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I think, sir,” said Robinson.

 

“Don’t be absurd!” snapped Mr. Downing. “It’s outside the door.

Wilson!”

 

“Yes, sir?” said a voice “off.”

 

“Are you making that whining noise?”

 

“Whining noise, sir? No, sir, I’m not making a whining noise.”

 

“What sort of noise, sir?” inquired Mike, as many Wrykynians

had asked before him. It was a question invented by Wrykyn for use in

just such a case as this.

 

“I do not propose,” said Mr. Downing acidly, “to imitate the noise;

you can all hear it perfectly plainly. It is a curious whining noise.”

 

“They are mowing the cricket field, sir,” said the invisible Wilson.

“Perhaps that’s it.”

 

“It may be one of the desks squeaking, sir,” put in Stone. “They do

sometimes.”

 

“Or somebody’s boots, sir,” added Robinson.

 

“Silence! Wilson?”

 

“Yes, sir?” bellowed the unseen one.

 

“Don’t shout at me from the corridor like that. Come in.”

 

“Yes, sir!”

 

As he spoke the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor

shrieks, and the india-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like

an excited kangaroo.

 

Willing hands had by this time deflected the clockwork rat from the

wall to which it had been steering, and pointed it up the alley-way

between the two rows of desks. Mr. Downing, rising from his place, was

just in time to see Sammy with a last leap spring on his prey and

begin worrying it.

 

Chaos reigned.

 

“A rat!” shouted Robinson.

 

The twenty-three members of the Brigade who were not earnest instantly

dealt with the situation, each in the manner that seemed proper to

him. Some leaped on to forms, others flung books, all shouted. It was

a stirring, bustling scene.

 

Sammy had by this time disposed of the clockwork rat, and was now

standing, like Marius, among the ruins barking triumphantly.

 

The banging on Mr. Downing’s desk resembled thunder. It rose above all

the other noises till in time they gave up the competition and died

away.

 

Mr. Downing shot out orders, threats, and penalties with the rapidity

of a Maxim gun.

 

“Stone, sit down! Donovan, if you do not sit down, you will be

severely punished. Henderson, one hundred lines for gross disorder!

Windham, the same! Go to your seat, Vincent. What are you doing,

Broughton-Knight? I will not have this disgraceful noise and disorder!

The meeting is at an end; go quietly from the room, all of you.

Jackson and Wilson, remain. Quietly, I said, Durand! Don’t

shuffle your feet in that abominable way.”

 

Crash!

 

“Wolferstan, I distinctly saw you upset that blackboard with a

movement of your hand—one hundred lines. Go quietly from the room,

everybody.”

 

The meeting dispersed.

 

“Jackson and Wilson, come here. What’s the meaning of this disgraceful

conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson.”

 

Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.

 

“Well, Wilson?”

 

“Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat–-”

 

“What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?”

 

“Then I remembered,” said Mike, “that I had left my Horace in my desk,

so I came in–-”

 

“And by a fluke, sir,” said Wilson, as one who tells of strange

things, “the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he

came in, too.”

 

“I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me.”

 

“I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to

let him go, and he came in after the rat.”

 

It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally

by both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr.

Downing liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire

Brigade, frivolous at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member.

Also he kept wicket for the school. Mike was a member of the

Archaeological Society, and had refused to play cricket.

 

Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.

 

“One hundred lines, Wilson,” he said. “You may go.”

 

Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun,

and paid very little for it.

 

Mr. Downing turned to Mike. “You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,

Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear,

but it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who

spend their time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We

are a keen school; this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste

their time. That will do, Jackson.”

 

And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a

master has a habit of getting the last word.

CHAPTER XXXIX

ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT

 

They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his

wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the

room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a sovereign.

 

When one has been in the habit of confining one’s lendings and

borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a sovereign comes

as something of a blow.

 

“What on earth for?” asked Mike.

 

“I say, do you mind if I don’t tell you? I don’t want to tell anybody.

The fact is, I’m in a beastly hole.”

 

“Oh, sorry,” said Mike. “As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a

quid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it’s about all I have

got, so don’t be shy about paying it back.”

 

Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of

gratitude.

