Mike and Psmith

by P. G. Wodehouse

  14

  MIKE RECEIVES A COMMISSION

  There is only one thing to be said in favor of detention on a finesummer's afternoon, and that is that it is very pleasant to come out of.The sun never seems so bright or the turf so green as during the firstfive minutes after one has come out of the detention room. One feels asif one were entering a new and very delightful world. There is also atouch of the Rip van Winkle feeling. Everything seems to have gone onand left one behind. Mike, as he walked to the cricket field, felt verymuch behind the times.

  Arriving on the field he found the Old Boys batting. He stopped andwatched an over of Adair's. The fifth ball bowled a man. Mike made hisway toward the pavilion.

  Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found Psmithseated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster.

  "Return of the exile," said Psmith. "A joyful occasion tinged withmelancholy. Have a cherry?--take one or two. These little acts ofunremembered kindness are what one needs after a couple of hours inextra pupil room. Restore your tissues, Comrade Jackson, and when youhave finished those, apply again."

  "Is your name Jackson?" inquired Dunster, "because Jellicoe wants to seeyou."

  "Alas, poor Jellicoe!" said Psmith. "He is now prone on his bed in thedormitory--there a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Jellicoe, the darling of thecrew, faithful below he did his duty, but Comrade Dunster has broachedhim to. I have just been hearing the melancholy details."

  "Old Smith and I," said Dunster, "were at prep school together. I'd noidea I should find him here."

  "It was a wonderfully stirring sight when we met," said Psmith; "notunlike the meeting of Ulysses and the hound Argos, of whom you havedoubtless read in the course of your dabblings in the classics. I wasUlysses; Dunster gave a lifelike representation of the faithful dawg."

  "You still jaw as much as ever, I notice," said the animal delineator,fondling the beginnings of his moustache.

  "More," sighed Psmith, "more. Is anything irritating you?" he added,eyeing the other's maneuvers with interest.

  "You needn't be a funny ass, man," said Dunster, pained; "heaps ofpeople tell me I ought to have it waxed."

  "What it really wants is top-dressing with guano. Hello! another manout. Adair's bowling better today than he did yesterday."

  "I heard about yesterday," said Dunster. "It must have been a rag!Couldn't we work off some other rag on somebody before I go? I shall bestopping here till Monday in the village. Well hit, sir--Adair's bowlingis perfectly simple if you go out to it."

  "Comrade Dunster went out to it first ball," said Psmith to Mike.

  "Oh! chuck it, man; the sun was in my eyes. I hear Adair's got a matchon with the M.C.C. at last."

  "Has he?" said Psmith; "I hadn't heard. Archaeology claims so much of mytime that I have little leisure for listening to cricket chitchat."

  "What was it Jellicoe wanted?" asked Mike; "was it anything important?"

  "He seemed to think so--he kept telling me to tell you to go and seehim."

  "I fear Comrade Jellicoe is a bit of a weak-minded blitherer--"

  "Did you ever hear of a rag we worked off on Jellicoe once?" askedDunster. "The man has absolutely no sense of humor--can't see when he'sbeing rotted. Well, it was like this--hello! We're all out--I shall haveto be going out to field again, I suppose, dash it! I'll tell you when Isee you again."

  "I shall count the minutes," said Psmith.

  Mike stretched himself; the sun was very soothing after his two hours inthe detention room; he felt disinclined for exertion.

  "I don't suppose it's anything special about Jellicoe, do you?" he said."I mean, it'll keep till teatime; it's no catch having to sweat acrossto the house now."

  "Don't dream of moving," said Psmith. "I have several rather profoundobservations on life to make and I can't make them without an audience.Soliloquy is a knack. Hamlet had got it, but probably only after yearsof patient practice. Personally, I need someone to listen when I talk. Ilike to feel that I am doing good. You stay where you are--don'tinterrupt too much."

  Mike tilted his hat over his eyes and abandoned Jellicoe.

