ever effected one
on his own account, and Adair looked unpleasantly corpselike.

"_He's_ all right," said Psmith. "In a minute or two he'll be skipping
about like a little lambkin. I'll look after him. You go away and
pick flowers."

Mike put on his coat and walked back to the house. He was conscious of a
perplexing whirl of new and strange emotions, chief among which was a
curious feeling that he rather liked Adair. He found himself thinking
that Adair was a good chap, that there was something to be said for his
point of view, and that it was a pity he had knocked him about so much.
At the same time, he felt an undeniable thrill of pride at having beaten
him. The feat presented that interesting person, Mike Jackson, to him in
a fresh and pleasing light, as one who had had a tough job to face and
had carried it through. Jackson the cricketer he knew, but Jackson the
deliverer of knockout blows was strange to him, and he found this new
acquaintance a man to be respected.

The fight, in fact, had the result which most fights have, if they are
fought fairly and until one side has had enough. It revolutionized
Mike's view of things. It shook him up, and drained the bad blood out of
him. Where before he had seemed to himself to be acting with massive
dignity, he now saw that he had simply been sulking like some wretched
kid. There had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of
refusing to identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the
stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. He now saw that his
attitude was to be summed up in the words, "Sha'n't play."

It came upon Mike with painful clearness that he had been making an ass
of himself.

He had come to this conclusion, after much earnest thought, when Psmith
entered the study.

"How's Adair?" asked Mike.

"Sitting up and taking nourishment once more. We have been chatting.
He's not a bad cove."

"He's all right," said Mike.

There was a pause. Psmith straightened his tie.

"Look here," he said, "I seldom interfere in terrestrial strife, but it
seems to me that there's an opening here for a capable peacemaker, not
afraid of work, and willing to give his services in exchange for a
comfortable home. Comrade Adair's rather a stoutish fellow in his way.
I'm not much on the 'Play up for the old school, Jones,' game, but
everyone to his taste. I shouldn't have thought anybody would get
overwhelmingly attached to this abode of wrath, but Co