Mike by P. G. Wodehouse (good fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

course, but one has one’s personal ambitions.  To the fact that Mike and not himself was the eleventh cap he had become partially resigned:  but he had wanted rather badly to play against Ripton.

Burgess passed on, his mind full of Bob once more.  What hard luck it was!  There was he, dashing about in the sun to improve his fielding, and all the time the team was filled up.  He felt as if he were playing some low trick on a pal.

Then the Jekyll and Hyde business completed itself.  He suppressed his personal feelings, and became the cricket captain again.

It was the cricket captain who, towards the end of the evening, came upon Firby-Smith and Mike parting at the conclusion of a conversation.  That it had not been a friendly conversation would have been evident to the most casual observer from the manner in which Mike stumped off, swinging his cricket-bag as if it were a weapon of offence.  There are many kinds of walk.  Mike’s was the walk of the Overwrought Soul.

“What’s up?” inquired Burgess.

“Young Jackson, do you mean?  Oh, nothing.  I was only telling him that there was going to be house-fielding to-morrow before breakfast.”

“Didn’t he like the idea?”

“He’s jolly well got to like it,” said the Gazeka, as who should say, “This way for Iron Wills.”  “The frightful kid cut it this morning.  There’ll be worse trouble if he does it again.”

There was, it may be mentioned, not an ounce of malice in the head of Wain’s house.  That by telling the captain of cricket that Mike had shirked fielding-practice he might injure the latter’s prospects of a first eleven cap simply did not occur to him.  That Burgess would feel, on being told of Mike’s slackness, much as a bishop might feel if he heard that a favourite curate had become a Mahometan or a Mumbo-Jumboist, did not enter his mind.  All he considered was that the story of his dealings with Mike showed him, Firby-Smith, in the favourable and dashing character of the fellow-who-will-stand-no-nonsense, a sort of Captain Kettle on dry land, in fact; and so he proceeded to tell it in detail.

Burgess parted with him with the firm conviction that Mike was a young slacker.  Keenness in fielding was a fetish with him; and to cut practice struck him as a crime.

He felt that he had been deceived in Mike.

When, therefore, one takes into consideration his private bias in favour of Bob, and adds to it the reaction caused by this sudden unmasking of Mike, it is not surprising that the list Burgess made out that night before he went to bed differed in an important respect from the one he had intended to write before school.

Mike happened to be near the notice-board when he pinned it up.  It was only the pleasure of seeing his name down in black-and-white that made him trouble to look at the list.  Bob’s news of the day before yesterday had made it clear how that list would run.

The crowd that collected the moment Burgess had walked off carried him right up to the board.

He looked at the paper.

“Hard luck!” said somebody.

Mike scarcely heard him.

He felt physically sick with the shock of the disappointment.  For the initial before the name Jackson was R.

There was no possibility of mistake.  Since writing was invented, there had never been an R. that looked less like an M. than the one on that list.

Bob had beaten him on the tape.

CHAPTER XXI

MARJORY THE FRANK

At the door of the senior block Burgess, going out, met Bob coming in, hurrying, as he was rather late.

“Congratulate you, Bob,” he said; and passed on.

Bob stared after him.  As he stared, Trevor came out of the block.

“Congratulate you, Bob.”

“What’s the matter now?”

“Haven’t you seen?”

“Seen what?”

“Why the list.  You’ve got your first.”

“My—­what? you’re rotting.”

“No, I’m not.  Go and look.”

The thing seemed incredible.  Had he dreamed that conversation between Spence and Burgess on the pavilion steps?  Had he mixed up the names?  He was certain that he had heard Spence give his verdict for Mike, and Burgess agree with him.

Just then, Mike, feeling very ill, came down the steps.  He caught sight of Bob and was passing with a feeble grin, when something told him that this was one of those occasions on which one has to show a Red Indian fortitude and stifle one’s private feelings.

“Congratulate you, Bob,” he said awkwardly.

“Thanks awfully,” said Bob, with equal awkwardness.  Trevor moved on, delicately.  This was no place for him.  Bob’s face was looking like a stuffed frog’s, which was Bob’s way of trying to appear unconcerned and at his ease, while Mike seemed as if at any moment he might burst into tears.  Spectators are not wanted at these awkward interviews.

There was a short silence.

“Jolly glad you’ve got it,” said Mike.

“I believe there’s a mistake.  I swear I heard Burgess say to Spence——­”

“He changed his mind probably.  No reason why he shouldn’t.”

“Well, it’s jolly rummy.”

Bob endeavoured to find consolation.

“Anyhow, you’ll have three years in the first.  You’re a cert. for next year.”

“Hope so,” said Mike, with such manifest lack of enthusiasm that Bob abandoned this line of argument.  When one has missed one’s colours, next year seems a very, very long way off.

They moved slowly through the cloisters, neither speaking, and up the stairs that led to the Great Hall.  Each was gratefully conscious of the fact that prayers would be beginning in another minute, putting an end to an uncomfortable situation.

“Heard from home lately?” inquired Mike.

Bob snatched gladly at the subject.

“Got a letter from mother this morning.  I showed you the last one, didn’t I?  I’ve only just had time to skim through this one, as the post was late, and I only got it just as I was going to dash across to school.  Not much in it.  Here it is, if you want to read it.”

“Thanks.  It’ll be something to do during Math.”

“Marjory wrote, too, for the first time in her life.  Haven’t had time to look at it yet.”

“After you.  Sure it isn’t meant for me?  She owes me a letter.”

“No, it’s for me all right.  I’ll give it you in the interval.”

The arrival of the headmaster put an end to the conversation.

