ng to give us."

CHAPTER XXXVII

MIKE FINDS OCCUPATION

There was more than one moment during the first fortnight of term when
Mike found himself regretting the attitude he had imposed upon himself
with regard to Sedleighan cricket. He began to realise the eternal
truth of the proverb about half a loaf and no bread. In the first
flush of his resentment against his new surroundings he had refused to
play cricket. And now he positively ached for a game. Any sort of a
game. An innings for a Kindergarten _v._ the Second Eleven of a
Home of Rest for Centenarians would have soothed him. There were
times, when the sun shone, and he caught sight of white flannels on a
green ground, and heard the "plonk" of bat striking ball, when he felt
like rushing to Adair and shouting, "I _will_ be good. I was in
the Wrykyn team three years, and had an average of over fifty the last
two seasons. Lead me to the nearest net, and let me feel a bat in my
hands again."

But every time he shrank from such a climb down. It couldn't be done.

What made it worse was that he saw, after watching behind the nets
once or twice, that Sedleigh cricket was not the childish burlesque of
the game which he had been rash enough to assume that it must be.
Numbers do not make good cricket. They only make the presence of good
cricketers more likely, by the law of averages.

Mike soon saw that cricket was by no means an unknown art at Sedleigh.
Adair, to begin with, was a very good bowler indeed. He was not a
Burgess, but Burgess was the only Wrykyn bowler whom, in his three
years' experience of the school, Mike would have placed above him. He
was a long way better than Neville-Smith, and Wyatt, and Milton, and
the others who had taken wickets for Wrykyn.

The batting was not so good, but there were some quite capable men.
Barnes, the head of Outwood's, he who preferred not to interfere with
Stone and Robinson, was a mild, rather timid-looking youth--not
unlike what Mr. Outwood must have been as a boy--but he knew how to
keep balls out of his wicket. He was a good bat of the old plodding
type.

Stone and Robinson themselves, that swash-buckling pair, who now
treated Mike and Psmith with cold but consistent politeness, were both
fair batsmen, and Stone was a good slow bowler.

There were other exponents of the game, mostly in Downing's house.

Altogether, quite worthy colleagues even for a man who had been a star
at Wrykyn.

* *