Mike by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (most popular novels .TXT) 📕
He was alone in the carriage. Bob, who had been spending the last week of the holidays with an aunt further down the line, was to board the train at East Wobsley, and the brothers were to make a state entry into Wrykyn together. Meanwhile, Mike was left to his milk chocolate, his magazines, and his reflections.
The latter were not numerous, nor profound. He was excited. He had been petitioning the home authorities for the past year to be allowed to leave his private school and go to Wrykyn, and now the thing had come about. He wondered what sort of a house Wain's was, and whether they had any chance of the cricket cup. According to Bob they had no earthly; but then Bob only recognised one house, Donaldson's. He wondered if Bob would get his first eleven cap this year, and if he himself were likely to do anything at cricket. Marjory had faithfully reported e
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hero business. It would not be in the picture. These things, if they
are to be done at school, have to be carried through stealthily, after
Mike’s fashion.
“I suppose you can’t very well, now it’s up. Tell you what, though, I
don’t see why I shouldn’t stand out of the team for the Ripton match.
I could easily fake up some excuse.”
“I do. I don’t know if it’s occurred to you, but the idea is rather to
win the Ripton match, if possible. So that I’m a lot keen on putting
the best team into the field. Sorry if it upsets your arrangements in
any way.”
“You know perfectly well Mike’s every bit as good as me.”
“He isn’t so keen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fielding. He’s a young slacker.”
When Burgess had once labelled a man as that, he did not readily let
the idea out of his mind.
“Slacker? What rot! He’s as keen as anything.”
“Anyhow, his keenness isn’t enough to make him turn out for
house-fielding. If you really want to know, that’s why you’ve
got your first instead of him. You sweated away, and improved
your fielding twenty per cent.; and I happened to be talking to
Firby-Smith and found that young Mike had been shirking his, so
out he went. A bad field’s bad enough, but a slack field wants
skinning.”
“Smith oughtn’t to have told you.”
“Well, he did tell me. So you see how it is. There won’t be any
changes from the team I’ve put up on the board.”
“Oh, all right,” said Bob. “I was afraid you mightn’t be able to do
anything. So long.”
“Mind the step,” said Burgess.
*
At about the time when this conversation was in progress, Wyatt,
crossing the cricket-field towards the school shop in search of
something fizzy that might correct a burning thirst acquired at the
nets, espied on the horizon a suit of cricket flannels surmounted by a
huge, expansive grin. As the distance between them lessened, he
discovered that inside the flannels was Neville-Smith’s body and
behind the grin the rest of Neville-Smith’s face. Their visit to the
nets not having coincided in point of time, as the Greek exercise
books say, Wyatt had not seen his friend since the list of the team
had been posted on the board, so he proceeded to congratulate him on
his colours.
“Thanks,” said Neville-Smith, with a brilliant display of front teeth.
“Feeling good?”
“Not the word for it. I feel like—I don’t know what.”
“I’ll tell you what you look like, if that’s any good to you. That
slight smile of yours will meet behind, if you don’t look out, and
then the top of your head’ll come off.”
“I don’t care. I’ve got my first, whatever happens. Little Willie’s
going to buy a nice new cap and a pretty striped jacket all for his
own self! I say, thanks for reminding me. Not that you did, but
supposing you had. At any rate, I remember what it was I wanted to
say to you. You know what I was saying to you about the bust I meant
to have at home in honour of my getting my first, if I did, which I
have—well, anyhow it’s to-night. You can roll up, can’t you?”
“Delighted. Anything for a free feed in these hard times. What time
did you say it was?”
“Eleven. Make it a bit earlier, if you like.”
“No, eleven’ll do me all right.”
“How are you going to get out?”
“‘Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.’ That’s what
the man said who wrote the libretto for the last set of Latin Verses
we had to do. I shall manage it.”
“They ought to allow you a latch-key.”
“Yes, I’ve often thought of asking my pater for one. Still, I get on
very well. Who are coming besides me?”
“No boarders. They all funked it.”
“The race is degenerating.”
“Said it wasn’t good enough.”
“The school is going to the dogs. Who did you ask?”
“Clowes was one. Said he didn’t want to miss his beauty-sleep. And
Henfrey backed out because he thought the risk of being sacked wasn’t
good enough.”
“That’s an aspect of the thing that might occur to some people. I
don’t blame him—I might feel like that myself if I’d got another
couple of years at school.”
“But one or two day-boys are coming. Clephane is, for one. And
Beverley. We shall have rather a rag. I’m going to get the things
now.”
“When I get to your place—I don’t believe I know the way, now I come
to think of it—what do I do? Ring the bell and send in my card? or
smash the nearest window and climb in?”
“Don’t make too much row, for goodness sake. All the servants’ll have
gone to bed. You’ll see the window of my room. It’s just above the
porch. It’ll be the only one lighted up. Heave a pebble at it, and
I’ll come down.”
