*

"You're going to what?" asked Psmith, sleepily, on being awakened and
told the news.

"I'm going to play cricket, for a village near here. I say, don't tell
a soul, will you? I don't want it to get about, or I may get lugged in
to play for the school."

"My lips are sealed. I think I'll come and watch you. Cricket I
dislike, but watching cricket is one of the finest of Britain's manly
sports. I'll borrow Jellicoe's bicycle."

* * * * *

That Saturday, Lower Borlock smote the men of Chidford hip and thigh.
Their victory was due to a hurricane innings of seventy-five by a
new-comer to the team, M. Jackson.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE FIRE BRIGADE MEETING

Cricket is the great safety-valve. If you like the game, and are in a
position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely
grey. As time went on, and his average for Lower Borlock reached the
fifties and stayed there, Mike began, though he would not have
admitted it, to enjoy himself. It was not Wrykyn, but it was a very
decent substitute.

The only really considerable element making for discomfort now was Mr.
Downing. By bad luck it was in his form that Mike had been placed on
arrival; and Mr. Downing, never an easy form-master to get on with,
proved more than usually difficult in his dealings with Mike.

They had taken a dislike to each other at their first meeting; and it
grew with further acquaintance. To Mike, Mr. Downing was all that a
master ought not to be, fussy, pompous, and openly influenced in his
official dealings with his form by his own private likes and dislikes.
To Mr. Downing, Mike was simply an unamiable loafer, who did nothing
for the school and apparently had none of the instincts which should
be implanted in the healthy boy. Mr. Downing was rather strong on the
healthy boy.

The two lived in a state of simmering hostility, punctuated at
intervals by crises, which usually resulted in Lower Borlock having to
play some unskilled labourer in place of their star batsman, employed
doing "over-time."

One of the most acute of these crises, and the most important, in that
it was the direct cause of Mike's appearance in Sedleigh cricket, had
to do with the third weekly meeting of the School Fire Brigade.

It may be remembered that this well-supported institution was under
Mr. Downing's special care. It was, indeed, his pet hobby and the
apple of his eye.

Just as you had to join the A