Mike by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (dar e dil novel online reading .TXT) 📖
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**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
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*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Mike
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7423]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on April 27, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIKE ***
Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Jim Tinsley, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
With thanks to Amherst College Library.
MIKE
A PUBLIC SCHOOL STORY
BY
P. G. WODEHOUSE
1909
CONTAINING TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY T. M. R. WHITWELL
[Illustration (Frontispiece): “ARE YOU THE M. JACKSON THEN WHO HAD AN
AVERAGE OF FIFTY ONE POINT NOUGHT THREE LAST YEAR?”]
[Dedication]
TO
ALAN DURAND
CONTENTS
CHAPTERI. MIKE
II. THE JOURNEY DOWN
III. MIKE FINDS A FRIENDLY NATIVE
IV. AT THE NETS
V. REVELRY BY NIGHT
VI. IN WHICH A TIGHT CORNER IS EVADED
VII. IN WHICH MIKE IS DISCUSSED
VIII. A ROW WITH THE TOWN
IX. BEFORE THE STORM
X. THE GREAT PICNIC
XI. THE CONCLUSION OF THE PICNIC
XII. MIKE GETS HIS CHANCE
XIII. THE M.C.C. MATCH
XIV. A SLIGHT IMBROGLIO
XV. MIKE CREATES A VACANCY
XVI. AN EXPERT EXAMINATION
XVII. ANOTHER VACANCY
XVIII. BOB HAS NEWS TO IMPART
XIX. MIKE GOES TO SLEEP AGAIN
XX. THE TEAM IS FILLED UP
XXI. MARJORY THE FRANK
XXII. WYATT IS REMINDED OF AN ENGAGEMENT
XXIII. A SURPRISE FOR MR. APPLEBY
XXIV. CAUGHT
XXV. MARCHING ORDERS
XXVI. THE AFTERMATH
XXVII. THE RIPTON MATCH
XXVIII. MIKE WINS HOME
XXIX. WYATT AGAIN
XXX. MR. JACKSON MAKES UP HIS MIND
XXXI. SEDLEIGH
XXXII. PSMITH
XXXIII. STAKING OUT A CLAIM
XXXIV. GUERILLA WARFARE
XXXV. UNPLEASANTNESS IN THE SMALL HOURS
XXXVI. ADAIR
XXXVII. MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION
XXXVIII. THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING
XXXIX. ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT
XL. THE MATCH WITH DOWNING’S
XLI. THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF JELLICOE
XLII. JELLICOE GOES ON THE SICK-LIST
XLIII. MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION
XLIV. AND FULFILS IT
XLV. PURSUIT
XLVI. THE DECORATION OF SAMMY
XLVII. MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT
XLVIII. THE SLEUTH-HOUND
XLIX. A CHECK
L. THE DESTROYER OF EVIDENCE
LI. MAINLY ABOUT BOOTS
LII. ON THE TRAIL AGAIN
LIII. THE KETTLE METHOD
LIV. ADAIR HAS A WORD WITH MIKE
LV. CLEARING THE AIR
LVI. IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
LVII. MR. DOWNING MOVES
LVIII. THE ARTIST CLAIMS HIS WORK
LIX. SEDLEIGH v. WRYKYN
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BY T. M. R. WHITWELL
“ARE YOU THE M. JACKSON, THEN, WHO HAD AN AVERAGE OF FIFTY-ONE POINT
NOUGHT THREE LAST YEAR?”
THE DARK WATERS WERE LASHED INTO A MAELSTROM
“DON’T LAUGH, YOU GRINNING APE”
“DO—YOU—SEE, YOU FRIGHTFUL KID?”
“WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT JIMMY WYATT?”
MIKE AND THE BALL ARRIVED ALMOST SIMULTANEOUSLY
“WHAT THE DICKENS ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
PSMITH SEIZED AND EMPTIED JELLICOE’S JUG OVER SPILLER
“WHY DID YOU SAY YOU DIDN’T PLAY CRICKET?” HE ASKED
“WHO—” HE SHOUTED, “WHO HAS DONE THIS?”
“DID—YOU—PUT—THAT—BOOT—THERE, SMITH?”
MIKE DROPPED THE SOOT-COVERED OBJECT IN THE FENDER
MIKE
It was a morning in the middle of April, and the Jackson family were
consequently breakfasting in comparative silence. The cricket season
had not begun, and except during the cricket season they were in the
habit of devoting their powerful minds at breakfast almost exclusively
to the task of victualling against the labours of the day. In May,
June, July, and August the silence was broken. The three grown-up
Jacksons played regularly in first-class cricket, and there was always
keen competition among their brothers and sisters for the copy of the
Sportsman which was to be found on the hall table with the
letters. Whoever got it usually gloated over it in silence till urged
wrathfully by the multitude to let them know what had happened; when
it would appear that Joe had notched his seventh century, or that
Reggie had been run out when he was just getting set, or, as sometimes
occurred, that that ass Frank had dropped Fry or Hayward in the slips
before he had scored, with the result that the spared expert had made
a couple of hundred and was still going strong.
