the night."

"But you told me you didn't like cricket. You said you only liked
watching it."

"Quite right. I do. But at schools where cricket is compulsory you
have to overcome your private prejudices. And in time the thing
becomes a habit. Imagine my feelings when I found that I was
degenerating, little by little, into a slow left-hand bowler with a
swerve. I fought against it, but it was useless, and after a while I
gave up the struggle, and drifted with the stream. Last year, in a
house match"--Psmith's voice took on a deeper tone of melancholy--"I
took seven for thirteen in the second innings on a hard wicket. I did
think, when I came here, that I had found a haven of rest, but it was
not to be. I turn out to-morrow. What Comrade Outwood will say, when
he finds that his keenest archaeological disciple has deserted, I hate
to think. However----"

Mike felt as if a young and powerful earthquake had passed. The whole
face of his world had undergone a quick change. Here was he, the
recalcitrant, wavering on the point of playing for the school, and
here was Psmith, the last person whom he would have expected to be a
player, stating calmly that he had been in the running for a place in
the Eton eleven.

Then in a flash Mike understood. He was not by nature intuitive, but
he read Psmith's mind now. Since the term began, he and Psmith had
been acting on precisely similar motives. Just as he had been
disappointed of the captaincy of cricket at Wrykyn, so had Psmith been
disappointed of his place in the Eton team at Lord's. And they had
both worked it off, each in his own way--Mike sullenly, Psmith
whimsically, according to their respective natures--on Sedleigh.

If Psmith, therefore, did not consider it too much of a climb-down to
renounce his resolution not to play for Sedleigh, there was nothing to
stop Mike doing so, as--at the bottom of his heart--he wanted to do.

"By Jove," he said, "if you're playing, I'll play. I'll write a note
to Adair now. But, I say--" he stopped--"I'm hanged if I'm going to
turn out and field before breakfast to-morrow."

"That's all right. You won't have to. Adair won't be there himself.
He's not playing against the M.C.C. He's sprained his wrist."

CHAPTER LVI

IN WHICH PEACE IS DECLARED

"Sprained his wrist?" said Mike. "How did he do that?"

"During the brawl. Apparently one of his efforts got home on your
elbow instead of your expressive countenance, and whether it wa