“So will the glass—with a run, I expect. Still, I’ll try to do as
little damage as possible. After all, I needn’t throw a brick.”
“You will turn up, won’t you?”
“Nothing shall stop me.”
“Good man.”
As Wyatt was turning away, a sudden compunction seized upon
Neville-Smith. He called him back.
“I say, you don’t think it’s too risky, do you? I mean, you always are
breaking out at night, aren’t you? I don’t want to get you into a
row.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Wyatt. “Don’t you worry about me. I
should have gone out anyhow to-night.”
A SURPRISE FOR MR. APPLEBY
“You may not know it,” said Wyatt to Mike in the dormitory that night,
“but this is the maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year.”
Mike could not help thinking that for himself it was the very reverse,
but he did not state his view of the case.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Neville-Smith’s giving a meal at his place in honour of his getting
his first. I understand the preparations are on a scale of the utmost
magnificence. No expense has been spared. Ginger-beer will flow like
water. The oldest cask of lemonade has been broached; and a sardine is
roasting whole in the market-place.”
“Are you going?”
“If I can tear myself away from your delightful society. The kick-off
is fixed for eleven sharp. I am to stand underneath his window and
heave bricks till something happens. I don’t know if he keeps a dog.
If so, I shall probably get bitten to the bone.”
“When are you going to start?”
“About five minutes after Wain has been round the dormitories to see
that all’s well. That ought to be somewhere about half-past ten.”
“Don’t go getting caught.”
“I shall do my little best not to be. Rather tricky work, though,
getting back. I’ve got to climb two garden walls, and I shall probably
be so full of Malvoisie that you’ll be able to hear it swishing about
inside me. No catch steeple-chasing if you’re like that. They’ve no
thought for people’s convenience here. Now at Bradford they’ve got
studies on the ground floor, the windows looking out over the
boundless prairie. No climbing or steeple-chasing needed at all. All
you have to do is to open the window and step out. Still, we must make
the best of things. Push us over a pinch of that tooth-powder of
yours. I’ve used all mine.”
Wyatt very seldom penetrated further than his own garden on the
occasions when he roamed abroad at night. For cat-shooting the Wain
spinneys were unsurpassed. There was one particular dustbin where one
might be certain of flushing a covey any night; and the wall by the
potting-shed was a feline club-house.
But when he did wish to get out into the open country he had a special
route which he always took. He climbed down from the wall that ran
beneath the dormitory window into the garden belonging to Mr. Appleby,
the master who had the house next to Mr. Wain’s. Crossing this, he
climbed another wall, and dropped from it into a small lane which
ended in the main road leading to Wrykyn town.
This was the route which he took to-night. It was a glorious July
night, and the scent of the flowers came to him with a curious
distinctness as he let himself down from the dormitory window. At any
other time he might have made a lengthy halt, and enjoyed the scents
and small summer noises, but now he felt that it would be better not
to delay. There was a full moon, and where he stood he could be seen
distinctly from the windows of both houses. They were all dark, it is
true, but on these occasions it was best to take no risks.
He dropped cautiously into Appleby’s garden, ran lightly across it,
and was in the lane within a minute.
There he paused, dusted his trousers, which had suffered on the
two walls, and strolled meditatively in the direction of the town.
Half-past ten had just chimed from the school clock. He was in plenty
of time.
“What a night!” he said to himself, sniffing as he walked.
*
Now it happened that he was not alone in admiring the beauty of that
particular night. At ten-fifteen it had struck Mr. Appleby, looking
out of his study into the moonlit school grounds, that a pipe in the
open would make an excellent break in his night’s work. He had
acquired a slight headache as the result of correcting a batch of
examination papers, and he thought that an interval of an hour in the
open air before approaching the half-dozen or so papers which still
remained to be looked at might do him good. The window of his study
was open, but the room had got hot and stuffy. Nothing like a little
fresh air for putting him right.
For a few moments he debated the rival claims of a stroll in the
cricket-field and a seat in the garden. Then he decided on the latter.
The little gate in the railings opposite his house might not be
open, and it was a long way round to the main entrance. So he took a
deck-chair which leaned against the wall, and let himself out of the
back door.
He took up his position in the shadow of a fir-tree with his back to
the house. From here he could see the long garden. He was fond of his
garden, and spent what few moments he could spare from work and games
pottering about it. He had his views as to what the ideal garden
should be, and he hoped in time to tinker his own three acres up to
the desired standard. At present there remained much to be done. Why
not, for instance, take away those laurels at the end of the lawn, and
have a flowerbed there instead? Laurels lasted all the year round,
true, whereas flowers died and left an empty brown bed in the winter,
but then laurels were nothing much to look at at any time, and a
garden always had a beastly appearance in winter, whatever you did to
it. Much better have flowers, and get a decent show for one’s money in
summer at any rate.
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