27
IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED
"Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"
"During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your elbowinstead of your expressive countenance, and whether it was that yourelbow was particularly tough or his wrist particularly fragile, I don'tknow. Anyhow, it went. It's nothing bad, but it'll keep him out of thegame tomorrow."
"I say, what beastly rough luck! I'd no idea. I'll go around."
"Not a bad scheme. Close the door gently after you, and if you seeanybody downstairs who looks as if he were likely to be going over tothe shop, ask him to get me a small pot of some rare old jam and tellthe man to chalk it up to me. The jam Comrade Outwood supplies to us attea is all right as a practical joke or as a food for those anxious tocommit suicide, but useless to anybody who values life."
On arriving at Mr. Downing's and going to Adair's study, Mike found thathis late antagonist was out. He left a note informing him of hiswillingness to play in the morrow's match. The lock-up bell rang as hewent out of the house.
A spot of rain fell on his hand. A moment later there was a continuouspatter, as the storm, which had been gathering all day, broke inearnest. Mike turned up his coat collar, and ran back to Outwood's. "Atthis rate," he said to himself, "there won't be a match at alltomorrow."
* * * * *
When the weather decides, after behaving well for some weeks, to showwhat it can do in another direction, it does the thing thoroughly. WhenMike woke the next morning the world was gray and dripping.Leaden-colored clouds drifted over the sky, till there was not a traceof blue to be seen, and then the rain began again, in the gentle,determined way rain has when it means to make a day of it.
It was one of those bad days when one sits in the pavilion, damp anddepressed, while figures in mackintoshes, with discolored buckskinboots, crawl miserably about the field in couples.
Mike, shuffling across to school in a Burberry, met Adair at Downing'sgate.
These moments are always difficult. Mike stopped--he could hardly walkon as if nothing had happened--and looked down at his feet.
"Coming across?" he said awkwardly.
"Right ho!" said Adair.
They walked on in silence.
"It's only about ten to, isn't it?" said Mike.
Adair fished out his watch, and examined it with an elaborate care bornof nervousness.
"About nine to."
"Good. We've got plenty of time."
"Yes."
"I hate having to hurry over to school."
"So do I."
"I often do cut it rather fine, though."
"Yes. So do I."
"Beastly nuisance when one does."
"Beastly."
"It's only about a couple of minutes from the houses to the school, Ishould think, shouldn't you?"
"Not much more. Might be three."
"Yes. Three if one didn't hurry."
Another silence.
"Beastly day," said Adair.
"Rotten."
Silence again.
"I say," said Mike, scowling at his toes, "awfully sorry about yourwrist."
"Oh, that's all right. It was my fault."
"Does it hurt?"
"Oh, no, rather not, thanks."
"I'd no idea you'd crocked yourself."
"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only right at the end. You'd havesmashed me anyhow."
"Oh, rot."
"I bet you anything you like you would."
"I bet you I shouldn't.... Jolly hard luck, just before the match."
"Oh, no.... I say, thanks awfully for saying you'd play."
"Oh, rot.... Do you think we shall get a game?"
Adair inspected the sky carefully.
"I don't know. It looks pretty bad, doesn't it?"
"Rotten. I say, how long will your wrist keep you out of cricket?"
"Be all right in a week. Less, probably."
"Good."
"Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly goodseason."
"Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer."
"Yes. I should think he'd be a hot bowler, with his height."
"He must be jolly good if he was only just out of the Eton team lastyear."
"Yes."
"What's the time?" asked Mike.
Adair produced his watch once more.
"Five to."
"We've heaps of time."
"Yes, heaps."
"Let's stroll on a bit down the road, shall we?"
"Right ho!"
Mike cleared his throat.
"I say."
"Hello?"
"I've been talking to Smith. He was telling me that you thought I'dpromised to give Stone and Robinson places in the--"
"Oh, no, that's all right. It was only for a bit. Smith told me youcouldn't have done, and I saw that I was an ass to think you could have.It was Stone seeming so dead certain that he could play for LowerBorlock if I chucked him from the school team that gave me the idea."
