Be quick, Smith, he said, as the latter stood looking at him withoutmaking any movement in the direction of the door.
"_Quick_, sir?" said Psmith meditatively, as if he had been askeda 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 waslooking 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 wasalmost too respectful; which made it all the more a pity that what hesaid 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 amaster. 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 anyother place but Mr. Outwood's house, your word would be law. I wouldfly 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 meor what is ordered by Mr. Outwood. I ought to have remembered thatbefore. One cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us bereasonable," "one cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonelcommanding the garrison at a naval station going on board a battleshipand ordering the crew to splice the jibboom spanker. It might be anadmirable thing for the Empire that the jibboom spanker _should_be spliced at that particular juncture, but the crew would naturallydecline to move in the matter until the order came from the commanderof the ship. So in my case. If you will go to Mr. Outwood, and explainto 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 thisstudy,' then I shall be only too glad to go and find him. You see mydifficulty, 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 boot in thatcupboard now, there will be a boot 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 boot."He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took outthe boot. Then he selected from the basket a particularly batteredspecimen. Placing this in the cupboard, he re-locked the door.
His next act was to take from the shelf a piece of string. Attachingone end of this to the boot that he had taken from the cupboard, hewent to the window. His first act was to fling the cupboard-key outinto the bushes. Then he turned to the boot. On a level with the sillthe 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 thestring to this, and let the boot swing free. He noticed with approval,when it had stopped swinging, that it was hidden from above by thewindow-sill.
He returned to his place at the mantelpiece.
As an after-thought he took another boot from the basket, and thrustit up the chimney. A shower of soot fell into the grate, blackeninghis hand.
The bathroom was a few yards down the corridor. He went there, andwashed 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 tothe 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, Icannot quite understand what it is Mr. Downing wishes me to do.""My dear Outwood," snapped the sleuth, "I thought I had made itperfectly clear. Where is the difficulty?""I cannot understand why you should suspect Smith of keeping his bootsin a cupboard, and," added Mr. Outwood with spirit, catching sight ofa 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 meyour 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 hisboots was splashed with the paint. It is that boot which I believeSmith to be concealing in this cupboard. Now, do you understand?"Mr. Outwood looked amazedly at Smith, and Psmith shook his headsorrowfully at Mr. Outwood. Psmith'a expression said, as plainly as ifhe had spoken the words, "We must humour 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 anyobjection?"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 dumb-bells on the floor, belonging to Mike. Henever used them, but they always managed to get themselves packed withthe rest of his belongings on the last day of the holidays. Mr.
Downing seized one of these, and delivered two rapid blows at thecupboard-door. The wood splintered. A third blow smashed the flimsylock. The cupboard, with any skeletons it might contain, was open forall to view.
Mr. Downing uttered a cry of triumph, and tore the boot from itsresting-place.
"I told you," he said. "I told you.""I wondered where that boot had got to," said Psmith. "I've beenlooking for it for days."Mr. Downing was examining his find. He looked up with an exclamationof surprise and wrath.
"This boot has no paint on it," he said, glaring at Psmith. "This isnot the boot.""It certainly appears, sir," said Psmith sympathetically, "to be freefrom paint. There's a sort of reddish glow just there, if you look atit sideways," he added helpfully.
"Did you place that boot there, Smith?""I must have done. Then, when I lost the key----""Are you satisfied now, Downing?" interrupted Mr. Outwood withasperity, "or is there any more furniture you wish to break?"The excitement of seeing his household goods smashed with a dumb-bellhad made the archaeological student quite a swashbuckler for themoment. A little more, and one could imagine him giving Mr. Downing agood, hard knock.
The sleuth-hound stood still for a moment, baffled. But his brain wasworking 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 hadcaught sight of the little pile of soot in the grate. He bent down toinspect it.
"Dear me," he said, "I must remember to have the chimneys swept. Itshould have been done before."Mr. Downing's eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, fromearth to heaven, also focussed itself on the pile of soot; and athrill went through him. Soot in the fireplace! Smith washing hishands! ("You know my methods, my dear Watson. Apply them.")Mr. Downing's mind at that moment contained one single thought; andthat thought was "What ho for the chimney!"He dived forward with a rush, nearly knocking Mr. Outwood off hisfeet, and thrust an arm up into the unknown. An avalanche of soot fellupon his hand and wrist, but he ignored it, for at the same instanthis 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 thistrouble. 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 youropinion of what constitutes----"His voice failed as his eye fell on the all-black toe of the boot. Helooked up, and caught Psmith's benevolent gaze. He straightenedhimself and brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the backof his hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result waslike some gruesome burlesque of a nigger minstrel.
"Did--you--put--that--boot--there, Smith?" he asked slowly.
[Illustration: "DID--YOU--PUT--THAT--BOOT--THERE, SMITH?"]
"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, thoughone can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr.
Outwood, catching sight of his Chirgwin-like countenance, intervened.
"My dear Downing," he said, "your face. It is positively covered withsoot, positively. You must come and wash it. You are quite black.
Really, you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show youthe way to my room."In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking-point, apoint where the spirit definitely refuses, to battle any longeragainst the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing couldnot bear up against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. Inthe language of the Ring, he took the count. It was the knock-out.
"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 hearmore of it."Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where therewere towels, soap, and sponges.
* * * * *When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in thestring. He felt the calm after-glow which comes to the general after asuccessfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for aman of refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the wholeit had been worth it.
The problem now was what to do with the painted boot. It would take alot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessaryimplements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be ableto do so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell, farfrom the madding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot-cupboarddownstairs there would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.
