 Chapters 35 through 37 of Mike. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Mike, A Public School Story by P. G. Woodhouse Chapter 35, Unpleasantness and the Small Hours Jellycoe, 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 Smith, the matter of noise, must this business be conducted in a subdued and saddle 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 budding 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 gambles? Barnes might, said Jellicole, only he won't. Who is Barnes? Head of the house. A robber. He's in a funk of stone and Robinson. They rag him. He'll simply sit tight. Then I think, said Smith placidly, we may look forward to a very pleasant evening. Shall we be moving? Mr. Outwood paid his visit at eleven, as predicted by Jellicole, beaming vaguely into the darkness over a candle, 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 wash-hand stand, which is close to the door. He would have posted you by your wash-hand stand, and he would have instructed Comrade Jellicole, 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. Smith lit a candle, and they examined the ground. The leg of a wardrobe and the leg of Jellicole's bed made it possible for the string to be fastened in a satisfactory manner across the lower step. Smith surveyed the result with approval. Dashed neat, he said, practically the sunken road which dished the carassiers at Waterloo. I seem to see Comrade Spiller coming one of the finest purlers in the world's history. If they've got a candle, they won't have. If they have, stand by with your water jug and douse it at once. Then they'll charge forward and all will be well. If they have no candle, fling the water at a venture. Fire into the brown. Lest we forget, I'll collar Comrade Jellicole's jug now and keep it handy. A couple of sheets would also not be amiss. We will enmesh the enemy. Right hoe, said Mike. These humane preparations being concluded, said Smith, we will retire to our posts and wait. Comrade Jellicole, 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 chap, said Jellicole. Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying experience, especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential. Mike found his thoughts wandering back to the vigil he had kept with Mr. Wayne at Ricken on the night when Wyatt had come in through the window and found authority sitting on his bed waiting for him. 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 Smith's direction followed and a slight giggle succeeded by a series of deep breaths showed that Jellicole too had heard the noise. There was a creaking sound. It was pitch dark in the dormitory but Mike could follow the invader's movements as clearly as if it had been broad daylight. They had opened the door and were listening. Jellicole'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 that 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 mask bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair. He emptied his jug onto this mask 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 towards the invaders before, but now he ran amuck, 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 Smith. 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 without stretched arms and stumbled and fell over one 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 were crowding in the doorway with a candle. 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 Smith wielding in his right hand the court of addressing gown was engaging the remaining three with a patient smile. They were clad in pajamas and appeared to be feeling the dressing gown court acutely. The sudden light dazed both sides momentarily. The defense was the first to recover. Mike with a swing upsetting stone and Smith having seized an empty Jellico's jug over Spiller getting to work again with the court in a manner that roused the utmost enthusiasm of the spectators. Agility seemed to be the leading feature of Smith's tactics. He was everywhere on Mike's bed on his own on Jellico'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 Smith 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 pitched forked 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 Smith 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 diverse 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. Smith nor Mr. Jackson will be at home to visitors. This nuisance must now cease. R. Smith M. Jackson. Chapter 36. Adair. On the same morning Mike met Adair for the first time. He was going across to school with Smith and Jelico when a group of three came out of the gate of the house next door. That's Adair! said Jelico 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 celebrities back. He had broad shoulders and wiry light hair, almost white. He walked well as if he were used to running. All together 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 to 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, rake. Third, pace. He set himself to acquire pitch. He acquired it. Bowling at his own pace and without any attempt at rake, he could now drop the ball on an envelope seven times out of ten. Rake 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 plum 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 of six or seven hundred, his influences felt less. But in a small school like Sedley he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him. There were two hundred boys at Sedley, 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 football and cricket in the same year, Sedley, as Mr. Downing, Adair's housemaster, and the nearest approach to a cricket master that Sedley 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 schoolboy likes his school. He hopes it will lick Bedford at footer 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, Sedley 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 Sedley. The place had grown on him, absorbed him. Where Mike, violently transplanted from Rickon, saw only a wretched little hole, not to be mentioned in the same breath with Rickon, Adair, dreaming of the future, saw a colossal establishment, a public school among public schools, a lump of human radium shooting out blues in Valley All 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 Sedley 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 these schools, and to be an old Sedley and should be a badge passing its owner everywhere. He's captain of cricket and footer, said Jellicoe impressively. He's in the shooting eight. He's won the mile-and-half 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 his all-round man dated from the dinner hour that day. Mike was walking to the house with Smith. Smith 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 P. Smith, I replied, exercising wonderful self-restraint. Just Smith. 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 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 settling in 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 softball 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 hardball 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 squareer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl. Smith joined Swavly 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 Lohmshire, do you play Lohmshire? We shall be grubbing in the hard ground for ruined abbeys. The old choice between pleasure and duty, Comrade Adair, avoids crossroads. Then you won't play. No, said Mike. Archaeology, said Smith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, took no divided allegiance from her devotees. Adair turned and walked on. Scarcely had he gone when another voice hailed him 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. 