Mike

“He got it out of me.  I couldn’t choke him off.  He came down when you were away at Geddington, and would insist on having a look at my arm, and naturally he spotted right away there was nothing the matter with it.  So it came out; that’s how it was.”

Bob scratched thoughtfully at the turf with a spike of his boot.

“Of course, it was awfully decent——­”

Then again the monstrous nature of the affair came home to him.

“But what did you do it for?  Why should you rot up your own chances to give me a look in?”

“Oh, I don’t know....  You know, you did me a jolly good turn.”

“I don’t remember.  When?”

“That Firby-Smith business.”

“What about it?”

“Well, you got me out of a jolly bad hole.”

“Oh, rot!  And do you mean to tell me it was simply because of that——?”

Mike appeared to him in a totally new light.  He stared at him as if he were some strange creature hitherto unknown to the human race.  Mike shuffled uneasily beneath the scrutiny.

“Anyhow, it’s all over now,” Mike said, “so I don’t see what’s the point of talking about it.”

“I’m hanged if it is.  You don’t think I’m going to sit tight and take my first as if nothing had happened?”

“What can you do?  The list’s up.  Are you going to the Old Man to ask him if I can play, like Lionel Tremayne?”

The hopelessness of the situation came over Bob like a wave.  He looked helplessly at Mike.

“Besides,” added Mike, “I shall get in next year all right.  Half a second, I just want to speak to Wyatt about something.”

He sidled off.

“Well, anyhow,” said Bob to himself, “I must see Burgess about it.”

CHAPTER XXII WYATT IS REMINDED OF AN ENGAGEMENT

There are situations in life which are beyond one.  The sensible man realises this, and slides out of such situations, admitting himself beaten.  Others try to grapple with them, but it never does any good.  When affairs get into a real tangle, it is best to sit still and let them straighten themselves out.  Or, if one does not do that, simply to think no more about them.  This is Philosophy.  The true philosopher is the man who says “All right,” and goes to sleep in his arm-chair.  One’s attitude towards Life’s Little Difficulties should be that of the gentleman in the fable, who sat down on an acorn one day, and happened to doze.  The warmth of his body caused the acorn to germinate, and it grew so rapidly that, when he awoke, he found himself sitting in the fork of an oak, sixty feet from the ground.  He thought he would go home, but, finding this impossible, he altered his plans.  “Well, well,” he said, “if I cannot compel circumstances to my will, I can at least adapt my will to circumstances.  I decide to remain here.”  Which he did, and had a not unpleasant time.  The oak lacked some of the comforts of home, but the air was splendid and the view excellent.

To-day’s Great Thought for Young Readers.  Imitate this man.

Bob should have done so, but he had not the necessary amount of philosophy.  He still clung to the idea that he and Burgess, in council, might find some way of making things right for everybody.  Though, at the moment, he did not see how eleven caps were to be divided amongst twelve candidates in such a way that each should have one.

And Burgess, consulted on the point, confessed to the same inability to solve the problem.  It took Bob at least a quarter of an hour to get the facts of the case into the captain’s head, but at last Burgess grasped the idea of the thing.  At which period he remarked that it was a rum business.

“Very rum,” Bob agreed.  “Still, what you say doesn’t help us out much, seeing that the point is, what’s to be done?”

“Why do anything?”

Burgess was a philosopher, and took the line of least resistance, like the man in the oak-tree.

“But I must do something,” said Bob.  “Can’t you see how rotten it is for me?”

“I don’t see why.  It’s not your fault.  Very sporting of your brother and all that, of course, though I’m blowed if I’d have done it myself; but why should you do anything?  You’re all right.  Your brother stood out of the team to let you in it, and here you are, in it.  What’s he got to grumble about?”

“He’s not grumbling.  It’s me.”

“What’s the matter with you?  Don’t you want your first?”

“Not like this.  Can’t you see what a rotten position it is for me?”

“Don’t you worry.  You simply keep on saying you’re all right.  Besides, what do you want me to do?  Alter the list?”

But for the thought of those unspeakable outsiders, Lionel Tremayne and his headmaster, Bob might have answered this question in the affirmative; but he had the public-school boy’s terror of seeming to pose or do anything theatrical.  He would have done a good deal to put matters right, but he could not do the self-sacrificing young hero business.  It would not be in the picture.  These things, if they are to be done at school, have to be carried through stealthily, after Mike’s fashion.