Pelham Wodehouse - Mike

“You haven’t got a mind,” grumbled Burgess. “You’ve got a cheap brown paper substitute. That’s your trouble.”

Wyatt turned the conversation tactfully.

“How many wickets did you get to-day?” he asked.

“Eight. For a hundred and three. I was on the spot. Young Jackson caught a hot one off me at third man. That kid’s good.”

“Why don’t you play him against the M.C.C. on Wednesday?” said Wyatt, jumping at his opportunity.

“What? Are you sitting on my left shoe?”

“No. There it is in the corner.”

“Right ho!... What were you saying?”

“Why not play young Jackson for the first?”

“Too small.”

“Rot. What does size matter? Cricket isn’t footer. Besides, he isn’t small. He’s as tall as I am.”

“I suppose he is. Dash, I’ve dropped my stud.”

Wyatt waited patiently till he had retrieved it. Then he returned to the attack.

“He’s as good a bat as his brother, and a better field.”

“Old Bob can’t field for toffee. I will say that for him. Dropped a sitter off me to-day. Why the deuce fellows can’t hold catches when they drop slowly into their mouths I’m hanged if I can see.”

“You play him,” said Wyatt. “Just give him a trial. That kid’s a genius at cricket. He’s going to be better than any of his brothers, even Joe. Give him a shot.”

Burgess hesitated.

“You know, it’s a bit risky,” he said. “With you three lunatics out of the team we can’t afford to try many experiments. Better stick to the men at the top of the second.”

Wyatt got up, and kicked the wall as a vent for his feelings.

“You rotter,” he said. “Can’t you see when you’ve got a good man? Here’s this kid waiting for you ready made with a style like Trumper’s, and you rave about top men in the second, chaps who play forward at everything, and pat half-volleys back to the bowler! Do you realise that your only chance of being known to Posterity is as the man who gave M. Jackson his colours at Wrykyn? In a few years he’ll be playing for England, and you’ll think it a favour if he nods to you in the pav. at Lord’s. When you’re a white-haired old man you’ll go doddering about, gassing to your grandchildren, poor kids, how you ‘discovered’ M. Jackson. It’ll be the only thing they’ll respect you for.”

Wyatt stopped for breath.

“All right,” said Burgess, “I’ll think it over. Frightful gift of the gab you’ve got, Wyatt.”

“Good,” said Wyatt. “Think it over. And don’t forget what I said about the grandchildren. You would like little Wyatt Burgess and the other little Burgesses to respect you in your old age, wouldn’t you? Very well, then. So long. The bell went ages ago. I shall be locked out.”

On the Monday morning Mike passed the notice-board just as Burgess turned away from pinning up the list of the team to play the M.C.C. He read it, and his heart missed a beat. For, bottom but one, just above the W. B. Burgess, was a name that leaped from the paper at him. His own name.

If the day happens to be fine, there is a curious, dream-like atmosphere about the opening stages of a first eleven match. Everything seems hushed and expectant. The rest of the school have gone in after the interval at eleven o’clock, and you are alone on the grounds with a cricket-bag. The only signs of life are a few pedestrians on the road beyond the railings and one or two blazer and flannel-clad forms in the pavilion. The sense of isolation is trying to the nerves, and a school team usually bats 25 per cent. better after lunch, when the strangeness has worn off.

Mike walked across from Wain’s, where he had changed, feeling quite hollow. He could almost have cried with pure fright. Bob had shouted after him from a window as he passed Donaldson’s, to wait, so that they could walk over together; but conversation was the last thing Mike desired at that moment.

He had almost reached the pavilion when one of the M.C.C. team came down the steps, saw him, and stopped dead.

“By Jove, Saunders!” cried Mike.

“Why, Master Mike!”

The professional beamed, and quite suddenly, the lost, hopeless feeling left Mike. He felt as cheerful as if he and Saunders had met in the meadow at home, and were just going to begin a little quiet net-practice.

“Why, Master Mike, you don’t mean to say you’re playing for the school already?”

Mike nodded happily.

“Isn’t it ripping,” he said.

Saunders slapped his leg in a sort of ecstasy.

“Didn’t I always say it, sir,” he chuckled. “Wasn’t I right? I used to say to myself it ’ud be a pretty good school team that ’ud leave you out.”

“Of course, I’m only playing as a sub., you know. Three chaps are in extra, and I got one of the places.”

“Well, you’ll make a hundred to-day, Master Mike, and then they’ll have to put you in.”

“Wish I could!”

“Master Joe’s come down with the Club,” said Saunders.

“Joe! Has he really? How ripping! Hullo, here he is. Hullo, Joe?”

The greatest of all the Jacksons was descending the pavilion steps with the gravity befitting an All England batsman. He stopped short, as Saunders had done.

“Mike! You aren’t playing!”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m hanged! Young marvel, isn’t he, Saunders?”

“He is, sir,” said Saunders. “Got all the strokes. I always said it, Master Joe. Only wants the strength.”

Joe took Mike by the shoulder, and walked him off in the direction of a man in a Zingari blazer who was bowling slows to another of the M.C.C. team. Mike recognised him with awe as one of the three best amateur wicket-keepers in the country.

“What do you think of this?” said Joe, exhibiting Mike, who grinned bashfully. “Aged ten last birthday, and playing for the school. You are only ten, aren’t you, Mike?”

“Brother of yours?” asked the wicket-keeper.

“Probably too proud to own the relationship, but he is.”

“Isn’t there any end to you Jacksons?” demanded the wicket-keeper in an aggrieved tone. “I never saw such a family.”

“This is our star. You wait till he gets at us to-day. Saunders is our only bowler, and Mike’s been brought up on Saunders. You’d better win the toss if you want a chance of getting a knock and lifting your average out of the minuses.”

“I have won the toss,” said the other with dignity. “Do you think I don’t know the elementary duties of a captain?”

The school went out to field with mixed feelings. The wicket was hard and true, which would have made it pleasant to be going in first. On the other hand, they would feel decidedly better and fitter for centuries after the game had been in progress an hour or so. Burgess was glad as a private individual, sorry as a captain. For himself, the sooner he got hold of the ball and began to bowl the better he liked it. As a captain, he realised that a side with Joe Jackson on it, not to mention the other first-class men, was not a side to which he would have preferred to give away an advantage. Mike was feeling that by no possibility could he hold the simplest catch, and hoping that nothing would come his way. Bob, conscious of being an uncertain field, was feeling just the same.

The M.C.C. opened with Joe and a man in an Oxford Authentic cap. The beginning of the game was quiet. Burgess’s yorker was nearly too much for the latter in the first over, but he contrived to chop it away, and the pair gradually settled down. At twenty, Joe began to open his shoulders. Twenty became forty with disturbing swiftness, and Burgess tried a change of bowling.