"He never even asked me to get him a place."
"No, I know."
"Of course, I wouldn't have done it, even if he had."
"Of course not."
"I didn't want to play myself, but I wasn't going to do a rotten tricklike getting other fellows away from the team."
"No, I know."
"It was rotten enough, really, not playing myself."
"Oh, no. Beastly rough luck having to leave Wrykyn just when you weregoing to be captain, and come to a small school like this."
The excitement of the past few days must have had a stimulating effecton Mike's mind--shaken it up, as it were, for now, for the second timein two days, he displayed quite a creditable amount of intuition. Hemight have been misled by Adair's apparently deprecatory attitude towardSedleigh, and blundered into a denunciation of the place. Adair hadsaid, "a small school like this" in the sort of voice which might haveled his hearer to think that he was expected to say, "Yes, rotten littlehole, isn't it?" or words to that effect. Mike, fortunately, perceivedthat the words were used purely from politeness, on the Chineseprinciple. When a Chinese man wishes to pay a compliment, he does so bybelittling himself and his belongings.
He eluded the pitfall.
"What rot!" he said. "Sedleigh's one of the most sporting schools I'veever come across. Everybody's as keen as blazes. So they ought to be,after the way you've sweated."
Adair shuffled awkwardly.
"I've always been fairly keen on the place," he said. "But I don'tsuppose I've done anything much."
"You've loosened one of my front teeth," said Mike, with a grin, "ifthat's any comfort to you."
"I couldn't eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw stillaches."
For the first time during the conversation their eyes met, and thehumorous side of the thing struck them simultaneously. They beganto laugh.
"What fools we must have looked," said Adair.
"_You_ were all right. I must have looked rotten. I've never had thegloves on in my life. I'm jolly glad no one saw us except Smith, whodoesn't count. Hello, there's the bell. We'd better be moving on. Whatabout this match? Not much chance of it from the look of the skyat present."
"It might clear before eleven. You'd better get changed, anyhow, at theinterval, and hang about in case."
"All right. It's better than doing Thucydides with Downing. We've gotmath till the interval, so I don't see anything of him all day; whichwon't hurt me."
"He isn't a bad sort of chap, when you get to know him," said Adair.
"I can't have done, then. I don't know which I'd least soon be, Downingor a black beetle, except that if one was Downing one could tread on theblack beetle. Dash this rain. I got about half a pint down my neck justthen. We shan't get a game today, or anything like it. As you'recrocked, I'm not sure that I care much. You've been sweating for yearsto get the match on, and it would be rather rot playi
ng it without you."
"I don't know that so much. I wish we could play because I'm certain,with you and Smith, we'd walk into them. They probably aren't sendingdown much of a team, and really, now that you and Smith are turning out,we've got a jolly hot lot. There's quite decent batting all the waythrough, and the bowling isn't so bad. If only we could have given thisM.C.C. lot a really good hammering, it might have been easier to getsome good fixtures for next season. You see, it's all right for a schoollike Wrykyn, but with a small place like this you simply can't get thebest teams to give you a match till you've done something to show thatyou aren't absolute rotters at the game. As for the schools, they'reworse. They'd simply laugh at you. You were cricket secretary at Wrykynlast year. What would you have done if you'd had a challenge fromSedleigh? You'd either have laughed till you were sick, or else had afit at the mere idea of the thing."
Mike stopped.
"By Jove, you've struck about the brightest scheme on record. I neverthought of it before. Let's get a match on with Wrykyn."
"What! They wouldn't play us."
"Yes, they would. At least, I'm pretty sure they would. I had a letterfrom Strachan, the captain, yesterday, saying that the Ripton match hadhad to be scratched owing to illness. So they've got a vacant date.Shall I try them? I'll write to Strachan tonight, if you like. And theyaren't strong this year. We'll smash them. What do you say?"
Adair was as one who has seen a vision.
"By Jove," he said at last, "if we only could!"