome of weeks of suppressed bad
+blood, and are consequently brief and furious. In a boxing competition,
+however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent.
+Up to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly
+attached to him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume
+that attitude of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates
+the other.
+
+So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the
+present battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted
+was to get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together
+as if they meant to end the thing in half a minute.
+
+It was this that saved Mike. In an ordinary contest with the gloves,
+with his opponent cool and boxing in his true form, he could not have
+lasted three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer, while
+Mike had never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept away and used
+his head, nothing could have prevented his winning.
+
+As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Brown did
+at the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and the result was
+the same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greater strength,
+and, thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man clean off his feet
+with an unscientific but powerful righthander.
+
+This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all the
+science knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. The
+Irish blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made him
+merely energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandoned
+all attempt at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futile
+form, and as unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There was a
+swift exchange of blows, in the course of which Mike's left elbow,
+coming into contact with his opponent's right fist, got a shock which
+kept it tingling for the rest of the day; and then Adair went down in
+a heap.
+
+He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinking
+vaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
+
+In the excitement of a fight--which is, after all, about the most
+exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life--it
+is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the
+spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself
+only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose
+chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would
+have seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a
+fraction of an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked
+out. Mike could not see this. All he understood was that his man was on
+his feet again and coming at him, so he hit out with all his strength;
+and this time Adair went down and stayed down.
+
+"Brief," said Psmith, coming forward, "but exciting. We may take that, I
+think, to be the conclusion of the entertainment. I will now have a dash
+at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'll be
+sitting up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may want to go
+on with the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it's going to
+be continued in our next, there had better be a bit of an interval for
+alterations and repairs first."
+
+"Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knockouts
+before in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effected one
+on his own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.
+
+"_He's_ all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be skipping
+about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
+pick flowers."
+
+Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
+perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
+curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking
+that Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his
+point of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much.
+At the same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten
+him. The feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in
+a fresh and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and
+had carried it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the
+deliverer of knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new
+acquaintance a man to be respected.
+
+The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
+fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized
+Mike's view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of
+him. Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive
+dignity, he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched
+kid. There had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of
+refusing to identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
+stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
+attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."
+
+It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass
+of himself.
+
+He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
+entered the study.
+
+"How's Adair?" asked Mike.
+
+"Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting.
+He's not a bad cove."
+
+"He's all right," said Mike.
+
+There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
+seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
+afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
+comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way.
+I'm not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but
+everyone to his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get
+overwhelmingly attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adair seems
+to have done it. He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-needed boost-up.
+It's not a bad idea in its way. I don't see why one shouldn't humor him.
+Apparently he's been sweating since early childhood to buck the school
+up. And as he's leaving at the end of the term, it mightn't be a scaly
+scheme to give him a bit of a send-off, if possible, by making the
+cricket season a bit of a banger. As a start, why not drop him a line to
+say that you'll play against the M.C.C. tomorrow?"
+
+Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed toward Adair
+and Sedleigh then he had felt, but he was not sure that he was quite
+prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing like
+giving in to a man a bit every now and then. It broadens the soul and
+improves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up Comrade
+Adair, to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him to
+understand that you had offered to give him and Robinson places in your
+village team. You didn't, of course?"
+
+"Of course not," said Mike indignantly.
+
+"I told him he didn't know the old _noblesse oblige_ spirit of the
+Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jackson escutcheon
+by not playing the game. My eloquence convinced him. However, to return
+to the point under discussion, why not?"
+
+"I don't ... What I mean to say ..." began Mike.
+
+"If your trouble is," said Psmith, "that you fear that you may be in
+unworthy company--"
+
+"Don't be an ass."
+
+"--Dismiss it. _I_ am playing."
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"You're _what? You_?"
+
+"I," said Psmith, breathing on a coat button, and polishing it with his
+handkerchief.
+
+"Can you play cricket?"
+
+"You have discovered," said Psmith, "my secret sorrow."
+
+"You're rotting."
+
+"You wrong me, Comrade Jackson."
+
+"Then why haven't you played?"
+
+"Why haven't you?"
+
+"Why didn't you come and play for Lower Borlock, I mean?"
+
+"The last time I played in a village cricket match I was caught at point
+by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such
+shock to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing
+of that sort takes years off my life."
+
+"No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good at
+cricket?"
+
+"Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told that this
+year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricket season
+came, where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower that withers in
+the night."
+
+"But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked
+watching it."
+
+"Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you have
+to overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing becomes a
+habit. Imagine my feelings when I found that I was degenerating, little
+by little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a swerve. I fought against
+it, but it was useless, and after a while I gave up the struggle, and
+drifted with the stream. Last year in a house match"--Psmith's voice
+took on a deeper tone of melancholy--"I took seven for thirteen in the
+second innings on a hard wicket. I did think, when I came here, that I
+had found a haven of rest, but it was not to be. I turn out tomorrow.
+What Comrade Outwood will say, when he finds that his keenest
+archaeological disciple has deserted, I hate to think. However ..."
+
+Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole
+face of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the
+recalcitrant, wavering on the point of playing for the school, and here
+was Psmith, the last person whom he would have expected to be a player,
+stating calmly that he had been in the running for a place in the
+Eton eleven.
+
+Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but he
+read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had been
+acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been disappointed of
+the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been disappointed of
+his place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had both worked it off,
+each in his own way--Mike sullenly, Psmith whimsically, according to
+their respective natures--on Sedleigh.
+
+If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
+renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
+stop Mike doing so, as--at the bottom of his heart--he wanted to do.
+
+"By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note to
+Adair now. But, I say"--he stopped--"I'm hanged if I'm going to turn out
+and field before breakfast tomorrow."
+
+"That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself. He's
+not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."
+
+
+
+27
+
+IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
+
+
+"Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
+
+"During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbow
+instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that your
+elbow was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don't
+know. Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of the
+game tomorrow."
+
+"I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
+
+"Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you see
+anybody downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over to
+the shop, ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tell
+the man to chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us at
+tea is all right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious to
+commit suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
+
+On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found that
+his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of his
+willingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as he
+went out of the house.
+
+A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuous
+patter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke in
+earnest. Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "At
+this rate," he said to himself, "there won't be a match at all
+tomorrow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to show
+what it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. When
+Mike woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping.
+Leaden-colored clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a trace
+of blue to be seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle,
+determined way rain has when it means to make a day of it.
+
+It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp and
+depressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskin
+boots, crawl miserably about the field in couples.
+
+Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing's
+gate.
+
+These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped--he could hardly walk
+on as if nothing had happened--and looked down at his feet.
+
+"Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
+
+"Right ho!" said Adair.
+
+They walked on in silence.
+
+"It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
+
+Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care born
+of nervousness.
+
+"About nine to."
+
+"Good. We've got plenty of time."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I hate having to hurry over to school."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"I often do cut it rather fine, though."
+
+"Yes. So do I."
+
+"Beastly nuisance when one does."
+
+"Beastly."
+
+"It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, I
+should think, shouldn't you?"
+
+"Not much more. Might be three."
+
+"Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"Beastly day," said Adair.
+
+"Rotten."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about your
+wrist."
+
+"Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
+
+"Does it hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
+
+"I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd have
+smashed me anyhow."
+
+"Oh, rot."
+
+"I bet you anything you like you would."
+
+"I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
+
+"Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
+
+"Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
+
+Adair inspected the sky carefully.
+
+"I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
+
+"Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
+
+"Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
+
+"Good."
+
+"Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good
+season."
+
+"Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
+
+"Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
+
+"He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team last
+year."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's the time?" asked Mike.
+
+Adair produced his watch once more.
+
+"Five to."
+
+"We've heaps of time."
+
+"Yes, heaps."
