ad been lethargic
and without hope. Now there was a stir and buzz all around the ground.
There were twenty-five minutes to go, and five wickets were down.
Sedleigh was on top again.

The next man seemed to take an age coming out. As a matter of fact, he
walked more rapidly than a batsman usually walks to the crease.

Adair's third ball dropped just short of the spot. The batsman, hitting
out, was a shade too soon. The ball hummed through the air a couple of
feet from the ground in the direction of mid off, and Mike, diving to
the right, got to it as he was falling, and chucked it up.

After that the thing was a walk over. Psmith clean bowled a man in his
next over: and the tail, demoralized by the sudden change in the game,
collapsed uncompromisingly. Sedleigh won by thirty-five runs with eight
minutes in hand.

* * * * *

Psmith and Mike sat in their study after lockup, discussing things in
general and the game in particular. "I feel like a beastly renegade,
playing against Wrykyn," said Mike. "Still, I'm glad we won. Adair's a
jolly good sort and it'll make him happy for weeks."

"When I last saw Comrade Adair," said Psmith, "he was going about in a
sort of trance, beaming vaguely and wanting to stand people things at
the shop."

"He bowled awfully well."

"Yes," said Psmith. "I say, I don't wish to cast a gloom over this
joyful occasion in any way, but you say Wrykyn are going to give
Sedleigh a fixture again next year?"

"Well?"

"Well, have you thought of the massacre which will ensue? You will have
left, Adair will have left. Incidentally, I shall have left. Wrykyn will
swamp them."

"I suppose they will. Still, the great thing, you see, is to get the
thing started. That's what Adair was so keen on. Now Sedleigh has beaten
Wrykyn, he's satisfied. They can get fixtures with decent clubs, and
work up to playing the big schools. You've got to start somehow. So it's
all right, you see."

"And, besides," said Psmith, reflectively, "in an emergency they can
always get Comrade Downing to bowl for them, what? Let us now sally out
and see if we can't promote a rag of some sort in this abode of wrath.
Comrade Outwood has gone over to dinner at the School House, and it
would be a pity to waste a somewhat golden opportunity. Shall
we stagger?"

They staggered.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mike and Psmith, by P. G. Wodehouse

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBER