Mike by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (dar e dil novel online reading .TXT) đź“–
- Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
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and mood he would have liked Adair at sight. His prejudice, however,
against all things Sedleighan was too much for him. “I don’t,” he said
shortly.
“Haven’t you ever played?”
“My little sister and I sometimes play with a soft ball at home.”
Adair looked sharply at him. A temper was evidently one of his
numerous qualities.
“Oh,” he said. “Well, perhaps you wouldn’t mind turning out this
afternoon and seeing what you can do with a hard ball—if you can
manage without your little sister.”
“I should think the form at this place would be about on a level with
hers. But I don’t happen to be playing cricket, as I think I told
you.”
Adair’s jaw grew squarer than ever. Mike was wearing a gloomy scowl.
Psmith joined suavely in the dialogue.
“My dear old comrades,” he said, “don’t let us brawl over this matter.
This is a time for the honeyed word, the kindly eye, and the pleasant
smile. Let me explain to Comrade Adair. Speaking for Comrade Jackson
and myself, we should both be delighted to join in the mimic warfare
of our National Game, as you suggest, only the fact is, we happen to
be the Young Archaeologists. We gave in our names last night. When you
are being carried back to the pavilion after your century against
Loamshire—do you play Loamshire?—we shall be grubbing in the hard
ground for ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty,
Comrade Adair. A Boy’s Cross-Roads.”
“Then you won’t play?”
“No,” said Mike.
“Archaeology,” said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, “will
brook no divided allegiance from her devotees.”
Adair turned, and walked on.
Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely
the same question.
“Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?”
It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a
general resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable
bullfinch.
“I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like
every new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the
better. We want keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I
want every boy to be keen.”
“We are, sir,” said Psmith, with fervour.
“Excellent.”
“On archaeology.”
Mr. Downing—for it was no less a celebrity—started, as one who
perceives a loathly caterpillar in his salad.
“Archaeology!”
“We gave in our names to Mr. Outwood last night, sir. Archaeology is a
passion with us, sir. When we heard that there was a society here, we
went singing about the house.”
“I call it an unnatural pursuit for boys,” said Mr. Downing
vehemently. “I don’t like it. I tell you I don’t like it. It is not
for me to interfere with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell
you frankly that in my opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a
boy. It gets him into idle, loafing habits.”
“I never loaf, sir,” said Psmith.
“I was not alluding to you in particular. I was referring to the
principle of the thing. A boy ought to be playing cricket with other
boys, not wandering at large about the country, probably smoking and
going into low public-houses.”
“A very wild lot, sir, I fear, the Archaeological Society here,”
sighed Psmith, shaking his head.
“If you choose to waste your time, I suppose I can’t hinder you. But
in my opinion it is foolery, nothing else.”
He stumped off.
“Now he’s cross,” said Psmith, looking after him. “I’m afraid
we’re getting ourselves disliked here.”
“Good job, too.”
“At any rate, Comrade Outwood loves us. Let’s go on and see what sort
of a lunch that large-hearted fossil-fancier is going to give us.”
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
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