Mike

Stone and Robinson themselves, that swash-buckling pair, who now treated Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both fair batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.

There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing’s house.

Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star at Wrykyn.

One solitary overture Mike made during that first fortnight.  He did not repeat the experiment.  It was on a Thursday afternoon, after school.  The day was warm, but freshened by an almost imperceptible breeze.  The air was full of the scent of the cut grass which lay in little heaps behind the nets.  This is the real cricket scent, which calls to one like the very voice of the game.

Mike, as he sat there watching, could stand it no longer.

He went up to Adair.

“May I have an innings at this net?” he asked.  He was embarrassed and nervous, and was trying not to show it.  The natural result was that his manner was offensively abrupt.

Adair was taking off his pads after his innings.  He looked up.  “This net,” it may be observed, was the first eleven net.

“What?” he said.

Mike repeated his request.  More abruptly this time, from increased embarrassment.

“This is the first eleven net,” said Adair coldly.  “Go in after Lodge over there.”

“Over there” was the end net, where frenzied novices were bowling on a corrugated pitch to a red-haired youth with enormous feet, who looked as if he were taking his first lesson at the game.

Mike walked away without a word.

The Archaeological Society expeditions, even though they carried with them the privilege of listening to Psmith’s views on life, proved but a poor substitute for cricket.  Psmith, who had no counter-attraction shouting to him that he ought to be elsewhere, seemed to enjoy them hugely, but Mike almost cried sometimes from boredom.  It was not always possible to slip away from the throng, for Mr. Outwood evidently looked upon them as among the very faithful, and kept them by his aide.

Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of care.”  But Psmith followed his leader with the pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him round the garden.  Psmith’s attitude towards archaeological research struck a new note in the history of that neglected science.  He was amiable, but patronising.  He patronised fossils, and he patronised ruins.  If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would have patronised that.

He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.

That this was not altogether a genuine thirst was proved on the third expedition.  Mr. Outwood and his band were pecking away at the site of an old Roman camp.  Psmith approached Mike.

“Having inspired confidence,” he said, “by the docility of our demeanour, let us slip away, and brood apart for awhile.  Roman camps, to be absolutely accurate, give me the pip.  And I never want to see another putrid fossil in my life.  Let us find some shady nook where a man may lie on his back for a bit.”

Mike, over whom the proceedings connected with the Roman camp had long since begun to shed a blue depression, offered no opposition, and they strolled away down the hill.

Looking back, they saw that the archaeologists were still hard at it.  Their departure had passed unnoticed.

“A fatiguing pursuit, this grubbing for mementoes of the past,” said Psmith.  “And, above all, dashed bad for the knees of the trousers.  Mine are like some furrowed field.  It’s a great grief to a man of refinement, I can tell you, Comrade Jackson.  Ah, this looks a likely spot.”

They had passed through a gate into the field beyond.  At the further end there was a brook, shaded by trees and running with a pleasant sound over pebbles.

“Thus far,” said Psmith, hitching up the knees of his trousers, and sitting down, “and no farther.  We will rest here awhile, and listen to the music of the brook.  In fact, unless you have anything important to say, I rather think I’ll go to sleep.  In this busy life of ours these naps by the wayside are invaluable.  Call me in about an hour.”  And Psmith, heaving the comfortable sigh of the worker who by toil has earned rest, lay down, with his head against a mossy tree-stump, and closed his eyes.

Mike sat on for a few minutes, listening to the water and making centuries in his mind, and then, finding this a little dull, he got up, jumped the brook, and began to explore the wood on the other side.

He had not gone many yards when a dog emerged suddenly from the undergrowth, and began to bark vigorously at him.

Mike liked dogs, and, on acquaintance, they always liked him.  But when you meet a dog in some one else’s wood, it is as well not to stop in order that you may get to understand each other.  Mike began to thread his way back through the trees.

He was too late.

“Stop!  What the dickens are you doing here?” shouted a voice behind him.