In such a case the criticisms of the family circle, particularly of
the smaller Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs.
Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed,
Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been
fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her
brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the
family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game
themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the
standard was not kept up.
On this particular morning silence reigned. A deep gasp from some
small Jackson, wrestling with bread-and-milk, and an occasional remark
from Mr. Jackson on the letters he was reading, alone broke it.
“Mike’s late again,” said Mrs. Jackson plaintively, at last.
“He’s getting up,” said Marjory. “I went in to see what he was doing,
and he was asleep. So,” she added with a satanic chuckle, “I squeezed
a sponge over him. He swallowed an awful lot, and then he woke up, and
tried to catch me, so he’s certain to be down soon.”
“Marjory!”
“Well, he was on his back with his mouth wide open. I had to. He was
snoring like anything.”
“You might have choked him.”
“I did,” said Marjory with satisfaction. “Jam, please, Phyllis, you
pig.”
Mr. Jackson looked up.
“Mike will have to be more punctual when he goes to Wrykyn,” he said.
“Oh, father, is Mike going to Wrykyn?” asked Marjory. “When?”
“Next term,” said Mr. Jackson. “I’ve just heard from Mr. Wain,” he
added across the table to Mrs. Jackson. “The house is full, but he is
turning a small room into an extra dormitory, so he can take Mike
after all.”
The first comment on this momentous piece of news came from Bob
Jackson. Bob was eighteen. The following term would be his last at
Wrykyn, and, having won through so far without the infliction of a
small brother, he disliked the prospect of not being allowed to finish
as he had begun.
“I say!” he said. “What?”
“He ought to have gone before,” said Mr. Jackson. “He’s fifteen. Much
too old for that private school. He has had it all his own way there,
and it isn’t good for him.”
“He’s got cheek enough for ten,” agreed Bob.
“Wrykyn will do him a world of good.”
“We aren’t in the same house. That’s one comfort.”
Bob was in Donaldson’s. It softened the blow to a certain extent that
Mike should be going to Wain’s. He had the same feeling for Mike that
most boys of eighteen have for their fifteen-year-old brothers. He was
fond of him in the abstract, but preferred him at a distance.
Marjory gave tongue again. She had rescued the jam from Phyllis, who
had shown signs of finishing it, and was now at liberty to turn her
mind to less pressing matters. Mike was her special ally, and anything
that affected his fortunes affected her.
“Hooray! Mike’s going to Wrykyn. I bet he gets into the first eleven
his first term.”
“Considering there are eight old colours left,” said Bob loftily,
“besides heaps of last year’s seconds, it’s hardly likely that a kid
like Mike’ll get a look in. He might get his third, if he sweats.”
The aspersion stung Marjory.
“I bet he gets in before you, anyway,” she said.
Bob disdained to reply. He was among those heaps of last year’s
seconds to whom he had referred. He was a sound bat, though lacking
the brilliance of his elder brothers, and he fancied that his cap was
a certainty this season. Last year he had been tried once or twice.
This year it should be all right.
Mrs. Jackson intervened.
“Go on with your breakfast, Marjory,” she said. “You mustn’t say ‘I
bet’ so much.”
Marjory bit off a section of her slice of bread-and-jam.
“Anyhow, I bet he does,” she muttered truculently through it.
There was a sound of footsteps in the passage outside. The door
opened, and the missing member of the family appeared. Mike Jackson
was tall for his age. His figure was thin and wiry. His arms and legs
looked a shade too long for his body. He was evidently going to be
very tall some day. In face, he was curiously like his brother Joe,
whose appearance is familiar to every one who takes an interest in
first-class cricket. The resemblance was even more marked on the
cricket field. Mike had Joe’s batting style to the last detail. He was
a pocket edition of his century-making brother. “Hullo,” he said,
“sorry I’m late.”
This was mere stereo. He had made the same remark nearly every morning
since the beginning of the holidays.
“All right, Marjory, you little beast,” was his reference to the
sponge incident.
His third remark was of a practical nature.
“I say, what’s under that dish?”
“Mike,” began Mr. Jackson—this again was stereo—“you really must
learn to be more punctual–-”
He was interrupted by a chorus.
“Mike, you’re going to Wrykyn next term,” shouted Marjory.
“Mike, father’s just had a letter to say you’re going to Wrykyn next
term.” From Phyllis.
“Mike, you’re going to Wrykyn.” From Ella.
Gladys Maud Evangeline, aged three, obliged with a solo of her own
composition, in six-eight time, as follows: “Mike Wryky. Mike Wryky.
Mike Wryke Wryke Wryke Mike Wryke Wryke Mike Wryke Mike Wryke.”
“Oh, put a green baize cloth over that kid, somebody,” groaned Bob.
Whereat Gladys Maud, having fixed him with a chilly stare for some
seconds, suddenly drew a long breath, and squealed deafeningly for
more milk.
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