Mike - Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (the reading strategies book TXT) 📗

CHAPTER XII

MIKE GETS HIS CHANCE

 

The headmaster was quite bland and business-like about it all. There

were no impassioned addresses from the dais. He did not tell the

school that it ought to be ashamed of itself. Nor did he say that he

should never have thought it of them. Prayers on the Saturday morning

were marked by no unusual features. There was, indeed, a stir of

excitement when he came to the edge of the dais, and cleared his

throat as a preliminary to making an announcement. Now for it, thought

the school.

 

This was the announcement.

 

“There has been an outbreak of chicken-pox in the town. All streets

except the High Street will in consequence be out of bounds till

further notice.”

 

He then gave the nod of dismissal.

 

The school streamed downstairs, marvelling.

 

The less astute of the picnickers, unmindful of the homely proverb

about hallooing before leaving the wood, were openly exulting. It

seemed plain to them that the headmaster, baffled by the magnitude of

the thing, had resolved to pursue the safe course of ignoring it

altogether. To lie low is always a shrewd piece of tactics, and there

seemed no reason why the Head should not have decided on it in the

present instance.

 

Neville-Smith was among these premature rejoicers.

 

“I say,” he chuckled, overtaking Wyatt in the cloisters, “this is all

right, isn’t it! He’s funked it. I thought he would. Finds the job too

big to tackle.”

 

Wyatt was damping.

 

“My dear chap,” he said, “it’s not over yet by a long chalk. It hasn’t

started yet.”

 

“What do you mean? Why didn’t he say anything about it in Hall, then?”

 

“Why should he? Have you ever had tick at a shop?”

 

“Of course I have. What do you mean? Why?”

 

“Well, they didn’t send in the bill right away. But it came all

right.”

 

“Do you think he’s going to do something, then?”

 

“Rather. You wait.”

 

Wyatt was right.

 

Between ten and eleven on Wednesdays and Saturdays old Bates, the

school sergeant, used to copy out the names of those who were in extra

lesson, and post them outside the school shop. The school inspected

the list during the quarter to eleven interval.

 

To-day, rushing to the shop for its midday bun, the school was aware

of a vast sheet of paper where usually there was but a small one. They

surged round it. Buns were forgotten. What was it?

 

Then the meaning of the notice flashed upon them. The headmaster had

acted. This bloated document was the extra lesson list, swollen with

names as a stream swells with rain. It was a comprehensive document.

It left out little.

 

“The following boys will go in to extra lesson this afternoon and next

Wednesday,” it began. And “the following boys” numbered four hundred.

 

“Bates must have got writer’s cramp,” said Clowes, as he read the huge

scroll.

 

*

 

Wyatt met Mike after school, as they went back to the house.

 

“Seen the ‘extra’ list?” he remarked. “None of the kids are in it, I

notice. Only the bigger fellows. Rather a good thing. I’m glad you got

off.”

 

“Thanks,” said Mike, who was walking a little stiffly. “I don’t know

what you call getting off. It seems to me you’re the chaps who got

off.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“We got tanned,” said Mike ruefully.

 

“What!”

 

“Yes. Everybody below the Upper Fourth.”

 

Wyatt roared with laughter.

 

“By Gad,” he said, “he is an old sportsman. I never saw such a man. He

lowers all records.”

 

“Glad you think it funny. You wouldn’t have if you’d been me. I was

one of the first to get it. He was quite fresh.”

 

“Sting?”

 

“Should think it did.”

 

“Well, buck up. Don’t break down.”

 

“I’m not breaking down,” said Mike indignantly.

 

“All right, I thought you weren’t. Anyhow, you’re better off than I

am.”

 

“An extra’s nothing much,” said Mike.

 

“It is when it happens to come on the same day as the M.C.C. match.”

 

“Oh, by Jove! I forgot. That’s next Wednesday, isn’t it? You won’t be

able to play!”

 

“No.”

 

“I say, what rot!”

 

“It is, rather. Still, nobody can say I didn’t ask for it. If one goes

out of one’s way to beg and beseech the Old Man to put one in extra,

it would be a little rough on him to curse him when he does it.”

 

“I should be awfully sick, if it were me.”

 

“Well, it isn’t you, so you’re all right. You’ll probably get my place

in the team.”

 

Mike smiled dutifully at what he supposed to be a humorous sally.

 

“Or, rather, one of the places,” continued Wyatt, who seemed to be

sufficiently in earnest. “They’ll put a bowler in instead of me.

Probably Druce. But there’ll be several vacancies. Let’s see. Me.

