Mike - Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (the reading strategies book TXT) 📗
- Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
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“I should like to say good-bye. But I don’t suppose it’ll be
possible.”
They separated in the direction of their respective form-rooms. Mike
felt bitter and disappointed at the way the news had been received.
Wyatt was his best friend, his pal; and it offended him that the
school should take the tidings of his departure as they had done. Most
of them who had come to him for information had expressed a sort of
sympathy with the absent hero of his story, but the chief sensation
seemed to be one of pleasurable excitement at the fact that something
big had happened to break the monotony of school routine. They treated
the thing much as they would have treated the announcement that a
record score had been made in first-class cricket. The school was not
so much regretful as comfortably thrilled. And Burgess had actually
cursed before sympathising. Mike felt resentful towards Burgess. As a
matter of fact, the cricket captain wrote a letter to Wyatt during
preparation that night which would have satisfied even Mike’s sense of
what was fit. But Mike had no opportunity of learning this.
There was, however, one exception to the general rule, one member of
the school who did not treat the episode as if it were merely an
interesting and impersonal item of sensational news. Neville-Smith
heard of what had happened towards the end of the interval, and rushed
off instantly in search of Mike. He was too late to catch him before
he went to his form-room, so he waited for him at half-past twelve,
when the bell rang for the end of morning school.
“I say, Jackson, is this true about old Wyatt?”
Mike nodded.
“What happened?”
Mike related the story for the sixteenth time. It was a melancholy
pleasure to have found a listener who heard the tale in the right
spirit. There was no doubt about Neville-Smith’s interest and
sympathy. He was silent for a moment after Mike had finished.
“It was all my fault,” he said at length. “If it hadn’t been for me,
this wouldn’t have happened. What a fool I was to ask him to my place!
I might have known he would be caught.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mike.
“It was absolutely my fault.”
Mike was not equal to the task of soothing Neville-Smith’s wounded
conscience. He did not attempt it. They walked on without further
conversation till they reached Wain’s gate, where Mike left him.
Neville-Smith proceeded on his way, plunged in meditation.
The result of which meditation was that Burgess got a second shock
before the day was out. Bob, going over to the nets rather late in the
afternoon, came upon the captain of cricket standing apart from his
fellow men with an expression on his face that spoke of mental
upheavals on a vast scale.
“What’s up?” asked Bob.
“Nothing much,” said Burgess, with a forced and grisly calm. “Only
that, as far as I can see, we shall play Ripton on Saturday with a
sort of second eleven. You don’t happen to have got sacked or
anything, by the way, do you?”
“What’s happened now?”
“Neville-Smith. In extra on Saturday. That’s all. Only our first-and
second-change bowlers out of the team for the Ripton match in one day.
I suppose by to-morrow half the others’ll have gone, and we shall take
the field on Saturday with a scratch side of kids from the Junior
School.”
“Neville-Smith! Why, what’s he been doing?”
“Apparently he gave a sort of supper to celebrate his getting his
first, and it was while coming back from that that Wyatt got collared.
Well, I’m blowed if Neville-Smith doesn’t toddle off to the Old Man
after school to-day and tell him the whole yarn! Said it was all his
fault. What rot! Sort of thing that might have happened to any one. If
Wyatt hadn’t gone to him, he’d probably have gone out somewhere else.”
“And the Old Man shoved him in extra?”
“Next two Saturdays.”
“Are Ripton strong this year?” asked Bob, for lack of anything better
to say.
“Very, from all accounts. They whacked the M.C.C. Jolly hot team of
M.C.C. too. Stronger than the one we drew with.”
“Oh, well, you never know what’s going to happen at cricket. I may
hold a catch for a change.”
Burgess grunted.
Bob went on his way to the nets. Mike was just putting on his pads.
“I say, Mike,” said Bob. “I wanted to see you. It’s about Wyatt. I’ve
thought of something.”
“What’s that?”
“A way of getting him out of that bank. If it comes off, that’s to
say.”
“By Jove, he’d jump at anything. What’s the idea?”
“Why shouldn’t he get a job of sorts out in the Argentine? There ought
to be heaps of sound jobs going there for a chap like Wyatt. He’s a
jolly good shot, to start with. I shouldn’t wonder if it wasn’t rather
a score to be able to shoot out there. And he can ride, I know.”
“By Jove, I’ll write to father to-night. He must be able to work it, I
should think. He never chucked the show altogether, did he?”
Mike, as most other boys of his age would have been, was profoundly
ignorant as to the details by which his father’s money had been, or
was being, made. He only knew vaguely that the source of revenue had
something to do with the Argentine. His brother Joe had been born in
Buenos Ayres; and once, three years ago, his father had gone over
there for a visit, presumably on business. All these things seemed to
show that Mr. Jackson senior was a useful man to have about if you
wanted a job in that Eldorado, the Argentine Republic.
