Mike

“It can’t be any worse than the horrid ones Mr. Blake used to write when you were in his form.”

“No, that’s a comfort,” said Mike philosophically.  “Think there’s any more tea in that pot?”

“I call it a shame,” said Marjory; “they ought to be jolly glad to have you at Wrykyn just for cricket, instead of writing beastly reports that make father angry and don’t do any good to anybody.”

“Last summer he said he’d take me away if I got another one.”

“He didn’t mean it really, I know he didn’t!  He couldn’t!  You’re the best bat Wrykyn’s ever had.”

“What ho!” interpolated Mike.

“You are.  Everybody says you are.  Why, you got your first the very first term you were there—­even Joe didn’t do anything nearly so good as that.  Saunders says you’re simply bound to play for England in another year or two.”

“Saunders is a jolly good chap.  He bowled me a half-volley on the off the first ball I had in a school match.  By the way, I wonder if he’s out at the net now.  Let’s go and see.”

Saunders was setting up the net when they arrived.  Mike put on his pads and went to the wickets, while Marjory and the dogs retired as usual to the far hedge to retrieve.

She was kept busy.  Saunders was a good sound bowler of the M.C.C. minor match type, and there had been a time when he had worried Mike considerably, but Mike had been in the Wrykyn team for three seasons now, and each season he had advanced tremendously in his batting.  He had filled out in three years.  He had always had the style, and now he had the strength as well.  Saunders’s bowling on a true wicket seemed simple to him.  It was early in the Easter holidays, but already he was beginning to find his form.  Saunders, who looked on Mike as his own special invention, was delighted.

“If you don’t be worried by being too anxious now that you’re captain, Master Mike,” he said, “you’ll make a century every match next term.”

“I wish I wasn’t; it’s a beastly responsibility.”

Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead.  He liked the prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring responsibility.  At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the wrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out.  It is no light thing to captain a public school at cricket.

As he was walking towards the house, Phyllis met him.  “Oh, I’ve been hunting for you, Mike; father wants you.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where?”

“He’s in the study.  He seems—­” added Phyllis, throwing in the information by way of a make-weight, “in a beastly wax.”

Mike’s jaw fell slightly.  “I hope the dickens it’s nothing to do with that bally report,” was his muttered exclamation.

Mike’s dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant nature.  Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his sons as companions.  From time to time, however, breezes were apt to ruffle the placid sea of good-fellowship.  Mike’s end-of-term report was an unfailing wind-raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake’s sarcastic résumé of Mike’s short-comings at the end of the previous term, there had been something not unlike a typhoon.  It was on this occasion that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike from Wrykyn unless the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.

It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson entered the study.

“Come in, Mike,” said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; “I want to speak to you.”

Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing.  Only in moments of emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.

There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he had carted a half-volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge that morning.

“It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out—­may I bag the paper-knife for a jiffy?  I’ll just show——­”

“Never mind about cricket now,” said Mr. Jackson; “I want you to listen to this report.”

“Oh, is that my report, father?” said Mike, with a sort of sickly interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.

“It is,” replied Mr. Jackson in measured tones, “your report; what is more, it is without exception the worst report you have ever had.”

“Oh, I say!” groaned the record-breaker.

“‘His conduct,’” quoted Mr. Jackson, “’has been unsatisfactory in the extreme, both in and out of school.’”

“It wasn’t anything really.  I only happened——­”

Remembering suddenly that what he had happened to do was to drop a cannon-ball (the school weight) on the form-room floor, not once, but on several occasions, he paused.

“‘French bad; conduct disgraceful——­’”

“Everybody rags in French.”

“‘Mathematics bad.  Inattentive and idle.’”

“Nobody does much work in Math.”

“‘Latin poor.  Greek, very poor.’”