es.

"Thanks awfully," said Mike, referring to the square manner in which
the captain had behaved in letting him bat.

"What school were you at before you came here?" asked Burgess.

"A private school in Hampshire," said Mike. "King-Hall's. At a place
called Emsworth."

"Get much cricket there?"

"Yes, a good lot. One of the masters, a chap called Westbrook, was an
awfully good slow bowler."

Burgess nodded.

"You don't run away, which is something," he said.

Mike turned purple with pleasure at this stately compliment. Then,
having waited for further remarks, but gathering from the captain's
silence that the audience was at an end, he proceeded to unbuckle his
pads. Wyatt overtook him on his way to the house.

"Well played," he said. "I'd no idea you were such hot stuff. You're a
regular pro."

"I say," said Mike gratefully, "it was most awfully decent of you
getting Burgess to let me go in. It was simply ripping of you."

"Oh, that's all right. If you don't get pushed a bit here you stay for
ages in the hundredth game with the cripples and the kids. Now you've
shown them what you can do you ought to get into the Under Sixteen
team straight away. Probably into the third, too."

"By Jove, that would be all right."

"I asked Burgess afterwards what he thought of your batting, and he
said, 'Not bad.' But he says that about everything. It's his highest
form of praise. He says it when he wants to let himself go and simply
butter up a thing. If you took him to see N. A. Knox bowl, he'd say he
wasn't bad. What he meant was that he was jolly struck with your
batting, and is going to play you for the Under Sixteen."

"I hope so," said Mike.

The prophecy was fulfilled. On the following Wednesday there was a
match between the Under Sixteen and a scratch side. Mike's name was
among the Under Sixteen. And on the Saturday he was playing for the
third eleven in a trial game.

"This place is ripping," he said to himself, as he saw his name on the
list. "Thought I should like it."

And that night he wrote a letter to his father, notifying him of the
fact.

CHAPTER V

REVELRY BY NIGHT

A succession of events combined to upset Mike during his first
fortnight at school. He was far more successful than he had any right
to be at his age. There is nothing more heady than success, and if it
comes before we are prepared for it, it is apt to throw us off our
balance. As a rule, at school, years of wholesome