As a matter of fact, Mike’s father owned vast tracts of land up
country, where countless sheep lived and had their being. He had long
retired from active superintendence of his estate. Like Mr. Spenlow,
he had a partner, a stout fellow with the work-taint highly developed,
who asked nothing better than to be left in charge. So Mr. Jackson had
returned to the home of his fathers, glad to be there again. But he
still had a decided voice in the ordering of affairs on the ranches,
and Mike was going to the fountain-head of things when he wrote to his
father that night, putting forward Wyatt’s claims to attention and
ability to perform any sort of job with which he might be presented.
The reflection that he had done all that could be done tended to
console him for the non-appearance of Wyatt either that night or next
morning—a non-appearance which was due to the simple fact that he
passed that night in a bed in Mr. Wain’s dressing-room, the door of
which that cautious pedagogue, who believed in taking no chances,
locked from the outside on retiring to rest.
THE RIPTON MATCH
Mike got an answer from his father on the morning of the Ripton match.
A letter from Wyatt also lay on his plate when he came down to
breakfast.
Mr. Jackson’s letter was short, but to the point. He said he would go
and see Wyatt early in the next week. He added that being expelled
from a public school was not the only qualification for success as a
sheep-farmer, but that, if Mike’s friend added to this a general
intelligence and amiability, and a skill for picking off cats with an
air-pistol and bull’s-eyes with a Lee-Enfield, there was no reason why
something should not be done for him. In any case he would buy him a
lunch, so that Wyatt would extract at least some profit from his
visit. He said that he hoped something could be managed. It was a pity
that a boy accustomed to shoot cats should be condemned for the rest
of his life to shoot nothing more exciting than his cuffs.
Wyatt’s letter was longer. It might have been published under the
title “My First Day in a Bank, by a Beginner.” His advent had
apparently caused little sensation. He had first had a brief
conversation with the manager, which had run as follows:
“Mr. Wyatt?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m … Sportsman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cricketer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Play football?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m … Racquets?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m … Well, you won’t get any more of it now.”
After which a Mr. Blenkinsop had led him up to a vast ledger, in which
he was to inscribe the addresses of all out-going letters. These
letters he would then stamp, and subsequently take in bundles to the
post office. Once a week he would be required to buy stamps. “If I
were one of those Napoleons of Finance,” wrote Wyatt, “I should cook
the accounts, I suppose, and embezzle stamps to an incredible amount.
But it doesn’t seem in my line. I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out for a
business career. Still, I have stamped this letter at the expense
of the office, and entered it up under the heading ‘Sundries,’ which
is a sort of start. Look out for an article in the Wrykynian,
‘Hints for Young Criminals, by J. Wyatt, champion catch-as-catch-can
stamp-stealer of the British Isles.’ So long. I suppose you are
playing against Ripton, now that the world of commerce has found that
it can’t get on without me. Mind you make a century, and then perhaps
Burgess’ll give you your first after all. There were twelve colours
given three years ago, because one chap left at half-term and the man
who played instead of him came off against Ripton.”
*
This had occurred to Mike independently. The Ripton match was a
special event, and the man who performed any outstanding feat against
that school was treated as a sort of Horatius. Honours were heaped
upon him. If he could only make a century! or even fifty. Even twenty,
if it got the school out of a tight place. He was as nervous on the
Saturday morning as he had been on the morning of the M.C.C. match. It
was Victory or Westminster Abbey now. To do only averagely well, to be
among the ruck, would be as useless as not playing at all, as far as
his chance of his first was concerned.
It was evident to those who woke early on the Saturday morning that
this Ripton match was not likely to end in a draw. During the Friday
rain had fallen almost incessantly in a steady drizzle. It had stopped
late at night; and at six in the morning there was every prospect of
another hot day. There was that feeling in the air which shows that
the sun is trying to get through the clouds. The sky was a dull grey
at breakfast time, except where a flush of deeper colour gave a hint
of the sun. It was a day on which to win the toss, and go in first. At
eleven-thirty, when the match was timed to begin, the wicket would be
too wet to be difficult. Runs would come easily till the sun came out
and began to dry the ground. When that happened there would be trouble
for the side that was batting.
Burgess, inspecting the wicket with Mr. Spence during the quarter to
eleven interval, was not slow to recognise this fact.
“I should win the toss to-day, if I were you, Burgess,” said Mr.
Spence.
“Just what I was thinking, sir.”
“That wicket’s going to get nasty after
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