Mike

“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.

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.

While he was engaged on these reflections, the train drew up at a small station.  Opposite the door of Mike’s compartment was standing a boy of about Mike’s size, though evidently some years older.  He had a sharp face, with rather a prominent nose; and a pair of pince-nez gave him a supercilious look.  He wore a bowler hat, and carried a small portmanteau.

He opened the door, and took the seat opposite to Mike, whom he scrutinised for a moment rather after the fashion of a naturalist examining some new and unpleasant variety of beetle.  He seemed about to make some remark, but, instead, got up and looked through the open window.

“Where’s that porter?” Mike heard him say.

The porter came skimming down the platform at that moment.

“Porter.”

“Sir?”