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 Smith, with fervor. Excellent. On archaeology. Mr. Downing, for it was no less a celebrity, started as one who perceives a lowly 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 them into idle loafing habits. I never loaf, sir, said Smith. 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 Smith, 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 Smith, 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. Chapter 37 Mike Finds Occupations 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 settling in 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 and innings for a kindergarten versus 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 a dare and shouting, I will be good, I was in the rick and 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 suddenly cricket was not the childish burlesque of the game which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be. Numbers did 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, it sadly. A dare to begin with was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a burges, but burges was the only rick and 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 rick and. The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men. Barnes, the head of Outwoods, 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 plotting type. Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair who now treated Mike and Smith 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 rick and. 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, going 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 Smith's views on life, proved but a poor substitute for Cricket. Smith, who had no counter-attraction 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 sickled or with a pale cast of care. But Smith followed his leader with the pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him round the garden. Smith's attitude towards 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 on the Third Expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the sight of an old Roman camp. Smith approached Mike. Having inspired confidence, he said, by the docility of our demeanor, let us slip away and brood apart for a while. 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 Smith, and above all dashed bad for the knees of the trousers. Mine are like some furrowed field. It's a great relief 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 further end there was a brook shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound over pebbles. Thus far, said Smith, hitching up the knees of his trousers and sitting down, and no farther. We will rest here a while 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. When Smith, 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 the 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 mustache. 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. When passing you seemed 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 and 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 Ricken? What are you doing down here? I've left Ricken. 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 pottering about. Get any cricket, asked Mike, turning to the subject next to 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 on to 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 Borlach. That's the name of the place. And I'll meet you on the ground. Anyone will tell you where Lower Borlach 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 rick and wicket. The Lower Borlach pitch isn't a shirt front. I'll play on a rockery if you want me to, said Mike. You're going to what? Ask Smith 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 into 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 Jellico's bicycle. That Saturday Lower Borlach smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh. Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of 75 by a newcomer to the team, M. Jackson. End of section 13. Chapters 38 and 39 of Mike. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Mike, a public school story by P. G. Woodhouse. Chapter 38, 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 Borlach reached the 50s and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have admitted it, to enjoy himself. It was not ricken, 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 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 Sedley 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 of ice 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 30 and 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 ant eater, 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 Rikinian being always a firm ally of every dog he met after two minutes acquaintance. In passing, Jellico 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 schoolhouse 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 sadly 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 in the meeting had divided. Mr. Downing wrapped 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 25 votes to six. Please, sir, may I go and get measured this evening? Please, sir, silence. The idea of a uniform is, of course, out of the question. Oh, sir, 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. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, sir. 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 footer tops 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 paint, ooh, sir, 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 Jellico'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 Rikinians had asked before him. It was a question invented by Ricken for use in just such a case as this. I do not propose, said Mr. Downing acidly, to imitate the noise. I will 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 boots, 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 maximum gun. Stone, sit down. Down of it, if you do not sit down, you will be severely punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder. Wind of them the same. Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing, Broughton Knight? I will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder. The meaning 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. Wolferson, 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 the clockwork rat. What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats? Then I remembered, said Mike, that I had left my horrors 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. 