if they meant to use these
chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That
sort of idea. My name," he added pensively, "is Smith. What's yours?"

3

PSMITH

"Jackson," said Mike.

"Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led
Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen?"

"The last, for choice," said Mike, "but I've only just arrived, so I
don't know."

"The boy--what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?"

"Yes! Why, are you new?"

"Do I look as if I belonged here? I'm the latest import. Sit down on
yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the
way, before I start, there's just one thing. If you ever have occasion
to write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name?
P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don't care for
Smythe. My father's content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but
I've decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty.
The resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on
the back of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert
(though I hope you won't), or simply Smith, the _P_ not being sounded.
Compare the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar
miss-in-balk. See?"

Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world
courtesy.

"Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but
a babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse
to keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of
the first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my
boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a
bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like
gaze on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."

"No?" said Mike.

"No. I was superannuated last term."

"Bad luck."

"For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."

"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 father's vicar of our village. It was because his son