"Who would catch me? There was a chap at Wrykyn I knew who used to break
out every night nearly and go and pot at cats with an air pistol; it's
as easy as anything."
The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe's face.
"I say, do you think you could, really?"
"Of course I can! It'll be rather a rag."
"I say, it's frightfully decent of you."
"What absolute rot!"
"But look here, are you certain--"
"I shall be all right. Where do you want me to go?"
"It's a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock."
"Lower Borlock?"
"Yes, do you know it?"
"Rather! I've been playing cricket for them all the term."
"I say, have you? Do you know a man called Barley?"
"Barley? Rather--he runs the White Boar."
"He's the chap I owe the money to."
"Old Barley!"
Mike knew the landlord of the White Boar well; he was the wag of the
village team. Every village team, for some mysterious reason, has its
comic man. In the Lower Borlock eleven Mr. Barley filled the post. He
was a large, stout man, with a red and cheerful face, who looked exactly
like the jovial innkeeper of melodrama. He was the last man Mike would
have expected to do the "money by Monday-week or I write to the
headmaster" business.
But he reflected that he had only seen him in his leisure moments, when
he might naturally be expected to unbend and be full of the milk of
human kindness. Probably in business hours he was quite different. After
all, pleasure is one thing and business another.
Besides, five pounds is a large sum of money, and if Jellicoe owed it,
there was nothing strange in Mr. Barley's doing everything he could to
recover it.
He wondered a little what Jellicoe could have been doing to run up a
bill as big as that, but it did not occur to him to ask, which was
unfortunate, as it might have saved him a good deal of inconvenience. It
seemed to him that it was none of his business to inquire into
Jellicoe's private affairs. He took the envelope containing the money
without question.
"I shall bike there, I think," he said, "if I can get into the shed."
The school's bicycles were stored in a shed by the pavilion.
"You can manage that," said Jellicoe; "it's locked up at night, but I
had a key made to fit it last summer, because I used to get out in the
early morning sometimes before it was opened."
"Got it on you?"
"Smith's got it."
"I'll get it from him."
"I say!"
"Well?"
"Don't tell Smith why you want it, will you? I don't want anybody to
know--if a thing once starts getting about it's all over the place in
no time."
"All right, I won't tell him."
"I say, thanks most awfully! I don't know what I should have done, I--"
"Oh, chuck it!" said Mike.
15
... AND FULFILLS IT
Mike started on his ride to Lower Borlock with mixed feelings. It is
pleasant to be out on a fine night in summer, but the pleasure is to a
certain extent modified when one feels that to be detected will mean
expulsion.
Mike did not want to be expelled, for many reasons. Now that he had
grown used to the place he was enjoying himself at Sedleigh to a certain
extent. He still harbored a feeling of resentment against the school in
general and Adair in particular, but it was pleasant in Outwood's now
that he had got to know some of the members of the house, and he liked
playing cricket for Lower Borlock; also, he was fairly certain that his
father would not let him go to Cambridge if he were expelled from
Sedleigh. Mr. Jackson was easygoing with his family, but occasionally
his foot came down like a steam hammer, as witness the Wrykyn
school-report affair.
So Mike pedaled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job done without
delay.
Psmith had yielded up the key, but his inquiries as to why it was needed
had been embarrassing. Mike's statement that he wanted to get up early
and have a ride had been received by Psmith, with whom early rising was
not a hobby, with honest amazement and a flood of advice and warning on
the subject.
"One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a
certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how
many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my
memory. However, there you are. I've given you the main idea of the
thing; and a German doctor says that early rising causes insanity.
Still, if you're bent on it...." After which he had handed over the key.
Mike wished he could have taken Psmith into his confidence. Probably he
would have volunteered to come, too; Mike would have been glad of a
companion.
It did not take him long to reach Lower Borlock. The White Boar stood at
the far end of the village, by the cricket field. He rode past the
church--standing out black and mysterious against the light sky--and the
rows of silent cottages, until he came to the inn.
The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out--it was
sometime past eleven.
The advantage an inn has over a private house, from the point of view of
the person who wants to get into it when it has been locked up, is that
a nocturnal visit is not so unexpected in the case of the former.
Preparations have been made to meet such an emergency. Where with a
private house you would probably have to wander around heaving rocks and
end by climbing up a waterspout, when you want to get into an inn you
simply ring the night bell, which, communicating with the boots' room,
has that hard-worked menial up and doing in no time.
After Mike had waited for a few minutes there was a rattling of chains
and a shooting of bolts and the door opened.
"Yes, sir?" said the boots, appearing in his shirt sleeves. "Why, 'ello!
Mr. Jackson, sir!"
Mike was well known to all dwellers in Lower Borlock, his scores being
the chief topic of conversation when the day's labors were over.
"I want to see Mr. Barley, Jack."
"He's bin' in bed this half hour back, Mr. Jackson."
"I must see him. Can you get him down?"
The boots looked doubtful. "Roust the guv'nor outer bed?" he said.
Mike quite admitted the gravity of the task. The landlord of the White
Boar was one of those men who need a beauty sleep.
"I wish you would--it's a thing that can't wait. I've got some money to
give to him."
"Oh, if it's _that_ ..." said the boots.
Five minutes later mine host appeared in person, looking more than
usually portly in a check dressing gown and red bedroom slippers.
"You can pop off, Jack."
Exit boots to his slumbers once more.
"Well, Mr. Jackson, what's it all about?"
"Jellicoe asked me to come and bring you the money."
"The money? What money?"
"What he owes you; the five pounds, of course."
"The five--" Mr. Barley stared openmouthed at Mike for a moment; then he
broke into a roar of laughter which shook the sporting prints on the
wall and drew barks from dogs in some distant part of the house. He
staggered about laughing and coughing till Mike began to expect a fit of
some kind. Then he collapsed into a chair, which creaked under him, and
wiped his eyes.
"Oh dear!" he said, "Oh dear! The five pounds!"
Mike was not always abreast of the rustic idea of humor, and now he felt
particularly fogged. For the life of him he could not see what there was
to amuse anyone so much in the fact that a person who owed five pounds
was ready to pay it back. It was an occasion for rejoicing, perhaps, but
rather for a solemn, thankful, eyes-raised-to-heaven kind of rejoicing.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Five pounds!"
"You might tell us the joke."
Mr. Barley opened the letter, read it, and had another attack; when this
was finished he handed the letter to Mike, who was waiting patiently by,
hoping for light, and requested him to read it.
"Dear, dear!" chuckled Mr. Barley, "five pounds! They may teach you
young gentlemen to talk Latin and Greek and what-not at your school, but
it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you how many beans make five;
it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you to come in when it rained;
it 'ud do ..."
Mike was reading the letter.
"Dear Mr. Barley," it ran.
"I send the £5, which I could not get before. I hope it is in time,
because I don't want you to write to the headmaster. I am sorry Jane and
John ate your wife's hat and the chicken and broke the vase."