100 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 Sedley 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. Chapter 39 Achilles leaves his tent. They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his wrongs in his study after the Sammy incident, Jellico came into the room and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a sovereign. When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and borrowings to six pence's and shillings, a request for a sovereign comes as something of a blow. What on earth for? asked Mike. I said, 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. Jellico was profusing 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 a little borlock against Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored 98, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom he was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign to Jellico, 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 war-like 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 Smith's debt 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 Robinson's 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. A dare had a smoldering dislike for them. They were useful at cricket, but apt not to take Sedley 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 fliers 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 Ricken. Why on earth did you leave? asked Stone. Were you sacked? No, my patter took me away. Ricken, said Robinson. Are you any relation of the Jacksons there? JW 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, a place called Little Borlach, a man who played against Ricken 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. Well, look here, tomorrow's midterm 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 is a whole holiday. There are always house matches. We're playing downings. 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 midterm 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 Rick and I mean. Yes, I was in the team. Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his wisdom and he had an immense respect for Rick and Cricket. Are you the M. Jackson then who had an average of 51.03 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 downings tomorrow? Rather, said Mike, thanks awfully. Have some tea. End of section 14. Chapters 40 through 42 of Mike. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Mike, a public school story by P.G. Woodhouse. Chapter 40. The Match with Downings. It is the curious instinct which prompts most people to rub a thing in that makes the lot of the average convert an unhappy one. Only the very self-controlled can refrain from improving the occasion and scoring off the convert. Most leap at the opportunity. It was so in Mike's case. Mike was not a genuine convert, but to Mr. Downing, he had the outward aspect of one. When you have been impressing upon a non-cricketing boy for nearly a month that, A, the school is above all a keen school, B, that all members of it should play cricket, and C, that by not playing cricket he is ruining his chances in this world and 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 a dare 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 number two 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? Smith, 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 archeologist of yesterday, becomes the cricketer of today. It is the right spirit, sir, said Smith earnestly. I like to see it. Indeed, Smith, you are not playing yourself, I notice. Your enthusiasm has bound. 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 midterm 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, sadly, were nearly always good. Adair had infected the ground man with some of his own keenness with the result that that once leisurely official now found himself sometimes with a kind of mild surprise working really hard. At the beginning of the previous season, Sedley had played a scratched 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 ground man. The latter's reformation had dated from that moment. Barnes, timidly jubilant, came up to Mike with the news that he had won the toss and the request that Mike would go in first with him. In stories of the not really a duffer type, where the nervous new boy, who has been found crying in the boot room over the photograph of his sister, contrives to get an innings in a game, nobody suspects that he is really a prodigy till he hits the bully's first ball out of the ground for six. With Mike it was different. There was no pitying smile on Adair's face as he started his run preparatory descending down the first ball. Mike, on the cricket field, could not have looked anything but a cricketer if he had turned out in a tweed suit and hobnail boots. Cricketer was written all over him. In his walk, in the way he took guard, in his stand at the wickets, Adair started to bowl with the feeling that this was somebody who had more than a little knowledge of how to deal with good bowling and punish bad. Mike started cautiously. He was more than usually anxious to make runs 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 field's been changed over. The general interest had now settled on the match between outwards and downings. The fact in Mike's case had gone round the field, and as several of the other games had not yet begun, quite a large crowd had collected near the pavilion to watch. Mike's masterly treatment of the opening over had impressed the spectators, and there was a popular desire to see how he would deal with Mr. Downing's slows. It was generally anticipated that he would do something special with them. Off the first ball of the master's over, a leg buy 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 cake walk. 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 a dares 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 cake walk in the hope that it might see something more sensational. This time the hope was fulfilled. The ball was well up, slow and off the wicket on the onside. 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 days cricket began that sadly 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 a dares fifth over he missed barns the first occasion since the game began on which that mild batsman had attempted to score more than a single. Scared by this escape, that woods 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 a dare 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 of the kind 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 ricken team before I came here, three years. A dare was silent for a moment. Will you play for us against the old sedelians 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 should want a lot of coaching if they had had a net of yours before I'm fit to play for Sedley. There was another pause. Then you won't play, asked a dare. 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 there would be fools not to make the most of the situation. Barnes has remarked that he supposed unless anything happened and wickets began to fall a bit faster they had better think of declaring somewhere about half past three or four was met with a storm of opposition. Declare said Robinson Great Scott what on earth are you talking about? Declare Stone's voice was almost a well 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 a 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 they're 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 build 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 midterm service day match made history. Big scores had often been put up on midterm service day. Games have frequently been one sided but it had never happened to 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 630. In no previous suddenly 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 epics. Play was resumed at 215. 