Adams. Ashe. Any more? No, that’s the lot. I should think they’d give

you a chance.”

 

“You needn’t rot,” said Mike uncomfortably. He had his day-dreams,

like everybody else, and they always took the form of playing for the

first eleven (and, incidentally, making a century in record time). To

have to listen while the subject was talked about lightly made him hot

and prickly all over.

 

“I’m not rotting,” said Wyatt seriously, “I’ll suggest it to Burgess

to-night.”

 

“You don’t think there’s any chance of it, really, do you?” said Mike

awkwardly.

 

“I don’t see why not? Buck up in the scratch game this afternoon.

Fielding especially. Burgess is simply mad on fielding. I don’t blame

him either, especially as he’s a bowler himself. He’d shove a man into

the team like a shot, whatever his batting was like, if his fielding

was something extra special. So you field like a demon this afternoon,

and I’ll carry on the good work in the evening.”

 

“I say,” said Mike, overcome, “it’s awfully decent of you, Wyatt.”

 

*

 

Billy Burgess, captain of Wrykyn cricket, was a genial giant, who

seldom allowed himself to be ruffled. The present was one of the rare

occasions on which he permitted himself that luxury. Wyatt found him

in his study, shortly before lock-up, full of strange oaths, like the

soldier in Shakespeare.

 

“You rotter! You rotter! You worm!” he observed crisply, as

Wyatt appeared.

 

“Dear old Billy!” said Wyatt. “Come on, give me a kiss, and let’s be

friends.”

 

“You–-!”

 

“William! William!”

 

“If it wasn’t illegal, I’d like to tie you and Ashe and that

blackguard Adams up in a big sack, and drop you into the river. And

I’d jump on the sack first. What do you mean by letting the team down

like this? I know you were at the bottom of it all.”

 

He struggled into his shirt—he was changing after a bath—and his

face popped wrathfully out at the other end.

 

“I’m awfully sorry, Bill,” said Wyatt. “The fact is, in the excitement

of the moment the M.C.C. match went clean out of my mind.”

 

“You haven’t got a mind,” grumbled Burgess. “You’ve got a cheap brown

paper substitute. That’s your trouble.”

 

Wyatt turned the conversation tactfully.

 

“How many wickets did you get to-day?” he asked.

 

“Eight. For a hundred and three. I was on the spot. Young Jackson

caught a hot one off me at third man. That kid’s good.”

 

“Why don’t you play him against the M.C.C. on Wednesday?” said Wyatt,

jumping at his opportunity.

 

“What? Are you sitting on my left shoe?”

 

“No. There it is in the corner.”

 

“Right ho!… What were you saying?”

 

“Why not play young Jackson for the first?”

 

“Too small.”

 

“Rot. What does size matter? Cricket isn’t footer. Besides, he isn’t

small. He’s as tall as I am.”

 

“I suppose he is. Dash, I’ve dropped my stud.”

 

Wyatt waited patiently till he had retrieved it. Then he returned to

the attack.

 

“He’s as good a bat as his brother, and a better field.”

 

“Old Bob can’t field for toffee. I will say that for him. Dropped a

sitter off me to-day. Why the deuce fellows can’t hold catches when

they drop slowly into their mouths I’m hanged if I can see.”

 

“You play him,” said Wyatt. “Just give him a trial. That kid’s a

genius at cricket. He’s going to be better than any of his brothers,

even Joe. Give him a shot.”

 

Burgess hesitated.

 

“You know, it’s a bit risky,” he said. “With you three lunatics out of

the team we can’t afford to try many experiments. Better stick to the

men at the top of the second.”

 

Wyatt got up, and kicked the wall as a vent for his feelings.

 

“You rotter,” he said. “Can’t you see when you’ve got a good

man? Here’s this kid waiting for you ready made with a style like

Trumper’s, and you rave about top men in the second, chaps who play

forward at everything, and pat half-volleys back to the bowler! Do you

realise that your only chance of being known to Posterity is as the

man who gave M. Jackson his colours at Wrykyn? In a few years he’ll be

playing for England, and you’ll think it a favour if he nods to you in

the pav. at Lord’s. When you’re a white-haired old man you’ll go

doddering about, gassing to your grandchildren, poor kids, how you

‘discovered’ M. Jackson. It’ll be the only thing they’ll respect you

for.”

 

Wyatt stopped for breath.

 

“All right,” said Burgess, “I’ll think it over. Frightful gift of the

gab you’ve got, Wyatt.”

 

“Good,” said Wyatt. “Think it over. And don’t forget what I said about

the grandchildren. You would like little