Mike at Wrykyn (2 page)

The
train gathered speed. The air was full of last messages. Gladys Maud cried,
because she had taken a sudden dislike to the village idiot; and Mike settled
himself in his corner and opened a magazine.

He was
alone in the carriage. Bob, who had been spending the last week of the holidays
with an aunt further down the line, was to board the train at East Wobsley, and
the brothers were to make a state entry into Wrykyn together. Meanwhile, Mike
was left to his milk chocolate, his magazines, and his reflections.

The
latter were not numerous, nor profound. He was excited. He had been petitioning
the home authorities for the past year to be allowed to leave his prep. school
and go to Wrykyn, and now the thing had come about. He wondered what sort of a
house Wain’s was, and whether they had any chance of the cricket cup. According
to Bob they had no earthly; but then Bob only recognized one house,
Donaldson’s. He wondered if Bob would get his first eleven cap this year, and
if he himself were likely to do anything at cricket. Marjory had faithfully
reported every word Saunders had said on the subject, but Bob had been so
careful to point out his insignificance when compared with the humblest
Wrykynian that the professional’s glowing prophecies had not had much effect.
It might be true that some day he would play for England, but just at present
he felt he would exchange his place in the team for one in the Wrykyn third
eleven. A sort of mist enveloped everything Wrykynian. It seemed almost
hopeless to try and compete with these unknown experts. On the other hand,
there was Bob. Bob, by all accounts, was on the verge of the first eleven, and
he was nothing special.

While
he was engaged on these reflections, the train drew up at a small station.
Opposite the door of Mike’s compartment was standing a boy of about Mike’s
size, though evidently some years older. He had a sharp face, with rather a
prominent nose; and a pair of pince-nez gave him a supercilious look. He wore a
bowler hat, and carried a small portmanteau.

He
opened the door, and took the seat opposite to Mike, whom he scrutinized for a
moment rather after the fashion of a naturalist examining some new and
unpleasant variety of beetle. He seemed about to make some remark, but, instead,
got up and looked through the open window.

“Where’s
that porter?” Mike heard him say.

The
porter came skimming down the platform at that moment.

“Porter.”

“Sir?”

“Are
those trunks of mine in all right?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Because,
you know, there’ll be a frightful row if any of them get lost.”

“No
chance of that, sir.”

“Here
you are, then.”

“Thank
you, sir.”

The
youth drew his head and shoulders in, stared at Mike again, and finally sat
down. Mike noticed that he had nothing to read, and wondered if he wanted
anything; but he did not feel equal to offering him one of his magazines. He
did not like the looks of him particularly. Judging by appearances, he seemed
to have side enough for three. If he wanted a magazine, thought Mike, let him
ask for it.

The
other made no overtures, and at the next stop got out. That explained his
magazineless condition. He was only travelling a short way.

“Good
business,” said Mike to himself. He had all the Englishman’s love of a carriage
to himself.

The
train was just moving out of the station when his eye was suddenly caught by
the stranger’s bag, lying snugly in the rack.

And
here, I regret to say, Mike acted from the best motives, which is always fatal.

He
realized in an instant what had happened. The fellow had forgotten his bag.

Mike
had not been greatly fascinated by the stranger’s looks; but, after all, the
most supercilious person on earth has a right to his own property. Besides, he
might have been quite a nice fellow when you got to know him. Anyhow, the bag
had better be returned at once. The train was already moving quite fast, and
Mike’s compartment was nearing the end of the platform.

He
snatched the bag from the rack and hurled it out of the window. (Porter
Robinson, who happened to be in the line of fire, escaped with a flesh wound.)
Then he sat down again with the inward glow of satisfaction which comes to one
when one has risen successfully to a sudden emergency.

The glow lasted till the
next stoppage, which did not occur for a good many miles. Then it ceased abruptly,
for the train had scarcely come to a standstill when the opening above the door
was darkened by a head and shoulders. The head was surmounted by a bowler, and
a pair of pince-nez gleamed from the shadow.

“Hullo,
I say,” said the stranger. “Have you changed carriages, or what?”

“No,”
said Mike.

“Then,
where’s my bag?”

Life
teems with embarrassing situations. This was one of them.

“The
fact is,” said Mike, “I chucked it out.”

“Chucked
it out! What do you mean? When?”

“At the
last station.”

The
guard blew his whistle, and the other jumped into the carriage.

“I
thought you’d got out there for good,” explained Mike. “I’m awfully sorry.”

“Where
is
the bag?”

“On the
platform at the last station. It hit a porter.”

Against
his will, for he wished to treat the matter with fitting solemnity, Mike
grinned at the recollection. The look on Porter Robinson’s face as the bag took
him in the small of the back had been funny, though not intentionally so.

The
bereaved owner disapproved of this levity; and said as much.

“Don’t
grin,
you little beast,” he shouted. “There’s nothing to laugh at. You go
chucking bags that don’t belong to you out of the window, and then you have the
frightful cheek to grin about it.”

“It
wasn’t that,” said Mike hurriedly. “Only the porter looked awfully funny when
it hit him.”

“Dash
the porter! What’s going to happen about my bag? I can’t get out for half a
second to buy a magazine without your flinging my things about the platform.
What you want is a sound kicking.”

The
situation was becoming difficult. But fortunately at this moment the train
stopped once again; and, looking out of the window, Mike saw a board with East
Wobsley upon it in large letters. A moment later Bob’s head appeared in the
doorway.

“Hullo,
there you are,” said Bob.

His eye
fell upon Mike’s companion.