 

Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday

meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against

Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored

ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom

he was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign

to Jellicoe—why on earth did the man want all that?—meant that,

unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the

desired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.

 

In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing

regularly for the ‘Varsity this season, and only the previous week had

made a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a

sufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be

stated at once, he did, by return of post.)

 

Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter—he was

never a very ready writer—when Stone and Robinson burst into the

room.

 

Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and

welcomed the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they

should have it.

 

But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stone

beamed. Robinson was laughing.

 

“You’re a sportsman,” said Robinson.

 

“What did he give you?” asked Stone.

 

They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith’ s deck-chair.

Mike’s heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitory

was a thing of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary with

Julius Caesar. He felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to know

and appreciate one another.

 

There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone and

Robinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at every

public school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain.

They had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animal

spirits. They looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging.

The Stones and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world.

They go about, loud and boisterous, with a whole-hearted and cheerful

indifference to other people’s feelings, treading on the toes of their

neighbour and shoving him off the pavement, and always with an eye

wide open for any adventure. As to the kind of adventure, they are not

particular so long as it promises excitement. Sometimes they go

through their whole school career without accident. More often they

run up against a snag in the shape of some serious-minded and muscular

person who objects to having his toes trodden on and being shoved off

the pavement, and then they usually sober down, to the mutual

advantage of themselves and the rest of the community.

 

One’s opinion of this type of youth varies according to one’s point of

view. Small boys whom they had occasion to kick, either from pure high

spirits or as a punishment for some slip from the narrow path which

the ideal small boy should tread, regarded Stone and Robinson as

bullies of the genuine “Eric” and “St. Winifred’s” brand. Masters were

rather afraid of them. Adair had a smouldering dislike for them. They

were useful at cricket, but apt not to take Sedleigh as seriously as

he could have wished.

 

As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out

the tea-things.

 

“Those Fire Brigade meetings,” said Stone, “are a rag. You can do what

you like, and you never get more than a hundred lines.”

 

“Don’t you!” said Mike. “I got Saturday afternoon.”

 

“What!”

 

“Is Wilson in too?”

 

“No. He got a hundred lines.”

 

Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.

 

“What a beastly swindle!”

 

“That’s because you don’t play cricket. Old Downing lets you do what

you like if you join the Fire Brigade and play cricket.”

 

“‘We are, above all, a keen school,’” quoted Stone. “Don’t you ever

play?”

 

“I have played a bit,” said Mike.

 

“Well, why don’t you have a shot? We aren’t such flyers here. If you

know one end of a bat from the other, you could get into some sort of

a team. Were you at school anywhere before you came here?”

 

“I was at Wrykyn.”

 

“Why on earth did you leave?” asked Stone. “Were you sacked?”

 

“No. My pater took me away.”

 

“Wrykyn?” said Robinson. “Are you any relation of the Jacksons

there—J. W. and the others?”

 

“Brother.”

 

“What!”

 

“Well, didn’t you play at all there?”

 

“Yes,” said Mike, “I did. I was in the team three years, and I should

have been captain this year, if I’d stopped on.”

 

There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and

Robinson nearly dropped his tea-cup.

 

Stone broke the silence.

 

“But I mean to say—look here! What I mean is, why aren’t you playing?

Why don’t you play now?”

 

“I do. I play for a village near here. Place called Little Borlock. A

man who played against Wrykyn for the Free Foresters captains them. He

asked me if I’d like some games for them.”

 

“But why not for the school?”

 

“Why should I? It’s much better fun for the village. You don’t get

ordered about by Adair, for a start.”

 

“Adair sticks on side,” said Stone.

 

“Enough for six,” agreed Robinson.

 

“By Jove,” said Stone, “I’ve got an idea. My word, what a rag!”

 

“What’s wrong now?” inquired Mike politely.

 

“Why, look here. To-morrow’s Mid-term Service day. It’s nowhere near

the middle of the term, but they always have it in the fourth week.

There’s chapel at half-past nine till half-past ten. Then the rest of

the day’s a whole holiday. There are always house matches. We’re

playing Downing’s. Why don’t you play and let’s smash them?”

 

“By Jove, yes,” said Robinson. “Why

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