"

"But why Sedleigh, of all places?"

"This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a
certain scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar
a Balliol----"

"Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.

"That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate,
who told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent
me off here to get a Balliol too. Do _you_ know Barlitt?"

"His pater's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a
Balliol that I was sent here."

"Do you come from Crofton?"

"Yes."

"I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost
brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"

Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a
fellow human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced
Psmith. The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His
dislike for his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that
life there might at least be tolerable.

"Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard
my painful story. Now tell me yours."

"Wrykyn. My pater took me away because I got such a lot of bad
reports."

"My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action
in every sentence. How do you like this place from what you've seen of
it?"

"Rotten."

"I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you
Comrade, will you? I've just become a Socialist. It's a great scheme.
You ought to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property,
and start by collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick
together. We are companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have
gone astray. Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you
seen Professor Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think
of him?"

"He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about
apses and things."

"And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries
of a stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met
in the grounds--he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid
man--and I hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes
about the country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's
an Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on
half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and
generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And,