+
+"Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
+
+"Right ho!"
+
+Mike cleared his throat.
+
+"I say."
+
+"Hello?"
+
+"I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'd
+promised to give Stone and Robinson places in the--"
+
+"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me you
+couldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.
+It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for Lower
+Borlock if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
+
+"He never even asked me to get him a place."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten trick
+like getting other fellows away from the team."
+
+"No, I know."
+
+"It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
+
+"Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you were
+going to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
+
+The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effect
+on Mike's mind--shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second time
+in two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. He
+might have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude toward
+Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair had
+said, "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might have
+led his hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten little
+hole, isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceived
+that the words were used purely from politeness, on the Chinese
+principle. When a Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so by
+belittling himself and his belongings.
+
+He eluded the pitfall.
+
+"What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I've
+ever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,
+after the way you've sweated."
+
+Adair shuffled awkwardly.
+
+"I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don't
+suppose I've done anything much."
+
+"You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "if
+that's any comfort to you."
+
+"I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still
+aches."
+
+For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and the
+humorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began
+to laugh.
+
+"What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
+
+"_You_ were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had the
+gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, who
+doesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. What
+about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the sky
+at present."
+
+"It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at the
+interval, and hang about in case."
+
+"All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've got
+math till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; which
+won't hurt me."
+
+"He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
+
+"I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downing
+or a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on the
+black beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck just
+then. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you're
+crocked, I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for years
+to get the match on, and it would be rather rot playing it without you."
+
+"I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain,
+with you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sending
+down much of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out,
+we've got a jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the way
+through, and the bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given this
+M.C.C. lot a really good hammering, it might have been easier to get
+some good fixtures for next season. You see, it's all right for a school
+like Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can't get the
+best teams to give you a match till you've done something to show that
+you aren't absolute rotters at the game. As for the schools, they're
+worse. They'd simply laugh at you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykyn
+last year. What would you have done if you'd had a challenge from
+Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or else had a
+fit at the mere idea of the thing."
+
+Mike stopped.
+
+"By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I never
+thought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
+
+"What! They wouldn't play us."
+
+"Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letter
+from Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match had
+had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date.
+Shall I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And they
+aren't strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
+
+Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
+
+"By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"
+
+
+
+28
+
+MR. DOWNING MOVES
+
+
+The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams, after
+hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away with stump-cricket in
+the changing rooms, lunched in the pavilion at one o'clock. After which
+the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair, moved that this merry meeting be
+considered off and he and his men permitted to catch the next train back
+to town. To which Adair, seeing that it was out of the question that
+there should be any cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the
+first Sedleigh _v_. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
+
+Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a damp junior
+from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to see Mike as
+soon as he was changed.
+
+"What's he want me for?" inquired Mike.
+
+The messenger did not know. Mr. Downing, it seemed, had not confided in
+him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, and would be
+glad if Mike would step across.
+
+"A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's the
+worst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. A
+meal on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study against
+your return."
+
+Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond of
+simple pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzle
+which had been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prize
+for a solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had already informed
+Mike with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition of this sum.
+Meanwhile, he worked at it both in and out of school, generally with
+abusive comments on its inventor.
+
+He was still fiddling away at it when Mike returned.
+
+Mike, though Psmith was at first too absorbed to notice it, was
+agitated.
+
+"I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without looking up,
+"but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worst type.
+You come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. The whisper flies
+round the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'"
+
+"The man's an absolute driveling ass," said Mike warmly.
+
+"Me, do you mean?"
+
+"What on earth would be the point of my doing it?"
+
+"You'd gather in a thousand of the best. Give you a nice start in life."
+
+"I'm not talking about your rotten puzzle."
+
+"What _are_ you talking about?"
+
+"That ass Downing. I believe he's off his nut."
+
+"Then your chat with Comrade Downing was not of the
+old-College-chums-meeting-unexpectedly-after-years'-separation type?