His fears were realised. The boot-cupboard was empty. It seemed to himthat, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to placethe boot in safe hiding, until he should have thought out a scheme.
Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he wentup to the study again, and placed the red-toed boot in the chimney, atabout the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobodywould think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable thatMr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. Theodds were that he had forgotten about it already.
Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feelingthat he had done a good day's work.
The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The mostadroit plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception tothe rule. He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon'shappenings.
It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those peoplewho like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves.
Where there is only one in a secret the secret is more liable toremain unrevealed. There was nothing, he thought, to be gained fromtelling 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 toschool on the Monday morning in pumps.
Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinionwhy only one of Mike's boots was to be found, had no views on thesubject. He seemed to look on it as one of those things which nofellow can understand.
"'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mikemight be satisfied with a compromise.
"One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over toschool in one boot."Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as muchas to say, "I may have lost a boot, but, thank goodness, I can stillunderstand sound reasoning.""Well, what am I to do? Where is the other boot?""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 pumps he stood in.
It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, whichone observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one torealise how strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school,for instance, where the regulations say that coats only of blackor dark blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even themost respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked onwith a mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if hehad sand-bagged the headmaster. So in the case of boots. School rulesdecree that a boy shall go to his form-room in boots, There is no realreason why, if the day is fine, he should not wear shoes, should heprefer 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 minuteswhich elapse between the assembling of the form for call-over and thearrival of the form-master, some wag is sure either to stamp on theshoes, accompanying the act with some satirical remark, or else topull one of them off, and inaugurate an impromptu game of footballwith it. There was once a boy who went to school one morning inelastic-sided boots....
Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest ofhis form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and theform, since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regardedMike with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had toundergo at Wrykyn in similar circumstances. It was only Mr. Downingwho gave trouble.
There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when aboy in their form is wearing shoes instead of boots, just as peoplewho dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them. Theycannot see it, but they feel it in their bones.
Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-shoeist in the wholelist of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly againstshoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention--every weapon was employed byhim in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster'spractice always to go over to school in shoes when, as he usually did,he felt shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected himin the first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything fromten minutes to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys WhoLooked like Loafers--which broke the back of the morning's worknicely. On one occasion, when a particularly tricky bit of Livy was onthe bill of fare, Dunster had entered the form-room in heel-lessTurkish bath-slippers, of a vivid crimson; and the subsequentproceedings, including his journey over to the house to change theheel-less atrocities, had seen him through very nearly to the quarterto eleven interval.
Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes whenMr. Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.
"Yes, sir?" said Mike.
"_What_ are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?""Pumps, sir.""You are wearing pumps? Are you not aware that PUMPS are not theproper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing _PUMPS_?"The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itselfcomfortably for the address from the throne.
"I have lost one of my boots, sir."A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike fora moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to starttranslating.
Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was takenunawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe,he floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise andsatisfaction, the form-master appeared to notice nothing wrong. Hesaid "Yes, yes," mechanically, and finally "That will do," whereuponStone resumed his seat with the feeling that the age of miracles hadreturned.
Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike'sappearance in shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a boot,completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran intoharbour, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said,"Wal, sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" sodid 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.
It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson,discussing the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger-beer at theschool shop, came to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fedup with Adair administration and meant to strike. The immediate causeof revolt was early-morning fielding-practice, that searching test ofcricket keenness. Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great andserious interest of life, had shirked early-morning fielding-practicein his first term at Wrykyn. And Stone and Robinson had but a luke-warmattachment to the game, compared with Mike's.
As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoonafter school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently,had been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of theM.C.C. match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this anextra dose to be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had lefttheir comfortable beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed,and had caught catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morningair, had stung like adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun hasreally got to work, it is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislikeof the experiment was only equalled by Robinson's. They were neither ofthem of the type which likes to undergo hardships for the common good.
They played well enough when on the field, but neither cared greatlywhether the school had a good season or not. They played the gameentirely for their own sakes.
The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with anever-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debateas to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experiencelike to-day's must be avoided.
"It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweatingabout 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 ofthing.""Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stickit.""Nor do I.""I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play forthe team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'dbetter find somebody else.""Yes."At this moment Adair came into the shop.
"Fielding-practice again to-morrow," he said briskly, "at six.""Before breakfast?" said Robinson.
"Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten to-day." Andhe passed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.
Stone was the first to recover.
"I'm hanged if I turn out to-morrow," he said, as they left the shop.
"He can do what be 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 villageJackson 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 anautocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon,the keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, thefear of being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives.
The majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricketcaptain runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he playsfor 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 round, they felt thatthey would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. Thebowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and thechance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs areruns, wherever and however made.
The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team nextmorning for fielding-practice, found himself two short. Barnes wasamong those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood'shouse there were no signs.
Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyondthe fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not agreat help. Adair proceeded with the fielding-practice without furtherdelay.
At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently wrapped inthought. Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair onhis right, was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment ofthe body with that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with thedaily paper before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand onthe results of his reading to Adair and the other house-prefects, who,not having seen the paper, usually formed an interested andappreciative audience. To-day, however, though the house-prefectsexpressed varying degrees of excitement at the news that Tyldesley hadmade a century against Gloucestershire, and that a butter famine wasexpected in the United States, these world-shaking news-items seemedto leave Adair cold. He champed his bread and marmalade with anabstracted air.
He was wondering what to do in this matter of Stone and Robinson.
Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for grantedthat the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safeand convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sortof 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. Hewent across to Outwood's and found the two non-starters in the seniorday-room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall andmarking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincidedwith a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalanceand stagger backwards against the captain.
