"You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike?"
said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in
its envelope.

Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.

"I shall abide by what I said."

Mike's heart thumped.

"You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."

Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering;
somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at
their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that
moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of
the earth.

The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt
to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father,
when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the
normally easygoing man.

Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason
he said very little now.

"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.

Sedleigh! Mike sat up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name--one of
those schools with about a hundred boys which you never hear of except
when they send up their gym team to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley.
Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, pure and simple. What
had Sedleigh ever done? What were they ever likely to do? Whom did they
play? What Old Sedleighan had ever done anything at cricket? Perhaps
they didn't even _play_ cricket!

"But it's an awful hole," he said blankly.

Mr. Jackson could read Mike's mind like a book. Mike's point of view was
plain to him. He did not approve of it, but he knew that in Mike's place
and at Mike's age he would have felt the same. He spoke dryly to hide
his sympathy.

"It is not a large school," he said, "and I don't suppose it could play
Wrykyn at cricket, but it has one merit--boys work there. Young Barlitt
won a Balliol scholarship from Sedleigh last year." Barlitt was the
vicar's son, a silent, spectacled youth who did not enter very largely
into Mike's world. They had met occasionally at tennis parties, but not
much conversation had ensued. Barlitt's mind was massive, but his topics
of conversation were not Mike's.

"Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh," added Mr. Jackson.

Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he
would have liked to have said.

2

SEDLEIGH

The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half hour,