+What has he been doing to you?"
+
+"He's off his nut."
+
+"I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jump
+at you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did he
+say he was a teapot?"
+
+Mike sat down.
+
+"You remember that painting-Sammy business?"
+
+"As if it were yesterday," said Psmith. "Which it was, pretty nearly."
+
+"He thinks I did it."
+
+"Why? Have you ever shown any talent in the painting line?"
+
+"The silly ass wanted me to confess that I'd done it. He as good as
+asked me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantage
+later on if I behaved sensibly."
+
+"Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a master
+wants you to do the confessing act, it simply means that he hasn't
+enough evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing's a
+stand-off."
+
+"Evidence!" said Mike. "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sink a
+ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as I can
+see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes business for
+all he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's dead certain
+that I painted Sammy."
+
+"_Did_ you, by the way?" said Psmith.
+
+"No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing I
+almost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidence to
+prove that I did."
+
+"Such as what?"
+
+"It's mostly about my shoes. But, dash it, you know all about that. Why,
+you were with him when he came and looked for them."
+
+"It is true," said Psmith, "that Comrade Downing and I spent a very
+pleasant half hour together inspecting shoes, but how does he drag
+you into it?"
+
+"He swears one of the shoes was splashed with paint."
+
+"Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaining
+him. But what makes him think that the shoe, if any, was yours?"
+
+"He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his shoes splashed,
+and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in the house who
+hasn't got a pair of shoes to show, so he thinks it's me. I don't know
+where the dickens my other shoe has gone. Of course I've got two pairs,
+but one's being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday in gym
+shoes. That's how he spotted me."
+
+Psmith sighed.
+
+"Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair shows
+the folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaning to
+save you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickening thud,
+right in the cart. Are you particular about dirtying your hands? If you
+aren't, just reach up that chimney a bit!"
+
+Mike stared.
+
+"What the dickens are you talking about?"
+
+"Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
+
+"I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender
+and groping, "but--_Hello_!"
+
+"Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
+
+Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
+
+"It's my shoe!" he said at last.
+
+"It _is_," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across
+the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
+
+Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe.
+
+"How on earth did--By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up against
+something in the dark when I was putting my bicycle back that night. It
+must have been the paint pot."
+
+"Then you were out that night?"
+
+"Rather. That's what makes it so jolly awkward. It's too long to tell
+you now--"
+
+"Your stories are never too long for me," said Psmith. "Say on!"
+
+"Well, it was like this." And Mike related the events which had led up
+to his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
+
+"This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently stated
+opinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that's
+why he touched us for our hard-earned, was it?"
+
+"Yes. Of course there was no need for him to have the money at all."
+
+"And the result is that you are in something of a tight place. You're
+_absolutely_ certain you didn't paint that dog? Didn't do it, by any
+chance, in a moment of absent-mindedness, and forgot all about it? No?
+No, I suppose not. I wonder who did!"
+
+"It's beastly awkward. You see, Downing chased me that night. That was
+why I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that the
+chap he chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are the
+same. I shall get landed both ways."
+
+Psmith pondered.
+
+"It _is_ a tightish place," he admitted.
+
+"I wonder if we could get this shoe clean," said Mike, inspecting it
+with disfavor.
+
+"Not for a pretty considerable time."
+
+"I suppose not. I say, I _am_ in the cart. If I can't produce this shoe,
+they're bound to guess why."
+
+"What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between you
+and Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely parted brass
+rags? Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutual courtesies?"
+
+"Oh, he said I was ill advised to continue that attitude, or some rot,
+and I said I didn't care, I hadn't painted his bally dog, and he said
+very well, then, he must take steps, and--well, that was about all."
+
+"Sufficient, too," said Psmith, "quite sufficient, I take it, then, that
+he is now on the warpath, collecting a gang, so to speak."
+
+"I suppose he's gone to the Old Man about it."
+
+"Probably. A very worrying time our headmaster is having, taking it all
+round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you think his
+move will be?"