"Sorry," said Stone. "Hullo, Adair!""Don't mention it. Why weren't you two at fielding-practice thismorning?"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 thecoolness which comes from rehearsal.
"We decided not to.""Oh?""Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn't any use for early-morningfielding."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 onlythinking 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 youcan't do anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if youlike, but we don't care if you do. Jackson will get us a game anyWednesday or Saturday for the village he plays for. So we're allright. And the school team aren't such a lot of flyers that you canafford to go chucking people out of it whenever you want to. See whatI 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'llplay for the school all right. There's no earthly need for us to turnout for fielding-practice before breakfast.""You don't think there is? You may be right. All the same, you'regoing to to-morrow 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 fivepast 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 anydeep conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense forhis 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 wasstanding 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 mighthave seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. Butscience tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighterthan Stone, but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about thegame. His blow was always home a fraction of a second sooner than hisopponent'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 aminute or two."Stone made no reply.
"Will ten past six suit you for fielding-practice to-morrow?" saidAdair.
"All right," said Stone.
"Thanks. How about you, Robinson?"Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-likemanoeuvres of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long tomake up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In differentcircumstances he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes amore than ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which heknows must end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothinglike a match even for Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in alittle over one minute. It seemed to Robinson that neither pleasurenor 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 mewhich is Jackson's study."Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task whichprecluded anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson repliedthat Mike's study was the first you came to on the right of thecorridor at the top of the stairs.
"Thanks," said Adair. "You don't happen to know if he's in, Isuppose?""He went up with Smith a quarter of an hour ago. I don't know if he'sstill there.""I'll go and see," said Adair. "I should like a word with him if heisn't busy."
Mike, all unconscious of the stirring proceedings which had been goingon below stairs, was peacefully reading a letter he had received thatmorning from Strachan at Wrykyn, in which the successor to the cricketcaptaincy which should have been Mike's had a good deal to say in alugubrious strain. In Mike's absence things had been going badly withWrykyn. A broken arm, contracted in the course of some rashexperiments with a day-boy's motor-bicycle, had deprived the team ofthe services of Dunstable, the only man who had shown any signs ofbeing 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 smashedthem by a hundred and fifty runs. Geddington had wiped them off theface of the earth. The Incogs, with a team recruited exclusively fromthe rabbit-hutch--not a well-known man on the side except Stacey,a veteran who had been playing for the club since Fuller Pilch'stime--had got home by two wickets. In fact, it was Strachan's opinionthat the Wrykyn team that summer was about the most hopeless gang ofdead-beats that had ever made an exhibition of itself on the schoolgrounds. The Ripton match, fortunately, was off, owing to an outbreakof mumps at that shrine of learning and athletics--the second outbreakof the malady in two terms. Which, said Strachan, was hard lines onRipton, but a bit of jolly good luck for Wrykyn, as it had saved themfrom what would probably have been a record hammering, Ripton havingeight of their last year's team left, including Dixon, the fastbowler, against whom Mike alone of the Wrykyn team had been able tomake runs in the previous season. Altogether, Wrykyn had struck a badpatch.
Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have beenthere to help. It might have made all the difference. In schoolcricket one good batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers offtheir length, may take a weak team triumphantly through a season. Inschool cricket the importance of a good start for the first wicket isincalculable.
As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitternessagainst Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days,returned with a rush. He was conscious once more of that feeling ofpersonal injury which had made him hate his new school on the firstday of term.
And it was at this point, when his resentment was at its height, thatAdair, the concrete representative of everything Sedleighan, enteredthe room.
There are moments in life's placid course when there has got to be thebiggest kind of row. This was one of them.
* * * * *Psmith, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, reading the serialstory 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 wassitting, 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, "Ishould say that young Lord Antony Trefusis was in the soup already. Iseem to see the _consommé_ splashing about his ankles. He's had anote telling him to be under the oak-tree in the Park at midnight.
He's just off there at the end of this instalment. 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 contemporaryliterature?""Thanks," said Adair. "I just wanted to speak to Jackson for aminute.""Fate," said Psmith, "has led your footsteps to the right place. Thatis 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 theschool. The fact that the M.C.C. match was on the following day madethis a probable solution of the reason for his visit. He could thinkof no other errand that was likely to have set the head of Downing'spaying afternoon calls.
"I'll tell you in a minute. It won't take long.""That," said Psmith approvingly, "is right. Speed is the key-note ofthe present age. Promptitude. Despatch. 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 andRobinson.""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 thefirst round."Mike got up out of his chair. He could not quite follow what all thiswas about, but there was no mistaking the truculence of Adair'smanner. For some reason, which might possibly be made dear later,Adair was looking for trouble, and Mike in his present mood felt thatit would be a privilege to see that he got it.
Psmith was regarding Adair through his eyeglass with pain andsurprise.
"Surely," he said, "you do not mean us to understand that you havebeen _brawling_ with Comrade Stone! This is bad hearing. Ithought that you and he were like brothers. Such a bad example forComrade 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, gazedat 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 fiercerush 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 turnout at six to-morrow morning. He said he wouldn't, so we argued itout. He's going to all right. So is Robinson."Mike remained silent.
"So are you," added Adair.
"I get thinner and thinner," said Psmith from the mantelpiece.
Mike looked at Adair, and Adair looked at Mike, after the manner oftwo dogs before they fly at one another. There was an electric silencein 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. to-morrow, andI 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 askedcuriously.
