12 Mike

by Unknown

  “Soot!” he murmured weakly. “Soot!”

  “Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered.”

  “It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir,” said Psmith.

  His voice roused the sufferer to one last flicker of spirit.

  “You will hear more of this, Smith,” he said. “I say you will hear more of it.”

  Then he allowed Mr. Outwood to lead him out to a place where there were towels, soap, and sponges.

  When they had gone, Psmith went to the window, and hauled in the string. He felt the calm after-glow which comes to the general after a successfully conducted battle. It had been trying, of course, for a man of refinement, and it had cut into his afternoon, but on the whole it had been worth it.

  The problem now was what to do with the painted boot. It would take a lot of cleaning, he saw, even if he could get hold of the necessary implements for cleaning it. And he rather doubted if he would be able to do so. Edmund, the boot-boy, worked in some mysterious cell, far from the madding crowd, at the back of the house. In the boot-cupboard downstairs there would probably be nothing likely to be of any use.

  His fears were realised. The boot-cupboard was empty. It seemed to him that, for the time being, the best thing he could do would be to place the boot in safe hiding, until he should have thought out a scheme.

  Having restored the basket to its proper place, accordingly, he went up to the study again, and placed the red-toed boot in the chimney, at about the same height where Mr. Downing had found the other. Nobody would think of looking there a second time, and it was improbable that Mr. Outwood really would have the chimneys swept, as he had said. The odds were that he had forgotten about it already.

  Psmith went to the bathroom to wash his hands again, with the feeling that he had done a good day’s work.

  CHAPTER LII

  ON THE TRAIL AGAIN

  The most massive minds are apt to forget things at times. The most adroit plotters make their little mistakes. Psmith was no exception to the rule. He made the mistake of not telling Mike of the afternoon’s happenings.

  It was not altogether forgetfulness. Psmith was one of those people who like to carry through their operations entirely by themselves. Where there is only one in a secret the secret is more liable to remain unrevealed. There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling Mike. He forgot what the consequences might be if he did not.

  So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to school on the Monday morning in pumps.

  Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion why only one of Mike’s boots was to be found, had no views on the subject. He seemed to look on it as one of those things which no fellow can understand.

  “‘Ere’s one of ‘em, Mr. Jackson,” he said, as if he hoped that Mike might be satisfied with a compromise.

  “One? What’s the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can’t go over to school in one boot.”

  Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, “No, sir,” as much as to say, “I may have lost a boot, but, thank goodness, I can still understand 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, which one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realise how strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for instance, where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if he had sand-bagged the headmaster. So in the case of boots. School rules decree that a boy shall go to his form-room in boots, There is no real reason why, if the day is fine, he should not wear shoes, should he prefer them. But, if he does, the thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say, “Great Scott, what have you got on?” Masters say, “Jones, what are you wearing on your feet?” In the few minutes which elapse between the assembling of the form for call-over and the arrival of the form-master, some wag is sure either to stamp on the shoes, accompanying the act with some satirical remark, or else to pull one of them off, and inaugurate an impromptu game of football with it. There was once a boy who went to school one morning in elastic-sided boots….

  Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form, since his innings against Downing’s on the Friday, had regarded Mike with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to undergo at Wrykyn in similar circumstances. It was only Mr. Downing who gave trouble.

  There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a boy in their form is wearing shoes instead of boots, just as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them. They cannot see it, but they feel it in their bones.

  Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-shoeist in the whole list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention—every weapon was employed by him in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster’s practice always to go over to school in shoes when, as he usually did, he felt shaky in the morning’s lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in the first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked like Loafers—which broke the back of the morning’s work nicely. On one occasion, when a particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of fare, Dunster had entered the form-room in heel-less Turkish bath-slippers, of a vivid crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including his journey over to the house to change the heel-less atrocities, had seen him through very nearly to the quarter to eleven interval.

  Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr. Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.

  “Yes, sir?” said Mike.

  “What are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?”

  “Pumps, sir.”

  “You are wearing pumps? Are you not aware that PUMPS are not the proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing PUMPS?”

  The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself comfortably for the address from the throne.

  “I have lost one of my boots, sir.”

  A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing’s lips. He stared at Mike for a moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start translating.

  Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes’ respite, was taken unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction, the form-master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said “Yes, yes,” mechanically, and finally “That will do,” whereupon Stone resumed his seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.

  Mr. Downing’s mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike’s appearance in shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a boot, completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into harbour, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said, “Wal, sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?” so did Mr. Downing feel at that moment.

  When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown, and sped to the headmaster.

  CHAPTER LIII

  THE KETTLE METHOD

  It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger-beer at the school shop, came to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with Adair administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt was early-morning fielding-practice, that searching test of cricket keenness. Mike himself, to whom cricket was
the great and serious interest of life, had shirked early-morning fielding-practice in his first term at Wrykyn. And Stone and Robinson had but a luke-warm attachment to the game, compared with Mike’s.

  As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon after school, which nobody objects to; and no strain, consequently, had been put upon Stone’s and Robinson’s allegiance. In view of the M.C.C. match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose to be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their comfortable beds that day at six o’clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and had caught catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air, had stung like adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really got to work, it is no joke taking a high catch. Stone’s dislike of the experiment was only equalled by Robinson’s. They were neither of them of the type which likes to undergo hardships for the common good. They played well enough when on the field, but neither cared greatly whether the school had a good season or not. They played the game entirely for their own sakes.