+
+"I suppose he'll send for me, and try to get something out of me."
+
+"_He'll_ want you to confess, too. Masters are all whales on confession.
+The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, because at about the time
+the foul act was perpetrated, you were playing Round-and-round-the-
+mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needs thought. You had
+better put the case in my hands, and go out and watch the dandelions
+growing. I will think over the matter."
+
+"Well, I hope you'll be able to think of something. I can't."
+
+"Possibly. You never know."
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+"See how we have trained them," said Psmith. "They now knock before
+entering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in a
+panel. Come in."
+
+A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the School House ribbon,
+answered the invitation.
+
+"Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tell you
+he wants to see you."
+
+"I told you so," said Mike to Psmith.
+
+"Don't go," suggested Psmith. "Tell him to write."
+
+Mike got up.
+
+"All this is very trying," said Psmith. "I'm seeing nothing of you
+today." He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "that Mr.
+Jackson will be with him in a moment."
+
+The emissary departed.
+
+"_You're_ all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keep on
+saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in for any
+airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beat it."
+
+With which expert advice, he allowed Mike to go on his way.
+
+He had not been gone two minutes, when Psmith, who had leaned back in
+his chair, rapt in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for a
+moment straightening his tie at the looking glass; then he picked up his
+hat and moved slowly out of the door and down the passage. Thence, at
+the same dignified rate of progress, out of the house and in at
+Downing's front gate.
+
+The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed in
+conversation with the parlor maid. Psmith stood by politely till the
+postman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caught sight
+of him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultraformal and
+professional manner, passed away.
+
+"Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
+
+He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining room on the left of
+the hall, and requested to wait. He was examining a portrait of Mr.
+Downing which hung on the wall when the housemaster came in.
+
+"An excellent likeness, sir," said Psmith, with a gesture of the hand
+toward the painting.
+
+"Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see me
+about?"
+
+"It was in connection with the regrettable painting of your dog, sir."
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"I did it, sir," said Psmith, stopping and flicking a piece of fluff off
+his knee.
+
+
+
+29
+
+THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
+
+
+The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is an excellent
+line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but it does not
+lead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialogue between
+accuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster were oppressed by a
+feeling that the situation was difficult. The atmosphere was heavy, and
+conversation showed a tendency to flag. The headmaster had opened
+brightly enough, with a summary of the evidence which Mr. Downing had
+laid before him, but after that a massive silence had been the order of
+the day. There is nothing in this world quite so stolid and
+uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mind to be stolid and
+uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat and looked at Mike, who
+sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt awkward. It was a scene
+which needed either a dramatic interruption or a neat exit speech. As it
+happened, what it got was the dramatic interruption.
+
+The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realize,
+Jackson, the extent to which appearances ..."--which was practically
+going back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knock
+at the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," and
+the chief witness for the prosecution burst in.
+
+"I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but--"
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can ..."
+
+"I have discovered ... I have been informed ... In short, it was not
+Jackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."
+
+Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with a feeling
+of relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weighty evidence, is a
+wearing game to play--the headmaster with astonishment.
+
+"Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.
+
+"No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."
+
+Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. There is
+nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type
+of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is
+merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a
+rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not
+imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog
+with red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They
+had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but
+anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it
+funny at first. After the first surprise, their feeling had been that it
+was a rotten thing to have done and beastly rough luck on the poor
+brute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmith having done it, Mike simply
+did not believe it.
+
+"Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?"
+
+"Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boy
+himself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."
+
+Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not make him
+in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that he himself
+was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was that Psmith was
+done for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith had painted Sammy
+it meant that Psmith had broken out of his house at night; and it was
+not likely that the rules about nocturnal wandering were less strict at
+Sedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom. Mike felt, if
+possible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had been caught on a similar
+occasion. It seemed as if Fate had a special grudge against his best
+friends. He did not make friends very quickly or easily, though he had
+always had scores of acquaintances--and with Wyatt and Psmith he had
+found himself at home from the first moment he had met them.
