Psmith Series. P. G. Wodehouse

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was so with the great picnic at Wrykyn.

      The bare outlines of the beginning of this affair are included in a letter which Mike wrote to his father on the Sunday following the Old Wrykynian matches.

      This was the letter:;

      “DEAR FATHER,—­Thanks awfully for your letter.; I hope you are quite well.; I have been getting on all right at cricket lately.; My scores since I wrote last have been 0 in a scratch game (the sun got in my eyes just as I played, and I got bowled); 15 for the third against an eleven of masters (without G. B. Jones, the Surrey man, and Spence); 28 not out in the Under Sixteen game; and 30 in a form match.; Rather decent.; Yesterday one of the men put down for the second against the O.W.’s second couldn’t play because his father was very ill, so I played.; Wasn’t it luck?; It’s the first time I’ve played for the second.; I didn’t do much, because I didn’t get an innings.; They stop the cricket on O.W. matches day because they have a lot of rotten Greek plays and things which take up a frightful time, and half the chaps are acting, so we stop from lunch to four.; Rot I call it.; So I didn’t go in, because they won the toss and made 215, and by the time we’d made 140 for 6 it was close of play.; They’d stuck me in eighth wicket.; Rather rot.; Still, I may get another shot.; And I made rather a decent catch at mid-on.; Low down.; I had to dive for it.; Bob played for the first, but didn’t do much.; He was run out after he’d got ten.; I believe he’s rather sick about it.

      “Rather a rummy thing happened after lock-up.; I wasn’t in it, but a fellow called Wyatt (awfully decent chap.; He’s Wain’s step-son, only they bar one another) told me about it.; He was in it all right.; There’s a dinner after the matches on O.W. day, and some of the chaps were going back to their houses after it when they got into a row with a lot of brickies from the town, and there was rather a row.; There was a policeman mixed up in it somehow, only I don’t quite know where he comes in.; I’ll find out and tell you next time I write.; Love to everybody.; Tell Marjory I’ll write to her in a day or two.

      “Your loving son,

      “MIKE.

      “P.S.—­I say, I suppose you couldn’t send me five bob, could you?; I’m rather broke.

      “P.P.S.—­Half-a-crown would do, only I’d rather it was five bob.”

      And, on the back of the envelope, these words:; “Or a bob would be better than nothing.”

      * * * * *

      The outline of the case was as Mike had stated.; But there were certain details of some importance which had not come to his notice when he sent the letter.; On the Monday they were public property.

      The thing had happened after this fashion.; At the conclusion of the day’s cricket, all those who had been playing in the four elevens which the school put into the field against the old boys, together with the school choir, were entertained by the headmaster to supper in the Great Hall.; The banquet, lengthened by speeches, songs, and recitations which the reciters imagined to be songs, lasted, as a rule, till about ten o’clock, when the revellers were supposed to go back to their houses by the nearest route, and turn in.; This was the official programme.; The school usually performed it with certain modifications and improvements.

      About midway between Wrykyn, the school, and Wrykyn, the town, there stands on an island in the centre of the road a solitary lamp-post.; It was the custom, and had been the custom for generations back, for the diners to trudge off to this lamp-post, dance round it for some minutes singing the school song or whatever happened to be the popular song of the moment, and then race back to their houses.; Antiquity had given the custom a sort of sanctity, and the authorities, if they knew—­which they must have done—­never interfered.

      But there were others.

      Wrykyn, the town, was peculiarly rich in “gangs of youths.”; Like the vast majority of the inhabitants of the place, they seemed to have no work of any kind whatsoever to occupy their time, which they used, accordingly, to spend prowling about and indulging in a mild, brainless, rural type of hooliganism.; They seldom proceeded to practical rowdyism and never except with the school.; As a rule, they amused themselves by shouting rude chaff.; The school regarded them with a lofty contempt, much as an Oxford man regards the townee.; The school was always anxious for a row, but it was the unwritten law that only in special circumstances should they proceed to active measures.; A curious dislike for school-and-town rows and most misplaced severity in dealing with the offenders when they took place, were among the few flaws in the otherwise admirable character of the headmaster of Wrykyn.; It was understood that one scragged bargees at one’s own risk, and, as a rule, it was not considered worth it.

      But after an excellent supper and much singing and joviality, one’s views are apt to alter.; Risks which before supper seemed great, show a tendency to dwindle.

      When, therefore, the twenty or so Wrykynians who were dancing round the lamp-post were aware, in the midst of their festivities, that they were being observed and criticised by an equal number of townees, and that the criticisms were, as usual, essentially candid and personal, they found themselves forgetting the headmaster’s prejudices and feeling only that these outsiders must be put to the sword as speedily as possible, for the honour of the school.

      Possibly, if the town brigade had stuck to a purely verbal form of attack, all might yet have been peace.; Words can be overlooked.

      But tomatoes cannot.

      No man of spirit can bear to be pelted with over-ripe tomatoes for any length of time without feeling that if the thing goes on much longer he will be reluctantly compelled to take steps.

      In the present crisis, the first tomato was enough to set matters moving.

      As the two armies stood facing each other in silence under the dim and mysterious rays of the lamp, it suddenly whizzed out from the enemy’s ranks, and hit Wyatt on the right ear.

      There was a moment of suspense.; Wyatt took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, over which the succulent vegetable had spread itself.

      “I don’t know how you fellows are going to pass the evening,” he said quietly.; “My idea of a good after-dinner game is to try and find the chap who threw that.; Anybody coming?”

      For the first five minutes it was as even a fight as one could have wished to see.; It raged up and down the road without a pause, now in a solid mass, now splitting up into little groups.; The science was on the side of the school.; Most Wrykynians knew how to box to a certain extent.; But, at any rate at first, it was no time for science.; To be scientific one must have an opponent who observes at least the more important rules of the ring.; It is impossible to do the latest ducks and hooks taught you by the instructor if your antagonist butts you in the chest, and then kicks your shins, while some dear friend of his, of whose presence you had no idea, hits you at the same time on the back of the head.; The greatest expert would lose his science in such circumstances.

      Probably what gave the school the victory in the end was the righteousness of their cause.; They were smarting under a sense of injury, and there is nothing that adds a force to one’s blows and a recklessness to one’s style of delivering them more than a sense of injury.

      Wyatt, one side of his face still showing traces of the tomato, led the school with a vigour that could not be resisted.; He very seldom lost his temper, but he did draw the line at bad tomatoes.

      Presently the school noticed that the enemy were vanishing little by little into the darkness which concealed the town.; Barely a dozen remained.; And their lonely condition seemed to be borne in upon these СКАЧАТЬ