  It was not until the lock-up bell rang that he remembered him. He wentover to the house and made his way to the dormitory, where he found theinjured one in a parlous state, not so much physical as mental. Thedoctor had seen his ankle and reported that it would be on the activelist in a couple of days. It was Jellicoe's mind that neededattention now.

  Mike found him in a condition bordering on collapse. "I say, you mighthave come before!" said Jellicoe.

  "What's up? I didn't know there was such a hurry about it--what did youwant?"

  "It's no good now," said Jellicoe gloomily; "it's too late, I shall getsacked."

  "What on earth are you talking about? What's the row?"

  "It's about that money."

  "What about it?"

  "I had to pay it to a man today, or he said he'd write to the Head--thenof course I should get sacked. I was going to take the money to him thisafternoon, only I got crocked, so I couldn't move. I wanted to get holdof you to ask you to take it for me--it's too late now!"

  Mike's face fell. "Oh, hang it!" he said, "I'm awfully sorry. I'd noidea it was anything like that--what a fool I was! Dunster did say hethought it was something important, only like an ass I thought it woulddo if I came over at lockup."

  "It doesn't matter," said Jellicoe miserably; "it can't be helped."

  "Yes, it can," said Mike. "I know what I'll do--it's all right. I'll getout of the house after lights-out."

  Jellicoe sat up. "You can't! You'd get sacked if you were caught."

  "Who would catch me? There was a chap at Wrykyn I knew who used to breakout every night nearly and go and pot at cats with an air pistol; it'sas easy as anything."

  The toad-under-the-harrow expression began to fade from Jellicoe's face."I say, do you think you could, really?"

  "Of course I can! It'll be rather a rag."

  "I say, it's frightfully decent of you."

  "What absolute rot!"

  "But look here, are you certain--"

  "I shall be all right. Where do you want me to go?"

  "It's a place about a mile or two from here, called Lower Borlock."

  "Lower Borlock?"

  "Yes, do you know it?"

  "Rather! I've been playing cricket for them all the term."

  "I say, have you? Do you know a man called Barley?"

  "Barley? Rather--he runs the White Boar."

  "He's the chap I owe the money to."

  "Old Barley!"

  Mike knew the landlord of the White Boar well; he was the wag of thevillage team. Every village team, for some mysterious reason, has itscomic man. In the Lower Borlock eleven Mr. Barley filled the post. Hewas a large, stout man, with a red and cheerful face, who looked exactlylike the jovial innkeeper of melodrama. He was the last man Mike wouldhave expected to do the "money by Monday-week or I write to theheadmaster" business.

  But he reflected that he had only seen him in his leisure moments, whenhe might naturally be expected to unbend and be full of the milk ofhuman kindness. Probably in business hours he was quite different. Afterall, pleasure is one thing and business another.

  Besides, five pounds is a large sum of money, and if Jellicoe owed it,there was nothing strange in Mr. Barley's doing everything he could torecover it.

  He wondered a little what Jellicoe could have been doing to run up abill as big as that, but it did not occur to him to ask, which wasunfortunate, as it might have saved him a good deal of inconvenience. Itseemed to him that it was none of his business to inquire intoJellicoe's private affairs. He took the envelope containing the moneywithout question.

  "I shall bike there, I think," he said, "if I can get into the shed."

  The school's bicycles were stored in a shed by the pavilion.

  "You can manage that," said Jellicoe; "it's locked up at night, but Ihad a key made to fit it last summer, because I used to get out in the
early morning sometimes before it was opened."

  "Got it on you?"

  "Smith's got it."

  "I'll get it from him."

  "I say!"

  "Well?"

  "Don't tell Smith why you want it, will you? I don't want anybody toknow--if a thing once starts getting about it's all over the place inno time."

  "All right, I won't tell him."

  "I say, thanks most awfully! I don't know what I should have done, I--"

  "Oh, chuck it!" said Mike.