Mike, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse [e books for reading txt] 📗

CHAPTER XXXVII

MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION

 

There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when

Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself

with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realise the eternal

truth of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first

flush of his resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to

play cricket. And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a

game. An innings for a Kindergarten v. the Second Eleven of a

Home of Rest for Centenarians would have soothed him. There were

times, when the sun shone, and he caught sight of white flannels on a

green ground, and heard the “plonk” of bat striking ball, when he felt

like rushing to Adair and shouting, “I will be good. I was in

the Wrykyn team three years, and had an average of over fifty the last

two seasons. Lead me to the nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my

hands again.”

 

But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn’t be done.

 

What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets

once or twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of

the game which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be.

Numbers do not make good cricket. They only make the presence of good

cricketers more likely, by the law of averages.

 

Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.

Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a

Burgess, but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three

years’ experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He

was a long way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and

the others who had taken wickets for Wrykyn.

 

The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.

Barnes, the head of Outwood’s, he who preferred not to interfere with

Stone and Robinson, was a. mild, rather timid-looking youth—not

unlike what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy—but he knew how to

keep balls out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding

type.

 

Stone and Robinson themselves, that swashbuckling pair, who now

treated Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both

fair batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.

 

There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing’s house.

 

Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star

at Wrykyn.

 

*

 

One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight. He did

not repeat the experiment. It was on a Thursday afternoon, after

school. The day was warm, but freshened by an almost imperceptible

breeze. The air was full of the scent of the cut grass which lay in

little heaps behind the nets. This is the real cricket scent, which

calls to one like the very voice of the game.

 

Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.

 

He went up to Adair.

 

“May I have an innings at this net?” he asked. He was embarrassed and

nervous, and was trying not to show it. The natural result was that

his manner was offensively abrupt.

 

Adair was taking off his pads after his innings. He looked up. “This

net,” it may be observed, was the first eleven net.

 

“What?” he said.

 

Mike repeated his request. More abruptly this time, from increased

embarrassment.

 

“This is the first eleven net,” said Adair coldly. “Go in after Lodge

over there.”

 

“Over there” was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a

corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked

as if he were taking his first lesson at the game.

 

Mike walked away without a word.

 

*

 

The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with

them the privilege of listening to Psmith’s views on life, proved but

a poor substitute for cricket. Psmith, who had no counter-attraction

shouting to him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them

hugely, but Mike almost cried sometimes from boredom. It was not

always possible to slip away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood

evidently looked upon them as among the very faithful, and kept them

by his aide.

 

Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow “sicklied o’er

with the pale cast of care.” But Psmith followed his leader with the

pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him

round the garden. Psmith’s attitude towards archaeological research

struck a new note in the history of that neglected science. He was

amiable, but patronising. He patronised fossils, and he patronised

ruins. If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would have

patronised that.

 

He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.

 

That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved on the third

expedition. Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of

an old Roman camp. Psmith approached Mike.

 

“Having inspired confidence,” he said, “by the docility of our

demeanour, let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile. Roman camps,

to be absolutely accurate, give me the pip. And I never want to see

another putrid fossil in my life. Let us find some shady nook where a

man may lie on his back for a bit.”

 

Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long

since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they

strolled away down the hill.

 

Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.

Their departure had passed unnoticed.

 

“A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementoes of the past,” said

Psmith. “And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers.

Mine are like some furrowed field. It’s a great grief to a man of

refinement, I can tell you, Comrade Jackson. Ah, this looks a likely

spot.”

 

They had passed through a gate into the field beyond. At the further

end there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant

sound over pebbles.

 

“Thus far,” said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and

sitting down, “and no farther. We will rest here awhile, and listen to

the music of the brook. In fact, unless you have anything important to

say, I rather think I’ll go to sleep. In this busy life of ours these

naps by the wayside are invaluable. Call me in about an hour.” And

Psmith, heaving the comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has

earned rest, lay down, with his head against a mossy tree-stump, and

closed his eyes.

 

Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making

centuries in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got

up, jumped the brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.

 

He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the

undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.

 

Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him. But when

you meet a dog in some one else’s wood, it is as well not to stop in

order that you may get to understand each other. Mike began to thread

his way back through the trees.

 

He was too late.

 

“Stop! What the dickens are you doing here?” shouted a voice behind

him.

 

In the same situation a few years before, Mike would have carried on,

and trusted to