+
+He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavy weight,
+hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downing was talking
+rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time to time.
+
+Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.
+
+"Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er--if you are
+going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to see him."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.
+
+"Come in," said the headmaster.
+
+It was Adair.
+
+"Yes, Adair?"
+
+Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.
+
+"It was about Sammy--Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.
+
+"Ah, we know ... Well, Adair, what did you wish to say?"
+
+"It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir."
+
+"No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing--"
+
+"It was Dunster, sir."
+
+Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp of
+astonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened to
+their fullest extent.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
+suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
+despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
+perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform
+him, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's
+confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal
+was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words
+of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted
+for his brain a side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people?
+Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas.
+And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that
+he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? He concentrated his mind
+on Adair as the only person who could save him from impending
+brain fever.
+
+"Adair!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"What--_what_ do you mean?"
+
+"It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes ago,
+in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog, sir, for a
+rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here to get into a
+row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing at once. I tried to
+find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then I met Smith outside
+the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had gone over to see
+you, sir."
+
+"Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Did you say anything to him about your having received this letter from
+Dunster?"
+
+"I gave him the letter to read, sir."
+
+"And what was his attitude when he had read it?"
+
+"He laughed, sir."
+
+"_Laughed_!" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.
+
+"Yes, sir. He rolled about."
+
+Mr. Downing snorted.
+
+"But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thing
+could have been done by Dunster. He has left the school."
+
+"He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped the
+night in the village."
+
+"And that was the night the--it happened?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame can not be attached to
+any boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was a
+foolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as if
+any boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to
+do it."
+
+"The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw was
+attempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house."
+
+"Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shall
+write to him."
+
+"If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "I
+cannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he did not
+do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me of his
+own accord and deliberately confessing?"
+
+"To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly a
+thing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butler
+appeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smith that
+I should like to see him."
+
+"If you please, sir, Mr. Smith is waiting in the hall."
+
+"In the hall!"
+
+"Yes, sir. He arrived soon after Mr. Adair, sir, saying that he would
+wait, as you would probably wish to see him shortly."
+
+"H'm. Ask him to step up, Barlow."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There followed one of the tensest "stage waits" of Mike's experience. It
+was not long, but, while it lasted, the silence was quite solid. Nobody
+seemed to have anything to say, and there was not even a clock in the
+room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faint drip-drip of
+rain could be heard outside the window.
+
+Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door was
+opened.
+
+"Mr. Smith, sir."
+
+The Old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a few
+moments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. He
+gave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels that
+some slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the room with
+a gentle half-smile which suggested good will to all men.
+
+"It is still raining," he observed. "You wished to see me, sir?"
+
+"Sit down, Smith."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+He dropped into a deep armchair (which both Adair and Mike had avoided
+in favor of less luxurious seats) with the confidential cosiness of a
+fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whom and himself
+time has broken down the barriers of restraint and formality.
+
+Mr. Downing burst out, like a reservoir that has broken its banks.
+
+"Smith."
+
+Psmith turned his gaze politely in the housemaster's direction.
+
+"Smith, you came to me a quarter of an hour ago and told me that it was
+you who had painted my dog Sampson."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"It was absolutely untrue?"
+
+"I am afraid so, sir."
+
+"But, Smith ..." began the headmaster.
+
+Psmith bent forward encouragingly.
+
+"... This is a most extraordinary affair. Have you no explanation to
+offer? What induced you to do such a thing?"
+
+Psmith sighed softly.
+
+"The craze of notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of the
+present age."
+
+"What!" replied the headmaster.
+
+"It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonal touch
+of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murder has
+been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done it when it
+is out of the question that they should have committed it. It is one of
+the most interesting problems with which anthropologists are confronted.
+Human nature--"
+
+The headmaster interrupted.
