ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a sovereign.
When one has been in the habit of confining one’s lendings and
borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a sovereign comes
as something of a blow.
“What on earth for?” asked Mike.
“I say, do you mind if I don’t tell you? I don’t want to tell anybody.
The fact is, I’m in a beastly hole.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Mike. “As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a
quid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it’s about all I have
got, so don’t be shy about paying it back.”
Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
gratitude.
Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom
he was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign
to Jellicoe--why on earth did the man want all that?--meant that,
unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the
desired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.
In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
regularly for the ’Varsity this season, and only the previous week had
made a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a
sufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be
stated at once, he did, by return of post.)
Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter--he was
never a very ready writer--when Stone and Robinson burst into the
room.
Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and
welcomed the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they
should have it.
But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone
beamed. Robinson was laughing.
“You’re a sportsman,” said Robinson.
“What did he give you?” asked Stone.
They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith’s deck-chair.
Mike’s heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory
was a thing of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with
Julius Caesar. He felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know
and appreciate one another.
There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and
Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every
public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain.
They had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal
spirits. They looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging.
The Stones and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world.
They go about, loud and boisterous, with a whole-hearted and cheerful
indifference to other people’s feelings, treading on the toes of their
neighbour and shoving him off the pavement, and always with an eye
wide open for any adventure. As to the kind of adventure, they are not
particular so long as it promises excitement. Sometimes they go
through their whole school career without accident. More often they
run up against a snag in the shape of some serious-minded and muscular
person who objects to having his toes trodden on and being shoved off
the pavement, and then they usually sober down, to the mutual
advantage of themselves and the rest of the community.
One’s opinion of this type of youth varies according to one’s point of
view. Small boys whom they had occasion to kick, either from pure high
spirits or as a punishment for some slip from the narrow path which
the ideal small boy should tread, regarded Stone and Robinson as
bullies of the genuine “Eric” and “St. Winifred’s” brand. Masters were
rather afraid of them. Adair had a smouldering dislike for them. They
were useful at cricket, but apt not to take Sedleigh as seriously as
he could have wished.
As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out
the tea-things.
“Those Fire Brigade meetings,” said Stone, “are a rag. You can do what
you like, and you never get more than a hundred lines.”
“Don’t you!” said Mike. “I got Saturday afternoon.”
“What!”
“Is Wilson in too?”
“No. He got a hundred lines.”
Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.
“What a beastly swindle!”
“That’s because you don’t play cricket. Old Downing lets you do what
you like if you join the Fire Brigade and play cricket.”
“‘We are, above all, a keen school,’” quoted Stone. “Don’t you ever
play?”
“I have played a bit,” said Mike.
“Well, why don’t you have a shot? We aren’t such flyers here. If you
know one end of a bat from the other, you could get into some sort of
a team. Were you at school anywhere before you came here?”
“I was at Wrykyn.”
“Why on earth did you leave?” asked Stone. “Were you sacked?”
“No. My pater took me away.”
“Wrykyn?” said Robinson. “Are you any relation of the Jacksons
there--J. W. and the others?”
“Brother.”
“What!”
“Well, didn’t you play at all there?”
“Yes,” said Mike, “I did. I was in the team three years, and I should
have been captain this year, if I’d stopped on.”
There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and
Robinson nearly dropped his tea-cup.
Stone broke the silence.
“But I mean to say--look here! What I mean is, why aren’t you playing?
Why don’t you play now?”
“I do. I play for a village near here. Place called Little Borlock. A
man who played against Wrykyn for the Free Foresters captains them. He
asked me if I’d like some games for them.”
“But why not for the school?”
“Why should I? It’s much better fun for the village. You don’t get
ordered about by Adair, for a start.”
“Adair sticks on side,” said Stone.
“Enough for six,” agreed Robinson.
“By Jove,” said Stone, “I’ve got an idea. My word, what a rag!”
“What’s wrong now?” inquired Mike politely.
“Why, look here. To-morrow’s Mid-term Service day. It’s nowhere near
the middle of the term, but they always have it in the fourth week.
There’s chapel at half-past nine till half-past ten. Then the rest of
the day’s a whole holiday. There are always house matches. We’re
playing Downing’s. Why don’t you play and let’s smash them?”
“By Jove, yes,” said Robinson. “Why don’t you? They’re always sticking
on side because they’ve won the house cup three years running. I say,
do you bat or bowl?”
“Bat. Why?”
Robinson rocked on the table.
“Why, old Downing fancies himself as a bowler. You _must_ play,
and knock the cover off him.”
“Masters don’t play in house matches, surely?”
“This isn’t a real house match. Only a friendly. Downing always turns
out on Mid-term Service day. I say, do play.”
“Think of the rag.”
“But the team’s full,” said Mike.
“The list isn’t up yet. We’ll nip across to Barnes’ study, and make
him alter it.”
They dashed out of the room. From down the passage Mike heard yells of
“_Barnes_!” the closing of a door, and a murmur of excited
conversation. Then footsteps returning down the passage.
Barnes appeared, on his face the look of one who has seen visions.
“I say,” he said, “is it true? Or is Stone rotting? About Wrykyn, I
mean.”
“Yes, I was in the team.”
Barnes was an enthusiastic cricketer. He studied his _Wisden_,
and he had an immense respect for Wrykyn cricket.
“Are you the M. Jackson, then, who had an average of fifty-one point
nought three last year?”
[Illustration: “ARE YOU THE M. JACKSON, THEN, WHO HAD AN AVERAGE OF
FIFTY-ONE POINT NOUGHT THREE LAST YEAR?”]
“Yes.”
Barnes’s manner became like that of a curate talking to a bishop.
“I say,” he said, “then--er--will you play against Downing’s to-morrow?”
“Rather,” said Mike. “Thanks awfully. Have some tea?”