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

into his bag and got up.

 

“No, thanks.”

 

There was a silence.

 

“Above it, I suppose?”

 

“Not a bit. Not up to it. I shall want a lot of coaching at that end

net of yours before I’m fit to play for Sedleigh.”

 

There was another pause.

 

“Then you won’t play?” asked Adair.

 

“I’m not keeping you, am I?” said Mike, politely.

 

It was remarkable what a number of members of Outwood’s house appeared

to cherish a personal grudge against Mr. Downing. It had been that

master’s somewhat injudicious practice for many years to treat his

own house as a sort of Chosen People. Of all masters, the most

unpopular is he who by the silent tribunal of a school is convicted

of favouritism. And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he

favours and not merely individuals. On occasions when boys in his

own house and boys from other houses were accomplices and partners

in wrong-doing, Mr. Downing distributed his thunderbolts unequally,

and the school noticed it. The result was that not only he himself,

but also—which was rather unfair—his house, too, had acquired a

good deal of unpopularity.

 

The general consensus of opinion in Outwood’s during the luncheon

interval was that, having got Downing’s up a tree, they would be fools

not to make the most of the situation.

 

Barnes’s remark that he supposed, unless anything happened and wickets

began to fall a bit faster, they had better think of declaring

somewhere about half-past three or four, was met with a storm of

opposition.

 

“Declare!” said Robinson. “Great Scott, what on earth are you talking

about?”

 

“Declare!” Stone’s voice was almost a wail of indignation. “I never

saw such a chump.”

 

“They’ll be rather sick if we don’t, won’t they?” suggested Barnes.

 

“Sick! I should think they would,” said Stone. “That’s just the gay

idea. Can’t you see that by a miracle we’ve got a chance of getting a

jolly good bit of our own back against those Downing’s ticks? What

we’ve got to do is to jolly well keep them in the field all day if we

can, and be jolly glad it’s so beastly hot. If they lose about a dozen

pounds each through sweating about in the sun after Jackson’s drives,

perhaps they’ll stick on less side about things in general in future.

Besides, I want an innings against that bilge of old Downing’s, if I

can get it.”

 

“So do I,” said Robinson.

 

“If you declare, I swear I won’t field. Nor will Robinson.”

 

“Rather not.”

 

“Well, I won’t then,” said Barnes unhappily. “Only you know they’re

rather sick already.”

 

“Don’t you worry about that,” said Stone with a wide grin. “They’ll be

a lot sicker before we’ve finished.”

 

And so it came about that that particular Mid-term Service-day match

made history. Big scores had often been put up on Mid-term Service

day. Games had frequently been one-sided. But it had never happened

before in the annals of the school that one side, going in first early

in the morning, had neither completed its innings nor declared it

closed when stumps were drawn at 6.30. In no previous Sedleigh match,

after a full day’s play, had the pathetic words “Did not bat” been

written against the whole of one of the contending teams.

 

These are the things which mark epochs.

 

Play was resumed at 2.15. For a quarter of an hour Mike was

comparatively quiet. Adair, fortified by food and rest, was bowling

really well, and his first half-dozen overs had to be watched

carefully. But the wicket was too good to give him a chance, and Mike,

playing himself in again, proceeded to get to business once more.

Bowlers came and went. Adair pounded away at one end with brief

intervals between the attacks. Mr. Downing took a couple more overs,

in one of which a horse, passing in the road, nearly had its useful

life cut suddenly short. Change-bowlers of various actions and paces,

each weirder and more futile than the last, tried their luck. But

still the first-wicket stand continued.

 

The bowling of a house team is all head and no body. The first pair

probably have some idea of length and break. The first-change pair are

poor. And the rest, the small change, are simply the sort of things

one sees in dreams after a heavy supper, or when one is out without

one’s gun.

 

Time, mercifully, generally breaks up a big stand at cricket before

the field has suffered too much, and that is what happened now.

At four o’clock, when the score stood at two hundred and twenty

for no wicket, Barnes, greatly daring, smote lustily at a rather

wide half-volley and was caught at short-slip for thirty-three. He

retired blushfully to the pavilion, amidst applause, and Stone came

out.

 

As Mike had then made a hundred and eighty-seven, it was assumed by

the field, that directly he had topped his second century, the closure

would be applied and their ordeal finished. There was almost a sigh of

relief when frantic cheering from the crowd told that the feat had

been accomplished. The fieldsmen clapped in quite an indulgent sort of

way, as who should say, “Capital, capital. And now let’s start

our innings.” Some even began to edge towards the pavilion.

But the next ball was bowled, and the next over, and the next after

that, and still Barnes made no sign. (The conscience-stricken captain

of Outwood’s was, as a matter of fact, being practically held down by

Robinson and other ruffians by force.)

 

A grey dismay settled on the field.

 

The bowling had now become almost unbelievably bad. Lobs were being

tried, and Stone, nearly weeping with pure joy, was playing an innings

of the How-to-brighten-cricket type. He had an unorthodox style, but

an excellent eye, and the road at this period of the game became

absolutely unsafe for pedestrians and traffic.

 

Mike’s pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score,

too, was mounting steadily.

 

“This is foolery,” snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fifty

went up on the board. “Barnes!” he called.

 

There was no reply. A committee of three was at that moment engaged in

sitting on Barnes’s head in the first eleven changing-room, in order

to correct a more than usually feverish attack of conscience.

 

“Barnes!”

 

“Please, sir,” said Stone, some species of telepathy telling him what

was detaining his captain. “I think Barnes must have left the field.

He has probably gone over to the house to fetch something.”

 

“This is absurd. You must declare your innings closed. The game has

become a farce.”

 

“Declare! Sir, we can’t unless Barnes does. He might be awfully

annoyed if we did anything like that without consulting him.”

 

“Absurd.”

 

“He’s very touchy, sir.”

 

“It is perfect foolery.”

 

“I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir.”

 

Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.

 

*

 

In a neat wooden frame in the senior day-room at Outwood’s, just above

the mantelpiece, there was on view, a week later, a slip of paper. The

writing on it was as follows:

 

OUTWOOD’S v. DOWNING’S

 

Outwood’s. First innings.

 

J. P. Barnes, c. Hammond, b. Hassall… 33

M. Jackson, not out…………………… 277

W. J. Stone, not out………………….. 124

Extras…………………………. 37

–—

Total (for one wicket)…… 471

 

Downing’s did not bat.