Mike by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (most popular novels .TXT) 📕

CHAPTER VIII

A ROW WITH THE TOWN

 

The beginning of a big row, one of those rows which turn a school

upside down like a volcanic eruption and provide old boys with

something to talk about, when they meet, for years, is not unlike the

beginning of a thunderstorm.

 

You are walking along one seemingly fine day, when suddenly there is a

hush, and there falls on you from space one big drop. The next moment

the thing has begun, and you are standing in a shower-bath. It is just

the same with a row. Some trivial episode occurs, and in an instant

the place is in a ferment. It was so with the great picnic at Wrykyn.

 

The bare outlines of the beginning of this affair are included in a

letter which Mike wrote to his father on the Sunday following the Old

Wrykynian matches.

 

This was the letter:

 

“DEAR FATHER,—Thanks awfully for your letter. I hope you are quite

well. I have been getting on all right at cricket lately. My scores

since I wrote last have been 0 in a scratch game (the sun got in my

eyes just as I played, and I got bowled); 15 for the third against an

eleven of masters (without G. B. Jones, the Surrey man, and Spence);

28 not out in the Under Sixteen game; and 30 in a form match. Rather

decent. Yesterday one of the men put down for the second against the

O.W.‘s second couldn’t play because his father was very ill, so I

played. Wasn’t it luck? It’s the first time I’ve played for the

second. I didn’t do much, because I didn’t get an innings. They stop

the cricket on O.W. matches day because they have a lot of rotten

Greek plays and things which take up a frightful time, and half the

chaps are acting, so we stop from lunch to four. Rot I call it. So I

didn’t go in, because they won the toss and made 215, and by the time

we’d made 140 for 6 it was close of play. They’d stuck me in eighth

wicket. Rather rot. Still, I may get another shot. And I made rather a

decent catch at mid-on. Low down. I had to dive for it. Bob played for

the first, but didn’t do much. He was run out after he’d got ten. I

believe he’s rather sick about it.

 

“Rather a rummy thing happened after lock-up. I wasn’t in it, but a

fellow called Wyatt (awfully decent chap. He’s Wain’s step-son, only

they bar one another) told me about it. He was in it all right.

There’s a dinner after the matches on O.W. day, and some of the chaps

were going back to their houses after it when they got into a row with

a lot of brickies from the town, and there was rather a row. There was

a policeman mixed up in it somehow, only I don’t quite know where he

comes in. I’ll find out and tell you next time I write. Love to

everybody. Tell Marjory I’ll write to her in a day or two.

 

“Your loving son,

 

“MIKE.

 

“P.S.—I say, I suppose you couldn’t send me five bob, could you? I’m

rather broke.

 

“P.P.S.—Half-a-crown would do, only I’d rather it was five bob.”

 

And, on the back of the envelope, these words: “Or a bob would be

better than nothing.”

 

*

 

The outline of the case was as Mike had stated. But there were certain

details of some importance which had not come to his notice when he

sent the letter. On the Monday they were public property.

 

The thing had happened after this fashion. At the conclusion of the

day’s cricket, all those who had been playing in the four elevens

which the school put into the field against the old boys, together

with the school choir, were entertained by the headmaster to supper in

the Great Hall. The banquet, lengthened by speeches, songs, and

recitations which the reciters imagined to be songs, lasted, as a

rule, till about ten o’clock, when the revellers were supposed to go

back to their houses by the nearest route, and turn in. This was the

official programme. The school usually performed it with certain

modifications and improvements.

 

About midway between Wrykyn, the school, and Wrykyn, the town, there

stands on an island in the centre of the road a solitary lamp-post. It

was the custom, and had been the custom for generations back, for the

diners to trudge off to this lamp-post, dance round it for some

minutes singing the school song or whatever happened to be the popular

song of the moment, and then race back to their houses. Antiquity had

given the custom a sort of sanctity, and the authorities, if they

knew—which they must have done—never interfered.

 

But there were others.

 

Wrykyn, the town, was peculiarly rich in “gangs of youths.” Like the

vast majority of the inhabitants of the place, they seemed to have no

work of any kind whatsoever to occupy their time, which they used,

accordingly, to spend prowling about and indulging in a mild,

brainless, rural type of hooliganism. They seldom proceeded to

practical rowdyism and never except with the school. As a rule, they

amused themselves by shouting rude chaff. The school regarded them

with a lofty contempt, much as an Oxford man regards the townee. The

school was always anxious for a row, but it was the unwritten law that

only in special circumstances should they proceed to active measures.

A curious dislike for school-and-town rows and most misplaced severity

in dealing with the offenders when they took place, were among the few

flaws in the otherwise admirable character of the headmaster of

Wrykyn. It was understood that one scragged bargees at one’s own risk,

and, as a rule, it was not considered worth it.

 

But after an excellent supper and much singing and joviality, one’s

views are apt to alter. Risks which before supper seemed great, show a

tendency to dwindle.

 

When, therefore, the twenty or so Wrykynians who were dancing round

the lamp-post were aware, in the midst of their festivities, that they

were being observed and criticised by an equal number of townees, and

that the criticisms were, as usual, essentially candid and personal,

they found themselves forgetting the headmaster’s prejudices and

feeling only that these outsiders must be put to the sword as speedily

as possible, for the honour of the school.

 

Possibly, if the town brigade had stuck to a purely verbal form of

attack, all might yet have been peace. Words can be overlooked.

 

But tomatoes cannot.

 

No man of spirit can bear to be pelted with over-ripe tomatoes for any

length of time without feeling that if the thing goes on much longer

he will be reluctantly compelled to take steps.

 

In the present crisis, the first tomato was enough to set matters

moving.

 

As the two armies stood facing each other in silence under the dim and

mysterious rays of the lamp, it suddenly whizzed out from the enemy’s

ranks, and hit Wyatt on the right ear.

 

There was a moment of suspense. Wyatt took out his handkerchief and

wiped his face, over which the succulent vegetable had spread itself.

 

“I don’t know how you fellows are going to pass the evening,” he said

quietly. “My idea of a good after-dinner game is to try and find the

chap who threw that. Anybody coming?”

 

For the first five minutes it was as even a fight as one could have

wished to see. It raged up and down the road without a pause, now in a

solid mass, now splitting up into little groups. The science was on

the side of the school. Most Wrykynians knew how to box to a