"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 tobeginning the serious business of the interview, and in that secondPsmith, 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_ letyour angry passions rise, against the direct advice of Doctor Watts,I suppose you must, But when you propose to claw each other in mystudy, in the midst of a hundred fragile and priceless ornaments, Ilodge a protest. If you really feel that you want to scrap, forgoodness sake do it where there's some room. I don't want all thestudy 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 youwant to. How would it be to move on there? Any objections? None? Thenshift ho! and let's get it over."
Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything theytouch. Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehowenveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the presentoccasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mereunscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formalityof the National Sporting Club.
"The rounds," he said, producing a watch, as they passed through agate into a field a couple of hundred yards from the house gate, "willbe of three minutes' duration, with a minute rest in between. A manwho 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 upto its referee's introduction. Dramatically, there should have beencautious sparring for openings and a number of tensely contestedrounds, as if it had been the final of a boxing competition. Butschool fights, when they do occur--which is only once in a decadenowadays, unless you count junior school scuffles--are the outcome ofweeks of suppressed bad blood, and are consequently brief and furious.
In a boxing competition, however much one may want to win, one doesnot 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 lastround one expects to resume that attitude of mind. In a fight eachparty, as a rule, hates the other.
So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about thepresent battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mikewanted was to get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushedtogether 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 havelasted three rounds against Adair. The latter was a clever boxer,while Mike had never had a lesson in his life. If Adair had kept awayand used his head, nothing could have prevented him winning.
As it was, however, he threw away his advantages, much as Tom Browndid at the beginning of his fight with Slogger Williams, and theresult was the same as on that historic occasion. Mike had the greaterstrength, and, thirty seconds from the start, knocked his man cleanoff his feet with an unscientific but powerful right-hander.
This finished Adair's chances. He rose full of fight, but with all thescience knocked out of him. He went in at Mike with both hands. TheIrish blood in him, which for the ordinary events of life made himmerely energetic and dashing, now rendered him reckless. He abandonedall attempt at guarding. It was the Frontal Attack in its most futileform, and as unsuccessful as a frontal attack is apt to be. There wasa 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 whichkept it tingling for the rest of the day; and then Adair went down ina heap.
He got up slowly and with difficulty. For a moment he stood blinkingvaguely. Then he lurched forward at Mike.
In the excitement of a fight--which is, after all, about the mostexciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life--itis difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Wherethe spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighterhimself only sees a legitimate piece of self-defence against anopponent whose chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybodylooking on would have seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had takenhim within a fraction of an inch of the point of the jaw, and he wasall but knocked out. Mike could not see this. All he understood wasthat his man was on his feet again and coming at him, so he hit outwith 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 adash at picking up the slain. I shouldn't stop, if I were you. He'llbe sitting up and taking notice soon, and if he sees you he may wantto go on with the combat, which would do him no earthly good. If it'sgoing to be continued in our next, there had better be a bit of aninterval for alterations and repairs first.""Is he hurt much, do you think?" asked Mike. He had seen knock-outsbefore in the ring, but this was the first time he had ever effectedone on his own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpse-like.
"_He's_ all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll beskipping about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go awayand pick flowers."Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious ofa perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which wasa curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himselfthinking that Adair was a good chap, that there was something to besaid for his point of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked himabout so much. At the same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of prideat having beaten him. The feat presented that interesting person, MikeJackson, to him in a fresh and pleasing light, as one who had had atough job to face and had carried it through. Jackson, the cricketer,he knew, but Jackson, the deliverer of knock-out blows, was strange tohim, and he found this new acquaintance a man to be respected.
The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they arefought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionisedMike's view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood outof him. Where, before, he had seemed to himself to be acting withmassive dignity, he now saw that he had simply been sulking like somewretched kid. There had appeared to him something rather fine in hispolicy of refusing to identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, atouch of the stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He nowsaw that his attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n'tplay."It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making anass of himself.
He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, whenPsmith 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, butit seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peace-maker,not afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for acomfortable 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, butevery one to his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would getoverwhelmingly attached to this abode of wrath, but Comrade Adairseems to have done it. He's all for giving Sedleigh a much-neededboost-up. It's not a bad idea in its way. I don't see why oneshouldn't humour him. Apparently he's been sweating since earlychildhood to buck the school up. And as he's leaving at the end of theterm, 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 astart, why not drop him a line to say that you'll play against theM.C.C. to-morrow?"Mike did not reply at once. He was feeling better disposed towardsAdair and Sedleigh than he had felt, but he was not sure that he wasquite prepared to go as far as a complete climb-down.
"It wouldn't be a bad idea," continued Psmith. "There's nothing likegiving a man a bit in every now and then. It broadens the soul andimproves the action of the skin. What seems to have fed up ComradeAdair, to a certain extent, is that Stone apparently led him tounderstand that you had offered to give him and Robinson places inyour 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 ofthe Jacksons. I said that you would scorn to tarnish the Jacksonescutcheon 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 inunworthy 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 withhis 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 atpoint by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk anothersuch shock to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that athing of that sort takes years off my life.""No, but look here, Smith, bar rotting. Are you really any good atcricket?""Competent judges at Eton gave me to understand so. I was told thatthis year I should be a certainty for Lord's. But when the cricketseason came, where was I? Gone. Gone like some beautiful flower thatwithers in the night.""But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only likedwatching it.""Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory youhave to overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thingbecomes a habit. Imagine my feelings when I found that I wasdegenerating, little by little, into a slow left-hand bowler with aswerve. I fought against it, but it was useless, and after a while Igave up the struggle, and drifted with the stream. Last year, in ahouse match"--Psmith's voice took on a deeper tone of melancholy--"Itook seven for thirteen in the second innings on a hard wicket. I didthink, when I came here, that I had found a haven of rest, but it wasnot to be. I turn out to-morrow. What Comrade Outwood will say, whenhe finds that his keenest archaeological disciple has deserted, I hateto think. However----"Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The wholeface of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, therecalcitrant, wavering on the point of playing for the school, andhere was Psmith, the last person whom he would have expected to be aplayer, stating calmly that he had been in the running for a place inthe Eton eleven.
Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, buthe read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith hadbeen acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had beendisappointed of the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith beendisappointed of his place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they hadboth worked it off, each in his own way--Mike sullenly, Psmithwhimsically, according to their respective natures--on Sedleigh.
If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down torenounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing tostop 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 noteto Adair now. But, I say--" he stopped--"I'm hanged if I'm going toturn out and field before breakfast to-morrow.""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."
Sprained his wrist? said Mike. "How did he do that?""During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on yourelbow instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was thatyour elbow was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, Idon't know. Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him outof the game to-morrow.""I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go round.""Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you seeanybody downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over tothe shop, ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tellthe man to chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to usat tea is all right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxiousto commit suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike foundthat his late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of hiswillingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as hewent out of the house.
A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuouspatter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke inearnest. 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 allto-morrow."* * * * *When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to showwhat it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly.
When Mike woke the next morning the world was grey and dripping.
Leaden-coloured clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not atrace of blue to be seen, and then the rain began again, in thegentle, 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 anddepressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discoloured buckskinboots, crawl miserably about the field in couples.
Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing'sgate.
These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped--he could hardly walkon 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 careborn 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, Ishould think, shouldn't you?""Not much more. Might be three.""Yes. Three if one didn't hurry.""Oh, yes, 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 yourwrist.""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 havesmashed 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 jollygood 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 lastyear.""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.""Hullo?""I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'dpromised to give Stone and Robinson places in the----""Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me youcouldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you couldhave. It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play forLower Borlock if I chucked him from the school team that gave me theidea.""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 tricklike 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 weregoing to be captain, and come to a small school like this."The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effecton Mike's mind--shaken it up, as it were: for now, for the second timein two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. Hemight have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitudetowards Sedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place.
Adair had said "a small school like this" in the sort of voice whichmight 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 frompoliteness, on the Chinese principle. When a Chinaman wishes to pay acompliment, 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'veever 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'tsuppose I've done anything much.""You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "ifthat's any comfort to you.""I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw stillaches."For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and thehumorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They began tolaugh.
"What fools we must have looked!" said Adair.
"_You_ were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never hadthe gloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith,who doesn't count. Hullo, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on.
What about this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the skyat present.""It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, atthe interval, and hang about in case.""All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've gotmath, till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; whichwon'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 couldtread on the black-beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pintdown my neck just then. We sha'n't get a game to-day, of anything likeit. As you're crocked, I'm not sure that I care much. You've beensweating for years to get the match on, and it would be rather rotplaying 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 sendingdown much of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turningout, we've got a jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all theway through, and the bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have giventhis M.C.C. lot a really good hammering, it might have been easier toget some good fixtures for next season. You see, it's all right for aschool like Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can'tget the best teams to give you a match till you've done something toshow 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 secretaryat Wrykyn last year. What would you have done if you'd had a challengefrom Sedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or elsehad a fit at the mere idea of the thing."Mike stopped.
"By jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I neverthought 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 letterfrom Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton matchhad had to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacantdate. Shall I try them? I'll write to Strachan to-night, 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!"
The rain continued without a break all the morning. The two teams,after hanging about dismally, and whiling the time away withstump-cricket in the changing-rooms, lunched in the pavilion atone o'clock. After which the M.C.C. captain, approaching Adair,moved that this merry meeting be considered off and himself andhis men permitted to catch the next train back to town. To whichAdair, seeing that it was out of the question that there should beany cricket that afternoon, regretfully agreed, and the firstSedleigh _v_. M.C.C. match was accordingly scratched.
Mike and Psmith, wandering back to the house, were met by a dampjunior from Downing's, with a message that Mr. Downing wished to seeMike 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 confidedin him. All he knew was that the housemaster was in the house, andwould be glad if Mike would step across.
"A nuisance," said Psmith, "this incessant demand for you. That's theworst of being popular. If he wants you to stop to tea, edge away. Ameal on rather a sumptuous scale will be prepared in the study againstyour return."Mike changed quickly, and went off, leaving Psmith, who was fond ofsimple pleasures in his spare time, earnestly occupied with a puzzlewhich had been scattered through the land by a weekly paper. The prizefor a solution was one thousand pounds, and Psmith had alreadyinformed Mike with some minuteness of his plans for the disposition ofthis 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, wasagitated.
"I don't wish to be in any way harsh," said Psmith, without lookingup, "but the man who invented this thing was a blighter of the worsttype. You come and have a shot. For the moment I am baffled. Thewhisper flies round the clubs, 'Psmith is baffled.'""The man's an absolute drivelling 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 inlife.""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 beendoing to you?""He's off his nut.""I know. But what did he do? How did the brainstorm burst? Did he jumpat you from behind a door and bite a piece out of your leg, or did hesay he was a tea-pot?"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 asasked me to. Jawed a lot of rot about my finding it to my advantagelater on if I behaved sensibly.""Then what are you worrying about? Don't you know that when a masterwants you to do the confessing-act, it simply means that he hasn'tenough evidence to start in on you with? You're all right. The thing'sa stand-off.""Evidence!" said Mike, "My dear man, he's got enough evidence to sinka ship. He's absolutely sweating evidence at every pore. As far as Ican see, he's been crawling about, doing the Sherlock Holmes businessfor all he's worth ever since the thing happened, and now he's deadcertain that I painted Sammy.""_Did_ you, by the way?" asked Psmith.