“Hullo,
Gazeka!” he exclaimed. “Where did you spring from? Do you know my brother? He’s
coming to Wrykyn this term. By the way, rather lucky you’ve met. He’s in your
house. Firby-Smith’s head of Wain’s, Mike.”

Mike
gathered that Gazeka and Firby-Smith were one and the same person. He grinned
again. Firby-Smith continued to look ruffled, though not aggressive.

“Oh,
are you in Wain’s?” he said.

“I say,
Bob,” said Mike, “I’ve made rather an ass of myself.”

“Naturally.”

“I
mean, what happened was this. I chucked Firby-Smith’s bag out of the window,
thinking he’d got out, only he hadn’t really, and it’s at a station miles
back.”

“You’re
a bit of a rotter, aren’t you? Had it got your name and address on it, Gazeka?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,
then it’s certain to be all right. It’s bound to turn up some time. They’ll
send it on by the next train, and you’ll get it either tonight or tomorrow.”

“Frightful
nuisance, all the same. Lots of things in it I wanted.”

“Oh,
never mind, it’s all right. I say, what have you been doing in the holidays? I
didn’t know you lived on this line at all.”

From
this point onwards Mike was out of the conversation altogether. Bob and
Firby-Smith talked of Wrykyn, discussing events of the previous term of which
Mike had never heard. Names came into their conversation which were entirely
new to him. He realized that school politics were being talked, and that
contributions from him to the dialogue were not required. He took up his
magazine again, listening the while. They were discussing Wain’s now. The name
Wyatt cropped up with some frequency. Wyatt was apparently something of a
character. Mention was made of rows in which he had played a part in the past.

“It
must be pretty rotten for him,” said Bob. “He and Wain never get on very well,
and yet they have to be together, holidays as well as term. Pretty bad having a
step-father at all—I shouldn’t care to—and when your house-master and your
step-father are the same man, it’s a bit thick.”

“Frightful,”
agreed Firby-Smith.

“I swear,
if I were in Wyatt’s place, I should rag about like anything. It isn’t as if
he’d anything to look forward to when he leaves. He told me last term that Wain
had got a nomination for him in some beastly bank, and that he was going into
it directly after the end of this term. Rather rough on a chap like Wyatt. Good
cricketer and footballer, I mean, and all that sort of thing. It’s just the
sort of life he’ll hate most. Hullo, here we are.”

Mike
looked out of the window. It was Wrykyn at last.

CHAPTER
III

MIKE FINDS A FRIENDLY NATIVE

MIKE was surprised to
find, on alighting, that the plat from was entirely free from Wrykynians. In
all the stories he had read the whole school came back by the same train, and,
having smashed in one another’s hats and chaffed the porters, made their way to
the school buildings in a solid column. But here they were alone.

A
remark of Bob’s to Firby-Smith explained this. “Can’t make out why none of the
fellows came back by this train,” he said. “Heaps of them must come by this
line, and it’s the only Christian train they run.”

“Don’t
want to get here before the last minute they can possibly manage. Silly idea. I
suppose they think there’d be nothing to do.”

“What
shall we do?” said Bob. “Come and have some tea at Cook’s?”

“All
right.”

Bob
looked at Mike. There was no disguising the fact that he would be in the way;
but how convey this fact delicately to him?

“Look
here, Mike,” he said, with a happy inspiration, “Firby-Smith and I are just
going to get some tea. I think you’d better nip up to the school. Probably Wain
will want to see you, and tell you all about things, which is your dorm. and so
on. See you later,” he concluded airily. “Anyone’ll tell you the way to the
school. Go straight on. They’ll send your luggage on later. So long.” And his
sole prop in this world of strangers departed, leaving him to find his way for
himself.

There
is no subject on which opinions differ so widely as this matter of finding the
way to a place. To the man who knows, it is simplicity itself. Probably he
really does imagine that he goes straight on, ignoring the fact that for him
the choice of three roads, all more or less straight, has no perplexities. The
man who does not know feels as if he were in a maze.

Mike
started out boldly, and lost his way. Go in which direction he would, he always
seemed to arrive at a square with a fountain and an equestrian statue in its
centre. On the fourth repetition of this feat he stopped in a disheartened way,
and looked about him. He was beginning to feel bitter towards Bob. The chap
might at least have shown him where to get some tea.

At this
moment a ray of hope shone through the gloom. Crossing the square was a short,
thick-set figure clad in grey flannel trousers, a blue blazer, and a straw hat
with a coloured band. Plainly a Wrykynian. Mike made for him.

“Can
you tell me the way to the school, please,” he said.

“Oh,
you’re going to the school,” said the other. He had a pleasant, square-jawed
face, reminiscent of a good-tempered bulldog, and a pair of very deep-set grey
eyes which somehow put Mike at his ease. There was something singularly cool
and genial about them. He felt that they saw the humour in things, and that
their owner was a person who liked most people and whom most people liked.

“You
look rather lost,” said the stranger. “Been hunting for it long?”

“Yes,”
said Mike.

“Which
house do you want?”

“Wain’s.”

“Wain’s?
Then you’ve come to the right man this time. What I don’t know about Wain’s
isn’t worth knowing.”

“Are
you there, too?”

“Am I
not! Term
and
holidays. There’s no close season for me.”

“Oh,
are you Wyatt, then?” asked Mike.

“Hullo,
this is fame. How did you know my name, as the ass in the detective story
always says to the detective, who’s seen it in the lining of his hat? Who’s
been talking about me?”

“I
heard my brother saying something about you in the train.”

“Who’s
your brother?”