12 Mike

  12 Mike

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  The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike, by P. G. Wodehouse #25 in our series by P. G. Wodehouse

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  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

  Character set encoding: ASCII, with a few ISO-8859-1 characters

  *** 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

  CHAPTER I. 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

  CHAPTER I

  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 ta
ble 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.

  Mike looked round the table. It was a great moment. He rose to it with the utmost dignity.

  “Good,” he said. “I say, what’s under that dish?”

  After breakfast, Mike and Marjory went off together to the meadow at the end of the garden. Saunders, the professional, assisted by the gardener’s boy, was engaged in putting up the net. Mr. Jackson believed in private coaching; and every spring since Joe, the eldest of the family, had been able to use a bat a man had come down from the Oval to teach him the best way to do so. Each of the boys in turn had passed from spectators to active participants in the net practice in the meadow. For several years now Saunders had been the chosen man, and his attitude towards the Jacksons was that of the Faithful Old Retainer in melodrama. Mike was his special favourite. He felt that in him he had material of the finest order to work upon. There was nothing the matter with Bob. In Bob he would turn out a good, sound article. Bob would be a Blue in his third or fourth year, and probably a creditable performer among the rank and file of a county team later on. But he was not a cricket genius, like Mike. Saunders would lie awake at night sometimes thinking of the possibilities that were in Mike. The strength could only come with years, but the style was there already. Joe’s style, with improvements.

  Mike put on his pads; and Marjory walked with the professional to the bowling crease.

  “Mike’s going to Wrykyn next term, Saunders,” she said. “All the boys were there, you know. So was father, ages ago.”

  “Is he, miss? I was thinking he would be soon.”

  “Do you think he’ll get into the school team?”

  “School team, miss! Master Mike get into a school team! He’ll be playing for England in another eight years. That’s what he’ll be playing for.”

  “Yes, but I meant next term. It would be a record if he did. Even Joe only got in after he’d been at school two years. Don’t you think he might, Saunders? He’s awfully good, isn’t he? He’s better than Bob, isn’t he? And Bob’s almost certain to get in this term.”

  Saunders looked a little doubtful.

  “Next term!” he said. “Well, you see, miss, it’s this way. It’s all there, in a manner of speaking, with Master Mike. He’s got as much style as Mr. Joe’s got, every bit. The whole thing is, you see, miss, you get these young gentlemen of eighteen, and nineteen perhaps, and it stands to reason they’re stronger. There’s a young gentleman, perhaps, doesn’t know as much about what I call real playing as Master Mike’s forgotten; but then he can hit ‘em harder when he does hit ‘em, and that’s where the runs come in. They aren’t going to play Master Mike because he’ll be in the England team when he leaves school. They’ll give the cap to somebody that can make a few then and there.”

  “But Mike’s jolly strong.”

  “Ah, I’m not saying it mightn’t be, miss. I was only saying don’t count on it, so you won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. It’s quite likely that it will, only all I say is don’t count on it. I only hope that they won’t knock all the style out of him before they’re done with him. You know these school professionals, miss.”

  “No, I don’t, Saunders. What are they like?”

  “Well, there’s too much of the come-right-out-at-everything about ‘em for my taste. Seem to think playing forward the alpha and omugger of batting. They’ll make him pat balls back to the bowler which he’d cut for twos and threes if he was left to himself. Still, we’ll hope for the best, miss. Ready, Master Mike? Play.”

  As Saunders had said, it was all there. Of Mike’s style there could be no doubt. To-day, too, he was playing more strongly than usual. Marjory had to run to the end of the meadow to fetch one straight drive. “He hit that hard enough, didn’t he, Saunders?” she asked, as she returned the ball.

  “If he could keep on doing ones like that, miss,” said the professional, “they’d have him in the team before you could say knife.”

  Marjory sat down again beside the net, and watched more hopefully.<
br />
  CHAPTER II

  THE JOURNEY DOWN

  The seeing off of Mike on the last day of the holidays was an imposing spectacle, a sort of pageant. Going to a public school, especially at the beginning of the summer term, is no great hardship, more particularly when the departing hero has a brother on the verge of the school eleven and three other brothers playing for counties; and Mike seemed in no way disturbed by the prospect. Mothers, however, to the end of time will foster a secret fear that their sons will be bullied at a big school, and Mrs. Jackson’s anxious look lent a fine solemnity to the proceedings.

  And as Marjory, Phyllis, and Ella invariably broke down when the time of separation arrived, and made no exception to their rule on the present occasion, a suitable gloom was the keynote of the gathering. Mr. Jackson seemed to bear the parting with fortitude, as did Mike’s Uncle John (providentially roped in at the eleventh hour on his way to Scotland, in time to come down with a handsome tip). To their coarse-fibred minds there was nothing pathetic or tragic about the affair at all. (At the very moment when the train began to glide out of the station Uncle John was heard to remark that, in his opinion, these Bocks weren’t a patch on the old shaped Larranaga.) Among others present might have been noticed Saunders, practising late cuts rather coyly with a walking-stick in the background; the village idiot, who had rolled up on the chance of a dole; Gladys Maud Evangeline’s nurse, smiling vaguely; and Gladys Maud Evangeline herself, frankly bored with the whole business.

  The train gathered speed. The air was full of last messages. Uncle John said on second thoughts he wasn’t sure these Bocks weren’t half a bad smoke after all. Gladys Maud cried, because she had taken a sudden dislike to the village idiot; and Mike settled himself in the corner and opened a magazine.

  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 every word Saunders had said on the subject, but Bob had been so careful to point out his insignificance when compared with the humblest Wrykynian that the professional’s glowing prophecies had not had much effect. It might be true that some day he would play for England, but just at present he felt he would exchange his place in the team for one in the Wrykyn third eleven. A sort of mist enveloped everything Wrykynian. It seemed almost hopeless to try and compete with these unknown experts. On the other hand, there was Bob. Bob, by all accounts, was on the verge of the first eleven, and he was nothing special.