"No," said Mike shortly, "I didn't. But after listening to Downing Ialmost began to wonder if I hadn't. The man's got stacks of evidenceto prove that I did.""Such as what?""It's mostly about my boots. 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 verypleasant half-hour together inspecting boots, but how does he drag youinto it?""He swears one of the boots was splashed with paint.""Yes. He babbled to some extent on that point when I was entertaininghim. But what makes him think that the boot, if any, was yours?""He's certain that somebody in this house got one of his bootssplashed, and is hiding it somewhere. And I'm the only chap in thehouse who hasn't got a pair of boots to show, so he thinks it's me. Idon't know where the dickens my other boot has gone. Edmund swears hehasn't seen it, and it's nowhere about. Of course I've got two pairs,but one's being soled. So I had to go over to school yesterday inpumps. That's how he spotted me."Psmith sighed.
"Comrade Jackson," he said mournfully, "all this very sad affair showsthe folly of acting from the best motives. In my simple zeal, meaningto save you unpleasantness, I have landed you, with a dull, sickeningthud, 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 fenderand groping, "but--_Hullo_!""Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
[Illustration: MIKE DROPPED THE SOOT-COVERED OBJECT IN THE FENDER.]
"It's my boot!" he said at last.
"It _is_," said Psmith, "your boot. And what is that red stainacross the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the boot.
"How on earth did--By Jove! I remember now. I kicked up againstsomething 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 tellyou 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 upto his midnight excursion. Psmith listened attentively.
"This," he said, when Mike had finished, "confirms my frequently statedopinion that Comrade Jellicoe is one of Nature's blitherers. So that'swhy 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, byany 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 waswhy I rang the alarm bell. So, you see, he's certain to think that thechap he chased, which was me, and the chap who painted Sammy, are thesame. I shall get landed both ways."Psmith pondered.
"It _is_ a tightish place," he admitted.
"I wonder if we could get this boot clean," said Mike, inspecting itwith disfavour.
"Not for a pretty considerable time.""I suppose not. I say, I _am_ in the cart. If I can't producethis boot, they're bound to guess why.""What exactly," asked Psmith, "was the position of affairs between youand Comrade Downing when you left him? Had you definitely partedbrass-rags? Or did you simply sort of drift apart with mutualcourtesies?""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 saidvery 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 war-path, 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 itall round, in connection with this painful affair. What do you thinkhis 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 onconfession. The worst of it is, you can't prove an alibi, becauseat about the time the foul act was perpetrated, you were playingRound-and-round-the-mulberry-bush with Comrade Downing. This needsthought. You had better put the case in my hands, and go out andwatch 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 beforeentering. There was a time when they would have tried to smash in apanel. Come in."A small boy, carrying a straw hat adorned with the school-houseribbon, answered the invitation.
"Oh, I say, Jackson," he said, "the headmaster sent me over to tellyou 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 youto-day." He turned to the small boy. "Tell Willie," he added, "thatMr. Jackson will be with him in a moment."The emissary departed.
"_You're_ all right," said Psmith encouragingly. "Just you keepon saying you're all right. Stout denial is the thing. Don't go in forany airy explanations. Simply stick to stout denial. You can't beatit."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 inhis chair, wrapped in thought, heaved himself up again. He stood for amoment straightening his tie at the looking-glass; then he picked uphis 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 atDowning's front gate.
The postman was at the door when he got there, apparently absorbed inconversation with the parlour-maid. Psmith stood by politely till thepostman, who had just been told it was like his impudence, caughtsight of him, and, having handed over the letters in an ultra-formaland professional manner, passed away.
"Is Mr. Downing at home?" inquired Psmith.
He was, it seemed. Psmith was shown into the dining-room on the leftof 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 handtowards the painting.
"Well, Smith," said Mr. Downing shortly, "what do you wish to see meabout?""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 fluffoff his knee.
The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is anexcellent line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but itdoes not lead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialoguebetween accuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster wereoppressed by a feeling that the situation was difficult. Theatmosphere was heavy, and conversation showed a tendency to flag. Theheadmaster had opened brightly enough, with a summary of the evidencewhich Mr. Downing had laid before him, but after that a massivesilence had been the order of the day. There is nothing in this worldquite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mindto be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat andlooked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, feltawkward. It was a scene which needed either a dramatic interruption ora neat exit speech. As it happened, what it got was the dramaticinterruption.
The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realise,Jackson, the extent to which appearances--" --which was practicallygoing back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knockat the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," andthe 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 notJackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with afeeling of relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weightyevidence, 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. Thereis nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as thetype of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag andwhat is merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn.
Masters, as a rule, do not realise this, but boys nearly always do.
Mike could not imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering ahousemaster's dog with red paint, any more than he could imagine doingit himself. They had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after theoperation, but anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, wouldhave thought it funny at first. After the first surprise, theirfeeling had been that it was a scuggish thing to have done and beastlyrough luck on the poor brute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmithhaving 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 boyhimself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not makehim in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that hehimself was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was thatPsmith was done for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith hadpainted Sammy, it meant that Psmith had broken out of his house atnight: and it was not likely that the rules about nocturnal wanderingwere less strict at Sedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom.
