P. G. Wodehouse

“ Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much as to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still understand sound reasoning."
"Well, what am I to do? Where is the other shoe?"
"Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
"Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off in the gym shoes he stood in.
It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize how strong public-school prejudices really are. ”

“ In the excitement of a fight—which is, after all, about the most exciting thing that ever happens to one in the course of one's life—it is difficult for the fighters to see what the spectators see. Where the spectators see an assault on an already beaten man, the fighter himself only sees a legitimate piece of self-defense against an opponent whose chances are equal to his own. Psmith saw, as anybody looking on would have seen, that Adair was done. Mike's blow had taken him within a fraction of an inch of the point of the jaw, and he was all but knocked out. Mike could not see this. ”

“ A cricket captain may seem to be an autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the team or not, then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless he is a man of action, practically helpless.
Stone and Robinson felt secure. ”

“ Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying experience, especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential. Mike was tired after his journey, and he had begun to doze when he was jerked back to wakefulness by the stealthy turning of the door handle; the faintest rustle from Psmith's direction followed, and a slight giggle, succeeded by a series of deep breaths, showed that Jellicoe, too, had heard the noise. ”

“ A boy of Adair's type is always a force in a school. In a big public school or six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him. There were two hundred boys at Sedleigh, and there was not one of them in all probability who had not, directly or indirectly, been influenced by Adair. As a small boy his sphere was not large, but the effects of his work began to be apparent even then. It is human nature to want to get something which somebody else obviously values very much ”

“ Downing's methods of retaliation would have to be, of necessity, more elusive; but Mike did not doubt that in some way or other his form master would endeavor to get a bit of his own back.
As events turned out, he was perfectly right. When a master has got his knife into a boy, especially a master who allows himself to be influenced by his likes and dislikes, he is inclined to single him out in times of stress, and savage him as if he were the official representative of the evildoers. Just as, at sea, the skipper when he has trouble with the crew, works it off on the boy. ”

“ Adair turned, and walked on.
Scarcely had he gone, when another voice hailed them with precisely the same question.
"Both you fellows are going to play cricket, eh?"
It was a master. A short, wiry little man with a sharp nose and a general resemblance, both in manner and appearance, to an excitable bullfinch.
"I saw Adair speaking to you. I suppose you will both play. I like every new boy to begin at once. The more new blood we have, the better. We want keenness here. We are, above all, a keen school. I want every boy to be keen."
"We are, sir," said Psmith, with fervor. ”

“ The whole strength of the company: "Please, sir, may we have helmets?"
"Those in favor ..." began Stone.
Mr. Downing banged on his desk. "Silence! Silence!! Silence!!! Helmets are, of course, perfectly preposterous."
"Oo-oo-oo-oo, sir-r-r!"
"But, sir, the danger!"
"Please, sir, the falling timbers!"
The Fire Brigade had been in action once and once only in the memory of man, and that time it was a haystack which had burned itself out just as the rescuers had succeeded in fastening the hose to the hydrant. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I say, you know, we can't give you a Wrykyn wicket. The Lower Borlock pitch isn't a shirt front."
"I'll play on a rockery, if you want me to," said Mike.
"You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and told the news.
"I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell a soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in to play for the school."
"My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I dislike, but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly sports. ”

“ Do you know a man called Barley?"
"Barley? Rather—he runs the White Boar."
"He's the chap I owe the money to."
"Old Barley!"
Mike knew the landlord of the White Boar well; he was the wag of the village team. Every village team, for some mysterious reason, has its comic man. In the Lower Borlock eleven Mr. Barley filled the post. He was a large, stout man, with a red and cheerful face, who looked exactly like the jovial innkeeper of melodrama. He was the last man Mike would have expected to do the "money by Monday-week or I write to the headmaster" business. ”

“ Robinson had been a petrified spectator of the Captain-Kettle-like maneuvers of the cricket captain, and it did not take him long to make up his mind. He was not altogether a coward. In different circumstances he might have put up a respectable show. But it takes a more than ordinarily courageous person to embark on a fight which he knows must end in his destruction. Robinson knew that he was nothing like a match even for Stone, and Adair had disposed of Stone in a little over one minute. It seemed to Robinson that neither pleasure nor profit was likely to come from an encounter with Adair. ”

“ Henfrey, the Wrykyn cricket captain of the previous season, was not returning next term, and Mike was to reign in his stead. He liked the prospect, but it certainly carried with it a rather awe-inspiring responsibility. At night sometimes he would lie awake, appalled by the fear of losing his form, or making a hash of things by choosing the wrong men to play for the school and leaving the right men out. It is no light thing to captain a public school at cricket. ”

“ Mike stared.
"What the dickens are you talking about?"
"Go on. Get it over. Be a man, and reach up the chimney."
"I don't know what the game is," said Mike, kneeling beside the fender and groping, "but—Hello!"
"Ah ha!" said Psmith moodily.
Mike dropped the soot-covered object in the fender, and glared at it.
"It's my shoe!" he said at last.
"It is," said Psmith, "your shoe. And what is that red stain across the toe? Is it blood? No, 'tis not blood. It is red paint."
Mike seemed unable to remove his eyes from the shoe. ”

