The Greatest Works of P. G. Wodehouse. P. G. Wodehouse
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is only one thing to be said in favour of detention on a fine summer’s afternoon, and that is that it is very pleasant to come out of.; The sun never seems so bright or the turf so green as during the first five minutes after one has come out of the detention-room.; One feels as if one were entering a new and very delightful world.; There is also a touch of the Rip van Winkle feeling.; Everything seems to have gone on and left one behind.; Mike, as he walked to the cricket field, felt very much behind the times.
Arriving on the field he found the Old Boys batting.; He stopped and watched an over of Adair’s.; The fifth ball bowled a man.; Mike made his way towards the pavilion.
Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found Psmith seated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster.
“Return of the exile,” said Psmith.; “A joyful occasion tinged with melancholy.; Have a cherry?—take one or two.; These little acts of unremembered kindness are what one needs after a couple of hours in extra pupil-room.; Restore your tissues, Comrade Jackson, and when you have finished those, apply again.”
“Is your name Jackson?” inquired Dunster, “because Jellicoe wants to see you.”
“Alas, poor Jellicoe!” said Psmith.; “He is now prone on his bed in the dormitory—there a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Jellicoe, the darling of the crew, faithful below he did his duty, but Comrade Dunster has broached him to.; I have just been hearing the melancholy details.”
“Old Smith and I,” said Dunster, “were at a private school together.; I’d no idea I should find him here.”
“It was a wonderfully stirring sight when we met,” said Psmith; “not unlike the meeting of Ulysses and the hound Argos, of whom you have doubtless read in the course of your dabblings in the classics.; I was Ulysses; Dunster gave a life-like representation of the faithful dawg.”
“You still jaw as much as ever, I notice,” said the animal delineator, fondling the beginnings of his moustache.
“More,” sighed Psmith, “more.; Is anything irritating you?” he added, eyeing the other’s manoeuvres with interest.
“You needn’t be a funny ass, man,” said Dunster, pained; “heaps of people tell me I ought to have it waxed.”
“What it really wants is top-dressing with guano.; Hullo! another man out.; Adair’s bowling better to-day than he did yesterday.”
“I heard about yesterday,” said Dunster.; “It must have been a rag!; Couldn’t we work off some other rag on somebody before I go?; I shall be stopping here till Monday in the village.; Well hit, sir—Adair’s bowling is perfectly simple if you go out to it.”
“Comrade Dunster went out to it first ball,” said Psmith to Mike.
“Oh! chuck it, man; the sun was in my eyes.; I hear Adair’s got a match on with the M.C.C. at last.”
“Has he?” said Psmith; “I hadn’t heard.; Archaeology claims so much of my time that I have little leisure for listening to cricket chit-chat.”
“What was it Jellicoe wanted?” asked Mike; “was it anything important?”
“He seemed to think so—he kept telling me to tell you to go and see him.”
“I fear Comrade Jellicoe is a bit of a weak-minded blitherer——”
“Did you ever hear of a rag we worked off on Jellicoe once?” asked Dunster.; “The man has absolutely no sense of humour—can’t see when he’s being rotted.; Well it was like this—Hullo!; We’re all out—I shall have to be going out to field again, I suppose, dash it!; I’ll tell you when I see you again.”
“I shall count the minutes,” said Psmith.
Mike stretched himself; the sun was very soothing after his two hours in the detention-room; he felt disinclined for exertion.
“I don’t suppose it’s anything special about Jellicoe, do you?” he said.; “I mean, it’ll keep till tea-time; it’s no catch having to sweat across to the house now.”
“Don’t dream of moving,” said Psmith.; “I have several rather profound observations on life to make and I can’t make them without an audience.; Soliloquy is a knack.; Hamlet had got it, but probably only after years of patient practice.; Personally, I need some one to listen when I talk.; I like to feel that I am doing good.; You stay where you are—don’t interrupt too much.”
Mike tilted his hat over his eyes and abandoned Jellicoe.
It was not until the lock-up bell rang that he remembered him.; He went over to the house and made his way to the dormitory, where he found the injured one in a parlous state, not so much physical as mental.; The doctor had seen his ankle and reported that it would be on the active list in a couple of days.; It was Jellicoe’s mind that needed attention now.
Mike found him in a condition bordering on collapse.
“I say, you might have come before!” said Jellicoe.
“What’s up?; I didn’t know there was such a hurry about it—what did you want?”
“It’s no good now,” said Jellicoe gloomily; “it’s too late, I shall get sacked.”
“What on earth are you talking about?; What’s the row?”
“It’s about that money.”
“What about it?”
“I had to pay it to a man to-day, or he said he’d write to the Head—then of course I should get sacked.; I was going to take the money to him this afternoon, only I got crocked, so I couldn’t move.; I wanted to get hold of you to ask you to take it for me—it’s too late now!”
Mike’s face fell.; “Oh, hang it!” he said, “I’m awfully sorry.; I’d no idea it was anything like that—what a fool I was!; Dunster did say he thought it was something important, only like an ass I thought it would do if I came over at lock-up.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Jellicoe miserably; “it can’t be helped.”
“Yes, it can,” said Mike.; “I know what I’ll do—it’s all right.; I’ll get out of the house after lights-out.”
Jellicoe sat up.; “You can’t!; You’d get sacked if you were caught.”
“Who would catch me?; There was a chap at Wrykyn I knew who used to break out every night nearly and go and pot at cats with an air-pistol; it’s as easy as anything.”
The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe’s face.; “I say, do you think you could, really?”
“Of course I can!; It’ll be rather a rag.”
“I say, it’s frightfully decent of you.”
“What absolute rot!”
“But, look here, are you certain——”
“I shall be all right.; Where do you want me to go?”
“It’s a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock.”
“Lower Borlock?”
“Yes, do you know it?”
“Rather!; I’ve been playing cricket for them all the term.”
“I say, have you?; Do you know a man called Barley?”
“Barley?; Rather—he runs the ’White Boar’.”
“He’s the chap I owe the money to.”
“Old Barley!”
Mike knew the landlord of the “White Boar” well; he was the wag of the village team.; Every village team, for some mysterious reason, has its comic man.; In the Lower Borlock eleven Mr. Barley filled the post.;