Mike felt, if possible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had beencaught on a similar occasion. It seemed as if Fate had a specialgrudge against his best friends. He did not make friends very quicklyor easily, though he had always had scores of acquaintances--and withWyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home from the first moment hehad met them.
He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavyweight, hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downingwas talking rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time totime.
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 youare going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to seehim.""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 ofastonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened totheir fullest extent.
"Adair!"There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation hadsuddenly 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 informhim, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith'sconfession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the realcriminal was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, inthe words of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, andsubstituted for his brain a side-order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, ofall people? Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the schoolat Christmas. And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, hadPsmith asserted that he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? Heconcentrated his mind on Adair as the only person who could save himfrom impending brain-fever.
"Adair!""Yes, sir?""What--_what_ do you mean?""It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutesago, 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 any one hereto get into a row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing atonce. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then Imet Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had goneover to see you, sir.""Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.
"Yes, sir.""Did you say anything to him about your having received this letterfrom 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 thingcould have been done by Dunster. He has left the school.""He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped thenight in the village.""And that was the night the--it happened?""Yes, sir.""I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame cannot be attached toany boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was afoolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as ifany boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to doit.""The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw wasattempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house.""Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shallwrite to him.""If it was really Dunster who painted my dog," said Mr. Downing, "Icannot understand the part played by Smith in this affair. If he didnot do it, what possible motive could he have had for coming to me ofhis own accord and deliberately confessing?""To be sure," said the headmaster, pressing a bell. "It is certainly athing that calls for explanation. Barlow," he said, as the butlerappeared, "kindly go across to Mr. Outwood's house and inform Smiththat 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 wouldwait, 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 clockin the room to break the stillness with its ticking. A very faintdrip-drip of rain could be heard outside the window.
Presently there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door wasopened.
"Mr. Smith, sir."The old Etonian entered as would the guest of the evening who is a fewmoments late for dinner. He was cheerful, but slightly deprecating. Hegave the impression of one who, though sure of his welcome, feels thatsome slight apology is expected from him. He advanced into the roomwith 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 arm-chair (which both Adair and Mike hadavoided in favour of less luxurious seats) with the confidentialcosiness of a fashionable physician calling on a patient, between whomand himself time has broken down the barriers of restraint andformality.
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 itwas 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 tooffer? What induced you to do such a thing?"Psmith sighed softly.
"The craze for notoriety, sir," he replied sadly. "The curse of thepresent age.""What!" cried the headmaster.
"It is remarkable," proceeded Psmith placidly, with the impersonaltouch of one lecturing on generalities, "how frequently, when a murderhas been committed, one finds men confessing that they have done itwhen it is out of the question that they should have committed it. Itis one of the most interesting problems with which anthropologists areconfronted. 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 towards the door.
When he and Psmith were alone, there was silence. Psmith leaned backcomfortably in his chair. The headmaster tapped nervously with hisfoot on the floor.
"Er--Smith.""Sir?"The headmaster seemed to have some difficulty in proceeding. He pausedagain. Then he went on.
"Er--Smith, I do not for a moment wish to pain you, but haveyou--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--thereis no--none of your near relatives have ever suffered in the wayI--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 didnot mean to suggest--quite so, quite so.... You think, then, that youconfessed to an act which you had not committed purely from somesudden impulse which you cannot explain?""Strictly between ourselves, sir----"Privately, the headmaster found Psmith's man-to-man attitude somewhatdisconcerting, 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 betweenourselves.""I think you are sometimes apt to forget, Smith, the proper relationsexisting between boy and--Well, never mind that for the present. Wecan return to it later. For the moment, let me hear what you wish tosay. I shall, of course, tell nobody, if you do not wish it.""Well, it was like this, sir," said Psmith. "Jackson happened to tellme that you and Mr. Downing seemed to think he had painted Mr.
Downing's dog, and there seemed some danger of his being expelled, soI thought it wouldn't be an unsound scheme if I were to go and say Ihad done it. That was the whole thing. Of course, Dunster writingcreated a certain amount of confusion."There was a pause.
"It was a very wrong thing to do, Smith," said the headmaster, atlast, "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 hewalked downstairs. "By no means a bad old sort. I must drop in fromtime 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 towards the houses.
"By the way, Adair," said Mike, as the latter started to turn in atDowning's, "I'll write to Strachan to-night about that match.""What's that?" asked Psmith.
"Jackson's going to try and get Wrykyn to give us a game," saidAdair. "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 verybest love. It is men like him who make this Merrie England of ourswhat it is."* * * * *"I say, Psmith," said Mike suddenly, "what really made you tellDowning you'd done it?""The craving for----""Oh, chuck it. You aren't talking to the Old Man now. I believe it wassimply 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 MichaelJackson.""Well, I believe you did, all the same," said Mike obstinately. "Andit was jolly good of you, too."Psmith moaned.
The Wrykyn match was three-parts over, and things were going badly forSedleigh. In a way one might have said that the game was over, andthat Sedleigh had lost; for it was a one day match, and Wrykyn, whohad led on the first innings, had only to play out time to make thegame theirs.
