Psmith Series. P. G. Wodehouse
really well, and his first half-dozen overs had to be watched carefully.; But the wicket was too good to give him a chance, and Mike, playing himself in again, proceeded to get to business once more.; Bowlers came and went.; Adair pounded away at one end with brief intervals between the attacks.; Mr. Downing took a couple more overs, in one of which a horse, passing in the road, nearly had its useful life cut suddenly short.; Change-bowlers of various actions and paces, each weirder and more futile than the last, tried their luck.; But still the first-wicket stand continued.
The bowling of a house team is all head and no body.; The first pair probably have some idea of length and break.; The first-change pair are poor.; And the rest, the small change, are simply the sort of things one sees in dreams after a heavy supper, or when one is out without one’s gun.
Time, mercifully, generally breaks up a big stand at cricket before the field has suffered too much, and that is what happened now.; At four o’clock, when the score stood at two hundred and twenty for no wicket, Barnes, greatly daring, smote lustily at a rather wide half-volley and was caught at short-slip for thirty-three.; He retired blushfully to the pavilion, amidst applause, and Stone came out.
As Mike had then made a hundred and eighty-seven, it was assumed by the field, that directly he had topped his second century, the closure would be applied and their ordeal finished.; There was almost a sigh of relief when frantic cheering from the crowd told that the feat had been accomplished.; The fieldsmen clapped in quite an indulgent sort of way, as who should say, “Capital, capital.; And now let’s start our innings.”; Some even began to edge towards the pavilion.; But the next ball was bowled, and the next over, and the next after that, and still Barnes made no sign. (The conscience-stricken captain of Outwood’s was, as a matter of fact, being practically held down by Robinson and other ruffians by force.)
A grey dismay settled on the field.
The bowling had now become almost unbelievably bad.; Lobs were being tried, and Stone, nearly weeping with pure joy, was playing an innings of the How-to-brighten-cricket type.; He had an unorthodox style, but an excellent eye, and the road at this period of the game became absolutely unsafe for pedestrians and traffic.
Mike’s pace had become slower, as was only natural, but his score, too, was mounting steadily.
“This is foolery,” snapped Mr. Downing, as the three hundred and fifty went up on the board.; “Barnes!” he called.
There was no reply.; A committee of three was at that moment engaged in sitting on Barnes’s head in the first eleven changing-room, in order to correct a more than usually feverish attack of conscience.
“Barnes!”
“Please, sir,” said Stone, some species of telepathy telling him what was detaining his captain.; “I think Barnes must have left the field.; He has probably gone over to the house to fetch something.”
“This is absurd.; You must declare your innings closed.; The game has become a farce.”
“Declare!; Sir, we can’t unless Barnes does.; He might be awfully annoyed if we did anything like that without consulting him.”
“Absurd.”
“He’s very touchy, sir.”
“It is perfect foolery.”
“I think Jenkins is just going to bowl, sir.”
Mr. Downing walked moodily to his place.
* * * * *
In a neat wooden frame in the senior day-room at Outwood’s, just above the mantelpiece, there was on view, a week later, a slip of paper.; The writing on it was as follows:;
OUTWOOD’S v.; DOWNING’S
Outwood’s.; First innings.
| J. P. Barnes, c.; Hammond, b.; Hassall... | 33 |
| M. Jackson, not out........................ | 277 |
| W. J. Stone, not out....................... | 124 |
| Extras............................... | 37 |
| ; | ----- |
| Total (for one wicket)...... | 471 |
Downing’s did not bat.
CHAPTER XLI
THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF JELLICOE
Outwood’s rollicked considerably that night.; Mike, if he had cared to take the part, could have been the Petted Hero.; But a cordial invitation from the senior day-room to be the guest of the evening at about the biggest rag of the century had been refused on the plea of fatigue.; One does not make two hundred and seventy-seven runs on a hot day without feeling the effects, even if one has scored mainly by the medium of boundaries; and Mike, as he lay back in Psmith’s deck-chair, felt that all he wanted was to go to bed and stay there for a week.; His hands and arms burned as if they were red-hot, and his eyes were so tired that he could not keep them open.
Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, discoursed in a desultory way on the day’s happenings—the score off Mr. Downing, the undeniable annoyance of that battered bowler, and the probability of his venting his annoyance on Mike next day.
“In theory,” said he, “the manly what-d’you-call-it of cricket and all that sort of thing ought to make him fall on your neck to-morrow and weep over you as a foeman worthy of his steel.; But I am prepared to bet a reasonable sum that he will give no Jiu-jitsu exhibition of this kind.; In fact, from what I have seen of our bright little friend, I should say that, in a small way, he will do his best to make it distinctly hot for you, here and there.”
“I don’t care,” murmured Mike, shifting his aching limbs in the chair.
“In an ordinary way, I suppose, a man can put up with having his bowling hit a little.; But your performance was cruelty to animals.; Twenty-eight off one over, not to mention three wides, would have made Job foam at the mouth.; You will probably get sacked.; On the other hand, it’s worth it.; You have lit a candle this day which can never be blown out.; You have shown the lads of the village how Comrade Downing’s bowling ought to be treated.; I don’t suppose he’ll ever take another wicket.”
“He doesn’t deserve to.”
Psmith smoothed his hair at the glass and turned round again.
“The only blot on this day of mirth and good-will is,” he said, “the singular conduct of our friend Jellicoe.; When all the place was ringing with song and merriment, Comrade Jellicoe crept to my side, and, slipping his little hand in mine, touched me for three quid.”
This interested Mike, fagged as he was.
“What!; Three quid!”
“Three jingling, clinking sovereigns.; He wanted four.”
“But the man must be living at the rate of I don’t know what.; It was only yesterday that he borrowed a quid from me!”
“He must be saving money fast.; There appear to be the makings of a financier about Comrade Jellicoe.; Well, I hope, when he’s collected enough for his needs, he’ll pay me back a bit.; I’m pretty well cleaned out.”
“I got some from my brother at Oxford.”
“Perhaps he’s saving up to get married.; We may be helping towards furnishing the home.; There was a Siamese prince fellow at my dame’s at Eton who had four wives when he arrived, and gathered in a fifth