“I hope he isn’t idiot enough to go out at night with Wyatt. If Wyatt likes to risk it, all right. That’s his look out. But it won’t do for Mike to go playing the goat too.”
“Clowes suggested putting Firby-Smith on to him. He’d have more chance, being in the same house, of seeing that he didn’t come a mucker than you would.”
“I’ve done that. Smith said he’d speak to him.”
“That’s all right then. Is that a new bat?”
“Got it to-day. Smashed my other yesterday—against the school house.”
Donaldson’s had played a friendly with the school house during the last two days, and had beaten them.
“I thought I heard it go. You were rather in form.”
“Better than at the beginning of the term, anyhow. I simply couldn’t do a thing then. But my last three innings have been 33 not out, 18, and 51.
“I should think you’re bound to get your first all right.”
“Hope so. I see Mike’s playing for the second against the O.W.s.”
“Yes. Pretty good for his first term. You have a pro. to coach you in the holidays, don’t you?”
“Yes. I didn’t go to him much this last time. I was away a lot. But Mike fairly lived inside the net.”
“Well, it’s not been chucked away. I suppose he’ll get his first next year. There’ll be a big clearing-out of colours at the end of this term. Nearly all the first are leaving. Henfrey’ll be captain, I expect.”
“Saunders, the pro. at home, always says that Mike’s going to be the star cricketer of the family. Better than J. W. even, he thinks. I asked him what he thought of me, and he said, ‘You’ll be making a lot of runs some day, Mr. Bob.’ There’s a subtle difference, isn’t there? I shall have Mike cutting me out before I leave school if I’m not careful.”
“Sort of infant prodigy,” said Trevor. “Don’t think he’s quite up to it yet, though.”
He went back to his study, and Bob, having finished his oiling and washed his hands, started on his Thucydides. And, in the stress of wrestling with the speech of an apparently delirious Athenian general, whose remarks seemed to contain nothing even remotely resembling sense and coherence, he allowed the question of Mike’s welfare to fade from his mind like a dissolving view.
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.