  The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate as to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like to-day’s must be avoided.

  “It’s all rot,” said Stone. “What on earth’s the good of sweating about before breakfast? It only makes you tired.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” said Robinson, “if it wasn’t bad for the heart. Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing.”

  “Personally,” said Stone, gnawing his bun, “I don’t intend to stick it.”

  “Nor do I.”

  “I mean, it’s such absolute rot. If we aren’t good enough to play for the team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he’d better find somebody else.”

  “Yes.”

  At this moment Adair came into the shop.

  “Fielding-practice again to-morrow,” he said briskly, “at six.”

  “Before breakfast?” said Robinson.

  “Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten to-day.” And he 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 village Jackson plays for. We’ll get Jackson to shove us into the team.”

  “All right,” said Robinson. “Let’s.”

  Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the team or not, then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless he is a man of action, practically helpless.

  Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all round, they felt that they would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The bowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the chance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are runs, wherever and however made.

  The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next morning for fielding-practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood’s house there were no signs.

  Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond the fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great help. Adair proceeded with the fielding-practice without further delay.

  At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently wrapped in thought. Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right, was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of his reading to Adair and the other house-prefects, who, not having seen the paper, usually formed an interested and appreciative audience. To-day, however, though the house-prefects expressed varying degrees of excitement at the news that Tyldesley had made a century against Gloucestershire, and that a butter famine was expected in the United States, these world-shaking news-items seemed to leave Adair cold. He champed his bread and marmalade with an abstracted air.

  He was wondering what to do in this matter of Stone and Robinson.

  Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe and convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of person who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He never shirked anything, physical or moral.

  He resolved to interview the absentees.

  It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He went across to Outwood’s and found the two non-starters in the senior day-room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and marking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair’s entrance coincided with a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance and stagger backwards against the captain.

  “Sorry,” said Stone. “Hullo, Adair!”

  “Don’t mention it. Why weren’t you two at fielding-practice this morning?”

  Robinson, who left the lead to Stone in all matters, said nothing. Stone spoke.

  “We didn’t turn up,” he said.

  “I know you didn’t. Why not?”

  Stone had rehearsed this scene in his mind, and he spoke with the coolness which comes from rehearsal.

  “We decided not to.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. We came to the conclusion that we hadn’t any use for early-morning fielding.”

  Adair’s manner became ominously calm.

  “You were rather fed-up, I suppose?”

  “That’s just the word.”

  “Sorry it bored you.”

  “It didn’t. We didn’t give it the chance to.”

  Robinson laughed appreciatively.

  “What’s the joke, Robinson?” asked Adair.

  “There’s no joke,” said Robinson, with some haste. “I was only thinking of something.”

  “I’ll give you something else to think about soon.”

  Stone intervened.

  “It’s no good making a row about it, Adair. You must see that you can’t do anything. Of course, you can kick us out of the team, if you like, but we don’t care if you do. Jackson will get us a game any Wednesday or Saturday for the village he plays for. So we’re all right. And the school team aren’t such a lot of flyers that you can afford to go chucking people out of it whenever you want to. See what I mean?”

  “You and Jackson seem to have fixed it all up between you.”

  “What are you going to do? Kick us out?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I thought you’d see it was no good making a beastly row. We’ll play for the school all right. There’s no earthly need for us to turn out for fielding-practice before breakfast.”

  “You don’t think there is? You may be right. All the same, you’re going to 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 five past six, as you seem to like lying in bed.”

  “You can turn out if you feel like it. You won’t find me there.”

  “That’ll be a disappointment. Nor Robinson?”

  “No,” said the junior par
tner in the firm; but he said it without any deep conviction. The atmosphere was growing a great deal too tense for his comfort.

  “You’ve quite made up your minds?”

  “Yes,” said Stone.

  “Right,” said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.

  He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was standing in the middle of the open space.

  “You cad,” said Stone. “I wasn’t ready.”

  “Well, you are now. Shall we go on?”

  Stone dashed in without a word, and for a few moments the two might have seemed evenly matched to a not too intelligent spectator. But science tells, even in a confined space. Adair was smaller and lighter than Stone, but he was cooler and quicker, and he knew more about the game. His blow was always home a fraction of a second sooner than his opponent’s. At the end of a minute Stone was on the floor again.

  He got up slowly and stood leaning with one hand on the table.

  “Suppose we say ten past six?” said Adair. “I’m not particular to a minute or two.”

  Stone made no reply.

  “Will ten past six suit you for fielding-practice to-morrow?” said Adair.

  “All right,” said Stone.

  “Thanks. How about you, Robinson?”

  Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like manoeuvres of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match even for Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one minute. It seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was likely to come from an encounter with Adair.

  “All right,” he said hastily, “I’ll turn up.”

  “Good,” said Adair. “I wonder if either of you chaps could tell me which is Jackson’s study.”

  Stone was dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief, a task which precluded anything in the shape of conversation; so Robinson replied that Mike’s study was the first you came to on the right of the corridor at the top of the stairs.