“ Really you present a most curious appearance, most. Let me show you the way to my room."
In all times of storm and tribulation there comes a breaking point, a point where the spirit definitely refuses to battle any longer against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mr. Downing could not bear up against this crowning blow. He went down beneath it. In the language of the ring, he took the count. It was the knockout.
"Soot!" he murmured weakly. "Soot!"
"Your face is covered, my dear fellow, quite covered."
"It certainly has a faintly sooty aspect, sir," said Psmith. ”

“ What of the time when we retire to our dormitory?"
"Or dormitories. I say, if we're in separate rooms we shall be in the cart."
Psmith eyed Mike with approval. "He thinks of everything! You're the man, Comrade Jackson, to conduct an affair of this kind—such foresight! such resource! We must see to this at once; if they put us in different rooms we're done—we shall be destroyed singly in the watches of the night."
"We'd better nip down to the matron right off."
"Not the matron—Comrade Outwood is the man. We are as sons to him; there is nothing he can deny us. ”

“ There is nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as the type of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag and what is merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn. Masters, as a rule, do not realize this, but boys nearly always do. Mike could not imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering a housemaster's dog with red paint, any more than he could imagine doing it himself. They had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after the operation, but anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, would have thought it funny at first. ”

“ Scared by this escape, Outwood's captain shrank back into his shell, sat on the splice like a limpet, and, offering no more chances, was not out at lunchtime with a score of eleven. Mike had then made a hundred and three.
As Mike was taking off his pads in the pavilion, Adair came up.
"Why did you say you didn't play cricket?" he asked abruptly.
When one has been bowling the whole morning, and bowling well, without the slightest success, one is inclined to be abrupt. ”

“ A sharp walk took him to the cottages Adair had mentioned. He rapped at the door of the first, and the groundsman came out in his shirt sleeves, blinking as if he had just waked up, as was indeed the case.
"Oh, Markby!"
"Sir?"
"You remember that you were painting the scoring box in the pavilion last night after the match?"
"Yes, sir. It wanted a lick of paint bad. The young gentlemen will scramble about and get through the window. Makes it look shabby, sir. So I thought I'd better give it a coating so as to look shipshape when the Marylebone come down." ”

“ There is nothing in this world quite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mind to be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat and looked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, felt awkward. ”

“ Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form, since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to undergo at Wrykyn in similar circumstance. It was only Mr. Downing who gave trouble.
There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a boy in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind, just as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them. ”

“ Come in and join us. We keep open house, we Psmiths. Let me introduce you to Comrade Jackson. A stout fellow. Homely in appearance, perhaps, but one of us. I am Psmith. Your own name will doubtless come up in the course of general chitchat over the teacups."
"My name's Spiller, and this is my study."
Psmith leaned against the mantelpiece, put up his eyeglass, and harangued Spiller in a philosophical vein. ”

“ A struggling mass bumped against Mike's shins as he rose from his chair; he emptied his jug onto this mass, and a yell of anguish showed that the contents had got to the right address.
Then a hand grabbed his ankle and he went down, a million sparks dancing before his eyes as a fist, flying out at a venture, caught him on the nose. ”

“ They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.
When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as something of a blow. ”

“ One feels as if one were entering a new and very delightful world. There is also a touch of the Rip van Winkle feeling. Everything seems to have gone on and left one behind. Mike, as he walked to the cricket field, felt very much behind the times.
Arriving on the field he found the Old Boys batting. He stopped and watched an over of Adair's. The fifth ball bowled a man. Mike made his way toward the pavilion.
Before he got there he heard his name called, and turning, found Psmith seated under a tree with the bright-blazered Dunster. ”

“ Altogether, Wrykyn had struck a bad patch.
Mike mourned over his suffering school. If only he could have been there to help. It might have made all the difference. In school cricket one good batsman, to go in first and knock the bowlers off their length, may take a weak team triumphantly through a season. In school cricket the importance of a good start for the first wicket is incalculable.
As he put Strachan's letter away in his pocket, all his old bitterness against Sedleigh, which had been ebbing during the past few days, returned with a rush. ”

“ Outwood received them with the motherly warmth which was evidently the leading characteristic of his normal manner.
"Ah, Spiller," he said. "And Smith, and Jackson. I am glad to see you have already made friends."
"Spiller's, sir," said Psmith, laying a hand patronizingly on the study-claimer's shoulder—a proceeding violently resented by Spiller—"is a character one cannot help but respect. His nature expands before one like some beautiful flower." ”

“ In a boxing competition, however much one may want to win, one does not dislike one's opponent. Up to the moment when "time" was called, one was probably warmly attached to him, and at the end of the last round one expects to resume that attitude of mind. In a fight each party, as a rule, hates the other.
So it happened that there was nothing formal or cautious about the present battle. All Adair wanted was to get at Mike, and all Mike wanted was to get at Adair. Directly Psmith called "time," they rushed together as if they meant to end the thing in half a minute. ”