Pelham Wodehouse - The Politeness of Princes and Other School Stories

Then Clephane walked across to the School shop for a vanilla ice. He said he could get more devil, as it were, into his bowling after a vanilla ice. He had a couple.

When he bowled his first ball it was easy to see that there was truth in the report of the causes of his inclusion in the second eleven and exclusion from the first. The batsman observed somewhat weakly, "Here, I say! " and backed towards square leg. The ball soared over the wicket-keep's head and went to the boundary. The bowler grinned pleasantly, and said he was just getting his arm in.

The second ball landed full-pitch on the batsman's right thigh. The third was another full pitch, this time on the top of the middle stump, which it smashed. With profound satisfaction the batsman hobbled to the trees, and sat down. "Let somebody else have a shot," he said kindly.

Appleby's made twenty-eight that innings.

Their defeat by an innings and fifty-three runs they attributed subsequently to the fact that only seven of the team could be induced to go to the wickets in the second venture.

"So you've managed to win a match," grunted Henfrey, "I should like to have been there."

"You might just as well have been," said Clephane, "from what they tell me."

At which Henfrey became abusive, for he had achieved an "egg" that afternoon, and missed a catch; which things soured him, though Day's had polished off Dexter's handsomely.

"Well," he said at length, "you're in the semi-final now, of all weird places. You'd better play Spence's next. When can you play?"

"Henfrey," said Clephane, "I have a bright, open, boyish countenance, but I was not born yesterday. You want to get a dangerous rival out of the way without trouble, so you set Shields' to smash up Spence's. No, Henfrey. I do not intend to be your catspaw. We will draw lots who is to play which. Here comes Jackson. We'll toss odd man out."

And when the coins fell there were two tails and one head; and the head belonged to the coin of Clephane.

"So, you see," he said to Henfrey, "Shields' is in the final. No wonder you wanted us to scratch."

I should like this story to end with a vivid description of a tight finish. Considering that Day's beat Spence's, and consequently met Shields' in the final, that would certainly be the most artistic ending. Henfrey batting—Clephane bowling—one to tie, two to win, one wicket to fall. Up goes the ball! Will the lad catch it!! He fumbles it. It falls. All is over. But look! With a supreme effort—and so on.

The real conclusion was a little sensational in its way, but not nearly so exciting as that.

The match between Day's and Shields' opened in a conventional enough manner. Day's batted first, and made two hundred and fifty. Henfrey carried his bat for seventy-six, and there were some thirties. For Shields' Clephane and Mansfield made their usual first-wicket stand, and the rest brought the total up to ninety-eight. At this point Henfrey introduced a variation on custom. The match was a three days' match. In fact, owing to the speed with which the other games had been played, it could, if necessary, last four days. The follow-on was, therefore, a matter for the discretion of the side which led. Henfrey and his team saw no reason why they should not have another pleasant spell of batting before dismissing their opponents for the second time and acquiring the cup. So in they went again, and made another two hundred and fifty odd, Shields' being left with four hundred and twelve to make to win.

On the morning after Day's second innings, a fag from Day's brought Clephane a message from Henfrey. Henfrey was apparently in bed. He would be glad if Clephane would go and see him in the dinner-hour. The interview lasted fifteen minutes. Then Clephane burst out of the house, and dashed across to Shields' in search of Mansfield.

"I say, have you heard?" he shouted.

"What's up?"

"Why, every man in Day's team, bar two kids, is in bed. Ill. Do you mean to say you haven't heard? They thought they'd got that house cup safe, so all the team except the two kids, fags, you know, had a feed in honour of it in Henfrey's study. Some ass went and bought a bad rabbit pie, and now they're laid up. Not badly, but they won't be out for a day or two."

"But what about the match?"

"Oh, that'll go on. I made a point of that. They can play subs."

Mansfield looked thoughtful.

"But I say," he said, "it isn't very sporting, is it? Oughtn't we to wait or something?"

"Sporting! My dear chap, a case like this mustn't be judged by ordinary standards. We can't spoil the giant rag of the century because it isn't quite sporting. Think what it means—Shields' getting the cup! It'll keep the school laughing for terms. What do you want to spoil people's pleasure for?"

"Oh, all right," said Mansfield.

"Besides, think of the moral effect it'll have on the house. It may turn it into the blood house of Wrykyn. Shields himself may get quite sportive. We mustn't miss the chance."

The news having got about the school, Clephane and Mansfield opened their second innings to the somewhat embarrassed trundling of Masters Royce and Tibbit, of the Junior School, before a substantial and appreciative audience.

Both played carefully at first, but soon getting the measure of the bowling (which was not deep) began to hit out, and runs came quickly. At fifty, Tibbit, understudying Henfrey as captain of the side, summoned to his young friend Todby from short leg, and instructed him to "have a go" at the top end.

It was here that Clephane courteously interfered. Substitutes, he pointed out, were allowed, by the laws of cricket, only to field, not to bowl. He must, therefore, request friend Todby to return to his former sphere of utility, where, he added politely, he was a perfect demon.

"But, blow it," said Master Tibbit, who (alas!) was addicted to the use of strong language, "Royce and I can't bowl the whole blessed time."

"You'll have to, I'm afraid," said Clephane with the kindly air of a doctor soothing a refractory patient. "Of course, you can take a spell at grubs whenever you like."

"Oh, darn!" said Master Tibbit.

Shortly afterwards Clephane made his century.

The match ended late on the following afternoon in a victory for Shields' by nine wickets, and the scene at the School Shop when Royce and Tibbit arrived to drown their sorrows and moisten their dry throats with ginger beer is said by eyewitnesses to have been something quite out of the common run.

The score sheet of the match is also a little unusual. Clephane's three hundred and one (not out) is described in the Wrykinian as a "masterly exhibition of sound yet aggressive batting." How Henfrey described it we have never heard.

The whole thing may be said to have begun when Mr.

Oliver Ring of New York, changing cars, as he called it, at Wrykyn on his way to London, had to wait an hour for his train. He put in that hour by strolling about the town and seeing the sights, which were not numerous. Wrykyn, except on Market Day, was wont to be wrapped in a primaeval calm which very nearly brought tears to the strenuous eyes of the man from Manhattan. He had always been told that England was a slow country, and his visit, now in its third week, had confirmed this opinion: but even in England he had not looked to find such a lotus-eating place as Wrykyn. He looked at the shop windows. They resembled the shop windows of every other country town in England. There was no dash, no initiative about them. They did not leap to the eye and arrest the pedestrian's progress. They ordered these things, thought Mr. Ring, better in the States. And then something seemed to whisper to him that here was the place to set up a branch of Ring's Come-One Come-All Up-to-date Stores. During his stroll he had gathered certain pieces of information. To wit, that Wrykyn was where the county families for ten miles round did their shopping, that the population of the town was larger than would appear at first sight to a casual observer, and, finally, that there was a school of six hundred boys only a mile away. Nothing could be better. Within a month he would take to himself the entire trade of the neighbourhood.