Mike

“In passing, rather rum when you think that a burglar would get it hot for breaking in, while I get dropped on if I break out.  Why should there be one law for the burglar and one for me?  But you were saying—­just so.  I thank you.  About my breaking out.  When you’re a white-haired old man like me, young Jackson, you’ll see that there are two sorts of discipline at school.  One you can break if you feel like taking the risks; the other you mustn’t ever break.  I don’t know why, but it isn’t done.  Until you learn that, you can never hope to become the Perfect Wrykynian like,” he concluded modestly, “me.”

Mike made no reply.  He would have perished rather than admit it, but Wyatt’s words had sunk in.  That moment marked a distinct epoch in his career.  His feelings were curiously mixed.  He was still furious with Firby-Smith, yet at the same time he could not help acknowledging to himself that the latter had had the right on his side.  He saw and approved of Wyatt’s point of view, which was the more impressive to him from his knowledge of his friend’s contempt for, or, rather, cheerful disregard of, most forms of law and order.  If Wyatt, reckless though he was as regarded written school rules, held so rigid a respect for those that were unwritten, these last must be things which could not be treated lightly.  That night, for the first time in his life, Mike went to sleep with a clear idea of what the public school spirit, of which so much is talked and written, really meant.

CHAPTER XX THE TEAM IS FILLED UP

When Burgess, at the end of the conversation in the pavilion with Mr. Spence which Bob Jackson had overheard, accompanied the cricket-master across the field to the boarding-houses, he had distinctly made up his mind to give Mike his first eleven colours next day.  There was only one more match to be played before the school fixture-list was finished.  That was the match with Ripton.  Both at cricket and football Ripton was the school that mattered most.  Wrykyn did not always win its other school matches; but it generally did.  The public schools of England divide themselves naturally into little groups, as far as games are concerned.  Harrow, Eton, and Winchester are one group:  Westminster and Charterhouse another:  Bedford, Tonbridge, Dulwich, Haileybury, and St. Paul’s are a third.  In this way, Wrykyn, Ripton, Geddington, and Wilborough formed a group.  There was no actual championship competition, but each played each, and by the end of the season it was easy to see which was entitled to first place.  This nearly always lay between Ripton and Wrykyn.  Sometimes an exceptional Geddington team would sweep the board, or Wrykyn, having beaten Ripton, would go down before Wilborough.  But this did not happen often.  Usually Wilborough and Geddington were left to scramble for the wooden spoon.

Secretaries of cricket at Ripton and Wrykyn always liked to arrange the date of the match towards the end of the term, so that they might take the field with representative and not experimental teams.  By July the weeding-out process had generally finished.  Besides which the members of the teams had had time to get into form.

At Wrykyn it was the custom to fill up the team, if possible, before the Ripton match.  A player is likely to show better form if he has got his colours than if his fate depends on what he does in that particular match.

Burgess, accordingly, had resolved to fill up the first eleven just a week before Ripton visited Wrykyn.  There were two vacancies.  One gave him no trouble.  Neville-Smith was not a great bowler, but he was steady, and he had done well in the earlier matches.  He had fairly earned his place.  But the choice between Bob and Mike had kept him awake into the small hours two nights in succession.  Finally he had consulted Mr. Spence, and Mr. Spence had voted for Mike.

Burgess was glad the thing was settled.  The temptation to allow sentiment to interfere with business might have become too strong if he had waited much longer.  He knew that it would be a wrench definitely excluding Bob from the team, and he hated to have to do it.  The more he thought of it, the sorrier he was for him.  If he could have pleased himself, he would have kept Bob In.  But, as the poet has it, “Pleasure is pleasure, and biz is biz, and kep’ in a sepyrit jug.”  The first duty of a captain is to have no friends.

From small causes great events do spring.  If Burgess had not picked up a particularly interesting novel after breakfast on the morning of Mike’s interview with Firby-Smith in the study, the list would have gone up on the notice-board after prayers.  As it was, engrossed in his book, he let the moments go by till the sound on the bell startled him into movement.  And then there was only time to gather up his cap, and sprint.  The paper on which he had intended to write the list and the pen he had laid out to write it with lay untouched on the table.