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 the 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 220 for no wicket Barnes greatly daring smote lustily at a rather wide half volley and was caught at short slip for 33. He retired blushfully to the pavilion amidst applause and stone came out. As Mike had then made 187 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 was told that the feat had been accomplished. The field's been clapped in quite an indulgent sort of way as who should say capital, capital and now let's start our innings. Some even began to edge towards the pavilion but the next ball was bold and the next over and the next after that and still Barnes made no sign. The conscious stricken captain of outwards was as a matter of fact being practically held down by Robinson and other ruffians by force. A greatest may settled on the field. The bowling had now become almost unbelievably bad. Lobbs were being tried and stone nearly weeping with pure joy was playing in 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 but his score too was mounting steadily. This is foolery snapped Mr. Downing as the 350 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 11 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 and is perfect foolery. I think Jenkins is just going to bowl sir. Mr. Downing walked mootily to his place in a neat wooden frame in the senior day room at outwards just above the mantel piece. There was on view a week later a slip of paper the writing on it was as follows outwards versus downings outwards first innings JP Barnes C Hammond B Hassal 33 M. Jackson not out 277 W. J. Stone not out 124 Extras 37 Total for one wicket 471 Downings did not bat Chapter 41 The singular behavior of Jellicole Outwards roll it 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 277 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 Smith'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. Smith leaning against the mantelpiece discourse in a disultery 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 what do 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 foe unworthy 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 right 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 stacked. 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. Smith 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 Jelico. When all the place was ringing with song and merriment, Comrade Jelico crept to my side and slipping his little hand in mine touched me for three quid. This interested Mike fagged as he was. What? Three quid? Three jingling clinking sovereigns. He wanted four. But the man must be living at the rate of I don't know what. It was only yesterday that he borrowed a quid from me. He must be saving money fast. There appear to be the makings of a financier about Comrade Jelico. Well, I hope when he's collected enough for his needs he'll pay me back a bit. I'm pretty well cleaned out. I got some from my brother at Oxford. Perhaps he's saving up to get married. We may be helping towards furnishing the home. There was a Siamese prince fellow at my dames at Eaton 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 postcard. I think an eye ought to be kept on Comrade Jelico. Mike tumbled into bed that night like a log, but he could not sleep. He ached all over. Smith chatted for a time on human affairs in general and then dropped gently off. Jelico, who appeared to be wrapped in gloom, contributed nothing to the conversation. After Smith 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, Jelico. 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. Jelico was apparently not in a 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 pattern. Why? Well, I don't know. So would mine. Everybody's would, I expect. Yes. The bed creaked as Jelico 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. Jelico droned on in a depressed sort of way. He'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. Jelico, in order to give versimilitude, as it were, to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, flung so much agitated surprise into the last word 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 general sickness and all that. And then you'd be sent into a bank or to Australia or something. Mike dozed off again. My patter would be frightfully sick. My matter 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, Jelico. What's up? I asked you if you've got any sisters. Any what? Sisters. Who's sisters? Yours, I asked if you've got any. Any what? Sisters. What about them? The conversation was becoming too intricate for Jelico. 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 the hypnotist's voice was proceeding. Do what? I say, look out. You're Wake Smith. Did you say you wanted someone to lend you a quid? Yes. Said Jelico 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 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 a blue-eyed hero, he had ranked failure. Except on the cricket field, where he was a natural genius, he was just ordinary. He resembled 90% 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 events. 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 his own. 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 Jellico it had to be done. Two minutes later the night was being made hideous by Jellico's almost cheerful protestations of gratitude, and the postal order had moved from one side of the dormitory to the other. Chapter 42 Mike woke next morning with a confused memory of having listened to a great deal of incoherent conversation from Jellico 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 Jellico, for the latter caroled in a gay undertone as he dressed till Smith, 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 Lowe's spirit of 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. It would probably be unpleasant. As Smith 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 11 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 have never 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 also 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 towards him always assumed an air of stolid stupidity which was as a suit of mail against satire. So Mr. Downing came down from the heights with the run and began to express himself with a simple strength which it did his form good to listen to. Veterans who had been in the form for terms said afterwards there had been nothing to touch it in their experience of the orator since the glorious day when Dunster that Prince of Ragers who had left at Christmas to go to a Crammers 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 enrich 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. McPherson, 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 time 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 Jellico joined him. Jellico 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 use with the faint beginnings of a mustache 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 Jellico 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 there's not much protection that can survive along the ground. When HEADS was called on the present occasion Mike and Jellico instantly assumed the crouching attitude. Jellico was the first to abandon it. He uttered a yell and sprang into the air after which he sat down and began to nurse his ankle. The bright blazered youth walked up awfully sorry you know man hurt. Jellico 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 Jellico tried but sat down again was allowed out 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 Jellico hopping Dunster advancing with a sort of polka step Mike watched them start and then turned to go in end of section 15