+
+"Smith," he said, "I should like to see you alone for a moment. Mr.
+Downing, might I trouble...? Adair, Jackson."
+
+He made a motion toward the door.
+
+When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned back
+comfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with his foot
+on the floor.
+
+"Er ... Smith."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He paused
+again. Then he went on.
+
+"Er ... Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but have you ...
+er, do you remember ever having had, as a child, let us say, any ...
+er ... severe illness? Any ... er ... _mental_ illness?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"There is no--forgive me if I am touching on a sad subject--there is
+no ... none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the way I ...
+er ... have described?"
+
+"There isn't a lunatic on the list, sir," said Psmith cheerfully.
+
+"Of course, Smith, of course," said the headmaster hurriedly, "I did not
+mean to suggest--quite so, quite so. ... You think, then, that you
+confessed to an act which you had not committed purely from some sudden
+impulse which you cannot explain?"
+
+"Strictly between ourselves, sir ..."
+
+Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhat
+disconcerting, but he said nothing.
+
+"Well, Smith?"
+
+"I should not like it to go any further, sir."
+
+"I will certainly respect any confidence ..."
+
+"I don't want anybody to know, sir. This is strictly between ourselves."
+
+"I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relations
+existing between boy and--Well, never mind that for the present. We can
+return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish to say. I
+shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it."
+
+"Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith, "Jackson happened to tell me
+that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr. Downing's
+dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, so I thought it
+wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say I had done it.
+That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writing created a certain
+amount of confusion."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, at last,
+"but.... You are a curious boy, Smith. Good night."
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+"Good night, sir," said Psmith.
+
+"Not a bad old sort," said Psmith meditatively to himself, as he walked
+downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in from time to
+time and cultivate him."
+
+Mike and Adair were waiting for him outside the front door.
+
+"Well?" said Mike.
+
+"You _are_ the limit," said Adair. "What's he done?"
+
+"Nothing. We had a very pleasant chat, and then I tore myself away."
+
+"Do you mean to say he's not going to do a thing?"
+
+"Not a thing."
+
+"Well, you're a marvel," said Adair.
+
+Psmith thanked him courteously. They walked on toward the houses.
+
+"By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in at
+Downing's, "I'll write to Strachan tonight about that match."
+
+"What's that?" asked Psmith.
+
+"Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," said Adair.
+"They've got a vacant date. I hope the dickens they'll do it."
+
+"Oh, I should think they're certain to," said Mike. "Good night."
+
+"And give Comrade Downing, when you see him," said Psmith, "my very best
+love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ours what
+it is."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tell Downing
+you'd done it?"
+
+"The craving for--"
+
+"Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it was
+simply to get me out of a jolly tight corner."
+
+Psmith's expression was one of pain.
+
+"My dear Comrade Jackson," said he, "you wrong me. You make me writhe.
+I'm surprised at you. I never thought to hear those words from
+Michael Jackson."
+
+"Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "And it
+was jolly good of you, too."
+
+Psmith moaned.
+
+
+
+30
+
+SEDLEIGH V. WRYKYN
+
+
+The Wrykyn match was three parts over, and things were going badly for
+Sedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, and that
+Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one-day match, and Wrykyn, who had led
+on the first innings, had only to play out time to make the game theirs.
+
+Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to be
+influenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose more
+school matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type of
+school batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets his
+imagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,
+Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the most
+azure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adair had
+announced on the notice board that on Saturday, July the twentieth,
+Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on the jump. It was
+useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, on Mike's
+authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on their present
+form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but were not
+comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but then Wrykyn
+cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that this probably
+meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--there was a very
+firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh first eleven that the
+other school was quite strong enough to knock the cover off _them_.
+Experience counts enormously in school matches. Sedleigh had never been
+proved. The teams they played were the sort of sides which the Wrykyn
+second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, from time immemorial, had been
+beating Ripton teams and Free Foresters teams and M.C.C. teams packed
+with county men and sending men to Oxford and Cambridge who got their
+blues as freshmen.