By a quarter to eleven Mike had begun to grow reconciled to his fate.  The disappointment was still there, but it was lessened.  These things are like kicks on the shin.  A brief spell of agony, and then a dull pain of which we are not always conscious unless our attention is directed to it, and which in time disappears altogether.  When the bell rang for the interval that morning, Mike was, as it were, sitting up and taking nourishment.

He was doing this in a literal as well as in a figurative sense when Bob entered the school shop.

Bob appeared curiously agitated.  He looked round, and, seeing Mike, pushed his way towards him through the crowd.  Most of those present congratulated him as he passed; and Mike noticed, with some surprise, that, in place of the blushful grin which custom demands from the man who is being congratulated on receipt of colours, there appeared on his face a worried, even an irritated look.  He seemed to have something on his mind.

“Hullo,” said Mike amiably.  “Got that letter?”

“Yes.  I’ll show it you outside.”

“Why not here?”

“Come on.”

Mike resented the tone, but followed.  Evidently something had happened to upset Bob seriously.  As they went out on the gravel, somebody congratulated Bob again, and again Bob hardly seemed to appreciate it.’

Bob led the way across the gravel and on to the first terrace.  When they had left the crowd behind, he stopped.

“What’s up?” asked Mike.

“I want you to read——­”

“Jackson!”

They both turned.  The headmaster was standing on the edge of the gravel.

Bob pushed the letter into Mike’s hands.

“Read that,” he said, and went up to the headmaster.  Mike heard the words “English Essay,” and, seeing that the conversation was apparently going to be one of some length, capped the headmaster and walked off.  He was just going to read the letter when the bell rang.  He put the missive in his pocket, and went to his form-room wondering what Marjory could have found to say to Bob to touch him on the raw to such an extent.  She was a breezy correspondent, with a style of her own, but usually she entertained rather than upset people.  No suspicion of the actual contents of the letter crossed his mind.

He read it during school, under the desk; and ceased to wonder.  Bob had had cause to look worried.  For the thousand and first time in her career of crime Marjory had been and done it!  With a strong hand she had shaken the cat out of the bag, and exhibited it plainly to all whom it might concern.

There was a curious absence of construction about the letter.  Most authors of sensational matter nurse their bomb-shell, lead up to it, and display it to the best advantage.  Marjory dropped hers into the body of the letter, and let it take its chance with the other news-items.

   “DEAR BOB” (the letter ran),—­

“I hope you are quite well.  I am quite well.  Phyllis has a cold, Ella cheeked Mademoiselle yesterday, and had to write out ’Little Girls must be polite and obedient’ a hundred times in French.  She was jolly sick about it.  I told her it served her right.  Joe made eighty-three against Lancashire.  Reggie made a duck.  Have you got your first?  If you have, it will be all through Mike.  Uncle John told Father that Mike pretended to hurt his wrist so that you could play instead of him for the school, and Father said it was very sporting of Mike but nobody must tell you because it wouldn’t be fair if you got your first for you to know that you owed it to Mike and I wasn’t supposed to hear but I did because I was in the room only they didn’t know I was (we were playing hide-and-seek and I was hiding) so I’m writing to tell you,

“From your affectionate sister

“Marjory.”

There followed a P.S.

“I’ll tell you what you ought to do.  I’ve been reading a jolly good book called ‘The Boys of Dormitory Two,’ and the hero’s an awfully nice boy named Lionel Tremayne, and his friend Jack Langdale saves his life when a beast of a boatman who’s really employed by Lionel’s cousin who wants the money that Lionel’s going to have when he grows up stuns him and leaves him on the beach to drown.  Well, Lionel is going to play for the school against Loamshire, and it’s the match of the season, but he goes to the headmaster and says he wants Jack to play instead of him.  Why don’t you do that?

   “M.

   “P.P.S.—­This has been a frightful fag to write.”

For the life of him Mike could not help giggling as he pictured what Bob’s expression must have been when his brother read this document.  But the humorous side of the thing did not appeal to him for long.  What should he say to Bob?  What would Bob say to him?  Dash it all, it made him look such an awful ass!  Anyhow, Bob couldn’t do much.  In fact he didn’t see that he could do anything.  The team was filled up, and Burgess was not likely to alter it.  Besides, why should he alter it?  Probably he would have given Bob his colours anyhow.  Still, it was beastly awkward.  Marjory meant well, but she had put her foot right in it.  Girls oughtn’t to meddle with these things.  No girl ought to be taught to write till she came of age.  And Uncle John had behaved in many respects like the Complete Rotter.  If he was going to let out things like that, he might at least have whispered them, or looked behind the curtains to see that the place wasn’t chock-full of female kids.  Confound Uncle John!

Throughout the dinner-hour Mike kept out of Bob’s way.  But in a small community like a school it is impossible to avoid a man for ever.  They met at the nets.

“Well?” said Bob.

“How do you mean?” said Mike.

“Did you read it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, is it all rot, or did you—­you know what I mean—­sham a crocked wrist?”

“Yes,” said Mike, “I did.”

Bob stared gloomily at his toes.

“I mean,” he said at last, apparently putting the finishing-touch to some train of thought, “I know I ought to be grateful, and all that.  I suppose I am.  I mean it was jolly good of you—­Dash it all,” he broke off hotly, as if the putting his position into words had suddenly showed him how inglorious it was, “what did you want to do it for?  What was the idea?  What right have you got to go about playing Providence over me?  Dash it all, it’s like giving a fellow money without consulting him.”

“I didn’t think you’d ever know.  You wouldn’t have if only that ass Uncle John hadn’t let it out.”

“How did he get to know?  Why did you tell him?”

“He got it out of me.  I couldn’t choke him off.  He came down when you were away at Geddington, and would insist on having a look at my arm, and naturally he spotted right away there was nothing the