“No.”
“I say, what rot!”
“It is, rather. Still, nobody can say I didn’t ask for it. If one goes out of one’s way to beg and beseech the Old Man to put one in extra, it would be a little rough on him to curse him when he does it.”
“I should be awfully sick, if it were me.”
“Well, it isn’t you, so you’re all right. You’ll probably get my place in the team.”
Mike smiled dutifully at what he supposed to be a humorous sally.
“Or, rather, one of the places,” continued Wyatt, who seemed to be sufficiently in earnest. “They’ll put a bowler in instead of me. Probably Druce. But there’ll be several vacancies. Let’s see. Me. Adams. Ashe. Any more? No, that’s the lot. I should think they’d give you a chance.”
“You needn’t rot,” said Mike uncomfortably. He had his day-dreams, like everybody else, and they always took the form of playing for the first eleven (and, incidentally, making a century in record time). To have to listen while the subject was talked about lightly made him hot and prickly all over.
“I’m not rotting,” said Wyatt seriously, “I’ll suggest it to Burgess to-night.”
“You don’t think there’s any chance of it, really, do you?” said Mike awkwardly.
“I don’t see why not? Buck up in the scratch game this afternoon. Fielding especially. Burgess is simply mad on fielding. I don’t blame him either, especially as he’s a bowler himself. He’d shove a man into the team like a shot, whatever his batting was like, if his fielding was something extra special. So you field like a demon this afternoon, and I’ll carry on the good work in the evening.”
“I say,” said Mike, overcome, “it’s awfully decent of you, Wyatt.”
Billy Burgess, captain of Wrykyn cricket, was a genial giant, who seldom allowed himself to be ruffled. The present was one of the rare occasions on which he permitted himself that luxury. Wyatt found him in his study, shortly before lock-up, full of strange oaths, like the soldier in Shakespeare.
“You rotter! You rotter! You worm!” he observed crisply, as Wyatt appeared.
“Dear old Billy!” said Wyatt. “Come on, give me a kiss, and let’s be friends.”
“You–-!”
“William! William!”
“If it wasn’t illegal, I’d like to tie you and Ashe and that blackguard Adams up in a big sack, and drop you into the river. And I’d jump on the sack first. What do you mean by letting the team down like this? I know you were at the bottom of it all.”
He struggled into his shirt—he was changing after a bath—and his face popped wrathfully out at the other end.
“I’m awfully sorry, Bill,” said Wyatt. “The fact is, in the excitement of the moment the M.C.C. match went clean out of my mind.”
“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.
CHAPTER XIII
THE M.C.C. MATCH
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.