+
+Sedleigh had gone onto the field that morning a depressed side.
+
+It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choice but
+to take first innings. The weather had been bad for the last week, and
+the wicket was slow and treacherous. It was likely to get worse during
+the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
+
+Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this in
+itself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst and
+nerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find the
+surroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlers becomes
+magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, a collapse
+almost invariably ensues.
+
+Today the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark of the
+side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and from whom,
+whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty was
+expected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, had
+played inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had been
+caught at short slip off his second ball.
+
+That put the finishing touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and the
+others, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowed
+them to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hit out
+at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing back to
+half volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting was not
+equal to his bowling, and he had fallen after hitting one four. Seven
+wickets were down for thirty when Psmith went in.
+
+Psmith had always disclaimed any pretensions to batting skill, but he
+was undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had an enormous
+reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce he turned into
+full tosses and swept to the leg boundary, and, assisted by Barnes, who
+had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, he raised the total
+to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score at thirty-five. Ten
+minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes not out sixteen, for
+seventy-nine.
+
+Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, and
+finally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred and
+thirty-one.
+
+This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the team
+had looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather hunting. But Adair
+and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy, especially
+Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havoc with
+the tail.
+
+It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling the
+game out of the fire; but it was a comfort, they felt, at any rate,
+having another knock. As is usual at this stage of a match, their
+nervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things than in
+the first innings.
+
+It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and he went in first. Mike knew
+the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convinced that, if
+they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle up a score
+sufficient to give them the game, always provided Wrykyn collapsed in
+the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicket would be so
+bad then that they easily might.
+
+So he and Psmith had gone in at four o'clock to hit. And they had hit.
+The deficit had been wiped off, all but a dozen runs, when Psmith was
+bowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treated
+all the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his proper
+frame of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and the
+rest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was a
+hundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skied one
+to Strachan at cover. The time was twenty-five past five.
+
+As Mike reached the pavilion, Adair declared the innings closed.
+
+Wrykyn started batting at twenty-five minutes to six, with sixty-nine to
+make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutes during
+which to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take things easy and
+go for a win on the first innings.
+
+At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, for Strachan
+forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, and which he
+hit into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. And when, two
+runs later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished up his over
+with a c-and-b, Wrykyn decided that it was not good enough. Seventeen
+for three, with an hour all but five minutes to go, was getting too
+dangerous. So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceeded to play with
+caution, and the collapse ceased.
+
+This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapter
+opened. Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and the
+hands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowling had
+been tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past the batsmen's
+defence. They were playing all the good balls, and refused to hit at
+the bad.
+
+A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion which
+altered the game completely.
+
+"Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they were
+crossing over. "There's a spot on the off which might help you a lot.
+You can break like blazes if only you land on it. It doesn't help my leg
+breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."
+
+Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl when Adair took the ball
+from him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an air that
+suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post. The
+next moment Drummond's off stump was lying at an angle of forty-five.
+Adair was absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he had dropped his first
+ball right on the worn patch.
+
+Two minutes later Drummond's successor was retiring to the pavilion,
+while the wicket keeper straightened the stumps again.
+
+There is nothing like a couple of unexpected wickets for altering the
+atmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargic
+and without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground.
+There were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down.
+Sedleigh was on top again.
+
+The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
+walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.
+
+Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
+out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
+feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to
+the right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.
+
+After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
+next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
+collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
+minutes in hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
+general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
+playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
+jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."
+
+"When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
+sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at
+the shop."
+
+"He bowled awfully well."
+
+"Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this
+joyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give
+Sedleigh a fixture again next year?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
+left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
+swamp them."
+
+"I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the
+thing started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten
+Wrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and
+work up to playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's
+all right, you see."
+
+"And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
+always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
+and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
+Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it
+would be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall
+we stagger?"
+
+They staggered.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse
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