Sedleigh were paying the penalty for allowing themselves to beinfluenced by nerves in the early part of the day. Nerves lose moreschool matches than good play ever won. There is a certain type ofschool batsman who is a gift to any bowler when he once lets hisimagination run away with him. Sedleigh, with the exception of Adair,Psmith, and Mike, had entered upon this match in a state of the mostazure funk. Ever since Mike had received Strachan's answer and Adairhad announced on the notice-board that on Saturday, July thetwentieth, Sedleigh would play Wrykyn, the team had been all on thejump. It was useless for Adair to tell them, as he did repeatedly, onMike's authority, that Wrykyn were weak this season, and that on theirpresent form Sedleigh ought to win easily. The team listened, but werenot comforted. Wrykyn might be below their usual strength, but thenWrykyn cricket, as a rule, reached such a high standard that thisprobably meant little. However weak Wrykyn might be--for them--therewas a very firm impression among the members of the Sedleigh firsteleven that the other school was quite strong enough to knock thecover off _them_. Experience counts enormously in school matches.
Sedleigh had never been proved. The teams they played were the sort ofsides which the Wrykyn second eleven would play. Whereas Wrykyn, fromtime immemorial, had been beating Ripton teams and Free Forestersteams and M.C.C. teams packed with county men and sending men toOxford and Cambridge who got their blues as freshmen.
Sedleigh had gone on to the field that morning a depressed side.
It was unfortunate that Adair had won the toss. He had had no choicebut 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 worseduring the day, so Adair had chosen to bat first.
Taking into consideration the state of nerves the team was in, this initself was a calamity. A school eleven are always at their worst andnerviest before lunch. Even on their own ground they find thesurroundings lonely and unfamiliar. The subtlety of the bowlersbecomes magnified. Unless the first pair make a really good start, acollapse almost invariably ensues.
To-day the start had been gruesome beyond words. Mike, the bulwark ofthe side, the man who had been brought up on Wrykyn bowling, and fromwhom, whatever might happen to the others, at least a fifty wasexpected--Mike, going in first with Barnes and taking first over, hadplayed inside one from Bruce, the Wrykyn slow bowler, and had beencaught at short slip off his second ball.
That put the finishing-touch on the panic. Stone, Robinson, and theothers, all quite decent punishing batsmen when their nerves allowedthem to play their own game, crawled to the wickets, declined to hitout at anything, and were clean bowled, several of them, playing backto half-volleys. Adair did not suffer from panic, but his batting wasnot 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 hewas undoubtedly the right man for a crisis like this. He had anenormous reach, and he used it. Three consecutive balls from Bruce heturned into full-tosses and swept to the leg-boundary, and, assistedby Barnes, who had been sitting on the splice in his usual manner, heraised the total to seventy-one before being yorked, with his score atthirty-five. Ten minutes later the innings was over, with Barnes notout sixteen, for seventy-nine.
Wrykyn had then gone in, lost Strachan for twenty before lunch, andfinally completed their innings at a quarter to four for a hundred andthirty-one.
This was better than Sedleigh had expected. At least eight of the teamhad looked forward dismally to an afternoon's leather-hunting. ButAdair and Psmith, helped by the wicket, had never been easy,especially Psmith, who had taken six wickets, his slows playing havocwith the tail.
It would be too much to say that Sedleigh had any hope of pulling thegame 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, theirnervousness had vanished, and they felt capable of better things thanin the first innings.
It was on Mike's suggestion that Psmith and himself went in first.
Mike knew the limitations of the Wrykyn bowling, and he was convincedthat, if they could knock Bruce off, it might be possible to rattle upa score sufficient to give them the game, always provided that Wrykyncollapsed in the second innings. And it seemed to Mike that the wicketwould 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 wasbowled, and by that time Mike was set and in his best vein. He treatedall the bowlers alike. And when Stone came in, restored to his properframe of mind, and lashed out stoutly, and after him Robinson and therest, it looked as if Sedleigh had a chance again. The score was ahundred and twenty when Mike, who had just reached his fifty, skiedone 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-nineto make if they wished to make them, and an hour and ten minutesduring which to keep up their wickets if they preferred to take thingseasy and go for a win on the first innings.
At first it looked as if they meant to knock off the runs, forStrachan forced the game from the first ball, which was Psmith's, andwhich he hit into the pavilion. But, at fifteen, Adair bowled him. Andwhen, two runs later, Psmith got the next man stumped, and finished uphis 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, wasgetting too dangerous. So Drummond and Rigby, the next pair, proceededto play with caution, and the collapse ceased.
This was the state of the game at the point at which this chapteropened. Seventeen for three had become twenty-four for three, and thehands of the clock stood at ten minutes past six. Changes of bowlinghad been tried, but there seemed no chance of getting past thebatsmen's defence. They were playing all the good balls, and refusedto hit at the bad.
A quarter past six struck, and then Psmith made a suggestion whichaltered the game completely.
"Why don't you have a shot this end?" he said to Adair, as they werecrossing 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 myleg-breaks a bit, because they won't hit at them."Barnes was on the point of beginning to bowl, when Adair took the ballfrom him. The captain of Outwood's retired to short leg with an airthat suggested that he was glad to be relieved of his prominent post.
The next moment Drummond's off-stump was lying at an angle offorty-five. Adair was absolutely accurate as a bowler, and he haddropped 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 theatmosphere of a game. Five minutes before, Sedleigh had been lethargicand without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all round 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, hewalked 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 acouple 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 hisnext over; and the tail, demoralised by the sudden change in the game,collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs witheight minutes in hand.
* * * * *Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lock-up, discussing things ingeneral 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 himhappy for weeks.""When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in asort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things atthe shop.""He bowled awfully well.""Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over thisjoyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to giveSedleigh a fixture again next year?""Well?""Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You willhave 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 thething started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh hasbeaten Wrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get on fixtures with decentclubs, and work up to playing the big schools. You've got to startsomehow. So it's all right, you see.""And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they canalways get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sallyout and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode ofwrath. Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House,and it would be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shallwe stagger?"They staggered.
The End