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diff --git a/old/10586-0.txt b/old/10586-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38527fc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10586-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7554 @@ +*** 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 *** |