A Prefect's Uncle, P. G. Wodehouse [best fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗
- Author: P. G. Wodehouse
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There was a knock at the door. Wilson came in with a request that he might fetch a book that he had left in the study.
'Oh, Wilson, just the man I wanted to see,' said the Bishop. 'Wilson, you're playing against Webster's next week.'
'By Jove,' said Wilson, 'am I really?'
He had spent days in working out on little slips of paper during school his exact chances of getting a place in the House team. Recently, however, he had almost ceased to hope. He had reckoned on at least eight of the senior study being chosen before him.
'Yes,' said the Bishop, 'you must buck up. Practise fielding every minute of your spare time. Anybody'll hit you up catches if you ask them.'
'Right,' said Wilson, 'I will.'
'All right, then. Go, and tell Lee that I want to see him.'
'Lee,' said the Bishop, when that worthy appeared, 'I wanted to see you, to tell you you're playing for the House against Webster's. Thought you might like to know.'
'By Jove,' said Lee, 'am I really?'
'Yes. Buck up with your fielding.'
'Right,' said Lee.
'That's all. If you're going downstairs, you might tell Adams to come up.'
For a quarter of an hour the Bishop interviewed the junior members of his team, and impressed on each of them the absolute necessity of bucking up with his fielding. And each of them protested that the matter should receive his best consideration.
'Well, they're keen enough anyway,' said Marriott, as the door closed behind Carstairs, the last of the new recruits, 'and that's the great thing. Hullo, who's that? I thought you had worked through the lot. Come in!'
A small form appeared in the doorway, carrying in its right hand a neatly-folded note.
'Monk told me to give you this, Gethryn.'
'Half a second,' said the Bishop, as the youth made for the door. 'There may be an answer.'
'Monk said there wouldn't be one.'
'Oh. No, it's all right. There isn't an answer.'
The door closed. The Bishop laughed, and threw the note over to Reece.
'Recognize it?'
Reece examined the paper.
'It's a fair copy. The one Monk showed me was rather smudged. I suppose they thought you might be hurt if you got an inky round-robin. Considerate chap, Monk.'
'Let's have a look,' said Marriott. 'By Jove. I say, listen to this bit. Like Macaulay, isn't it?'
He read extracts from the ultimatum.
'Let's have it,' said Gethryn, stretching out a hand.
'Not much. I'm going to keep it, and have it framed.'
'All right. I'm going down now to put up the list.'
When he had returned to the study, Monk and Danvers came quietly downstairs to look at the notice-board. It was dark in the passage, and Monk had to strike a light before he could see to read.
'By George,' he said, as the match flared up, 'Reece was right. He has.'
'Well, there's one consolation,' commented Danvers viciously, 'they can't possibly get that cup now. They'll have to put us in again soon, you see if they don't.'
''M, yes,' said Monk doubtfully.
14 — NORRIS TAKES A SHORT HOLIDAY
'It's all rot,' observed Pringle, 'to say that they haven't a chance, because they have.'
He and Lorimer were passing through the cricket-field on their way back from an early morning visit to the baths, and had stopped to look at Leicester's House team (revised version) taking its daily hour of fielding practice. They watched the performance keenly and critically, as spies in an enemy's camp.
'Who said they hadn't a chance?' said Lorimer. 'I didn't.'
'Oh, everybody. The chaps call them the Kindergarten and the Kids' Happy League, and things of that sort. Rot, I call it. They seem to forget that you only want two or three really good men in a team if the rest can field. Look at our crowd. They've all either got their colours, or else are just outside the teams, and I swear you can't rely on one of them to hold the merest sitter right into his hands.'
On the subject of fielding in general, and catching in particular, Pringle was feeling rather sore. In the match which his House had just won against Browning's, he had put himself on to bowl in the second innings. He was one of those bowlers who manage to capture from six to ten wickets in the course of a season, and the occasions on which he bowled really well were few. On this occasion he had bowled excellently, and it had annoyed him when five catches, five soft, gentle catches, were missed off him in the course of four overs. As he watched the crisp, clean fielding which was shown by the very smallest of Leicester's small 'tail', he felt that he would rather have any of that despised eight on his side than any of the School House lights except Baynes and Lorimer.
'Our lot's all right, really,' said Lorimer, in answer to Pringle's sweeping condemnation. 'Everybody has his off days. They'll be all right next match.'
'Doubt it,' replied Pringle. 'It's all very well for you. You bowl to hit the sticks. I don't. Now just watch these kids for a moment. Now! Look! No, he couldn't have got to that. Wait a second. Now!'
Gethryn had skied one into the deep. Wilson, Burgess, and Carstairs all started for it.
'Burgess,' called the Bishop.
The other two stopped dead. Burgess ran on and made the catch.
'Now, there you are,' said Pringle, pointing his moral, 'see how those two kids stopped when Gethryn called. If that had happened in one of our matches, you'd have had half a dozen men rotting about underneath the ball, and getting in one another's way, and then probably winding up by everybody leaving the catch to everybody else.'
'Oh, come on,' said Lorimer, 'you're getting morbid. Why the dickens didn't you think of having our fellows out for fielding practice, if you're so keen on it?'
'They wouldn't have come. When a chap gets colours, he seems to think he's bought the place. You can't drag a Second Eleven man out of his bed before breakfast to improve his fielding. He thinks it can't be improved. They're
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