ith chatted for a time on human affairs in general,
and then dropped gently off. Jellicoe, who appeared to be wrapped in
gloom, contributed nothing to the conversation.

After Psmith had gone to sleep, Mike lay for some time running over in
his mind, as the best substitute for sleep, the various points of his
innings that day. He felt very hot and uncomfortable.

Just as he was wondering whether it would not be a good idea to get up
and have a cold bath, a voice spoke from the darkness at his side.

"Are you asleep, Jackson?"

"Who's that?"

"Me--Jellicoe. I can't get to sleep."

"Nor can I. I'm stiff all over."

"I'll come over and sit on your bed."

There was a creaking, and then a weight descended in the neighborhood of
Mike's toes.

Jellicoe was apparently not in conversational mood. He uttered no word
for quite three minutes. At the end of which time he gave a sound midway
between a snort and a sigh.

"I say, Jackson!" he said.

"Yes?"

"Have you--oh, nothing."

Silence again.

"Jackson."

"Hello?"

"I say, what would your people say if you got sacked?"

"All sorts of things. Especially my father. Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. So would mine."

"Everybody's would, I expect."

"Yes."

The bed creaked, as Jellicoe digested these great thoughts. Then he
spoke again.

"It would be a jolly beastly thing to get sacked."

Mike was too tired to give his mind to the subject. He was not really
listening. Jellicoe droned on in a depressed sort of way.

"You'd get home in the middle of the afternoon, I suppose, and you'd
drive up to the house, and the servant would open the door, and you'd go
in. They might all be out, and then you'd have to hang about, and wait;
and presently you'd hear them come in, and you'd go out into the
passage, and they'd say 'Hello!'"

Jellicoe, in order to give verisimilitude, as it were, to an otherwise
bald and unconvincing narrative, flung so much agitated surprise into
the last word that it woke Mike from a troubled doze into which he
had fallen.

"Hello?" he said. "What's up?"

"Then you'd say, 'Hello!' And then they'd say, 'What are you doing
here?' And you'd say--"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"About what would happen."

"Happen when?"

"When you got home. After being sacked, you know."

"Who's been sacked?" Mike's mind was still under a cloud.

"Nobody. But if you were, I meant. And then I suppose there'd be an
awful row and general sickn