"Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off in the gym shoes he stood in.

It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize how strong public-school prejudices really are. At a school, for instance, where the regulations say that coats only of black or dark blue are to be worn, a boy who appears one day in even the most respectable and unostentatious brown finds himself looked on with a mixture of awe and repulsion, which would be excessive if he had sandbagged the headmaster. So in the case of shoes. School rules decree that a boy shall go to his form room in shoes. There is no real reason why, if the day is fine, he should not wear gym shoes, should he prefer them. But, if he does, the thing creates a perfect sensation. Boys say, "Great Scott, what _have_ you got on?" Masters say, "Jones, _what_ are you wearing on your feet?" In the few minutes which elapse between the a.s.sembling of the form for call-over and the arrival of the form master, some wag is sure either to stamp on the gym shoes, accompanying the act with some satirical remark, or else to pull one of them off, and inaugurate an impromptu game of football with it. There was once a boy who went to school one morning in elastic-sided boots.

Mike had always been coldly distant in his relations to the rest of his form, looking on them, with a few exceptions, as worms; and the form, since his innings against Downing's on the Friday, had regarded Mike with respect. So that he escaped the ragging he would have had to undergo at Wrykyn in similar circ.u.mstance. It was only Mr. Downing who gave trouble.

There is a sort of instinct which enables some masters to tell when a boy in their form is wearing gym shoes instead of the more formal kind, just as people who dislike cats always know when one is in a room with them. They cannot see it but they feel it in their bones.

Mr. Downing was perhaps the most bigoted anti-gym-shoeist in the whole list of English schoolmasters. He waged war remorselessly against gym shoes. Satire, abuse, lines, detention--every weapon was employed by him in dealing with their wearers. It had been the late Dunster's practice always to go over to school in gym shoes when, as he usually did, he felt shaky in the morning's lesson. Mr. Downing always detected him in the first five minutes, and that meant a lecture of anything from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour on Untidy Habits and Boys Who Looked Like Loafers--which broke the back of the morning's work nicely. On one occasion, when a particularly tricky bit of Livy was on the bill of fare, Dunster had entered the form room in heelless Turkish bath slippers, of a vivid crimson; and the subsequent proceedings, including his journey over to the house to change the heelless atrocities, had seen him through very nearly to the quarter-to-eleven interval.

Mike, accordingly, had not been in his place for three minutes when Mr.

Downing, stiffening like a pointer, called his name.

"Yes, sir?" said Mike.

"_What_ are you wearing on your feet, Jackson?"

"Gym shoes, sir."

"You are wearing gym shoes? Are you not aware that gym shoes are not the proper things to come to school in? Why are you wearing gym shoes?"

The form, leaning back against the next row of desks, settled itself comfortably for the address from the throne.

"I have lost one of my shoes, sir."

A kind of gulp escaped from Mr. Downing's lips. He stared at Mike for a moment in silence. Then, turning to Stone, he told him to start translating.

Stone, who had been expecting at least ten minutes' respite, was taken unawares. When he found the place in his book and began to construe, he floundered hopelessly. But, to his growing surprise and satisfaction, the form master appeared to notice nothing wrong. He said "Yes, yes,"

mechanically, and finally, "That will do," whereupon Stone resumed his seat with the feeling that the age of miracles had returned.

Mr. Downing's mind was in a whirl. His case was complete. Mike's appearance in gym shoes, with the explanation that he had lost a shoe, completed the chain. As Columbus must have felt when his ship ran into harbor, and the first American interviewer, jumping on board, said, "Wal, sir, and what are your impressions of our glorious country?" so did Mr. Downing feel at that moment.

When the bell rang at a quarter to eleven, he gathered up his gown and sped to the headmaster.

24

THE ADAIR METHOD

It was during the interval that day that Stone and Robinson, discussing the subject of cricket over a bun and ginger beer at the school shop, came to a momentous decision, to wit, that they were fed up with the Adair administration and meant to strike. The immediate cause of revolt was early-morning fielding practice, that searching test of cricket keenness. Mike himself, to whom cricket was the great and serious interest in life, had shirked early-morning fielding practice in his first term at Wrykyn. And Stone and Robinson had but a lukewarm attachment to the game, compared with Mike's.

As a rule, Adair had contented himself with practice in the afternoon after school, which n.o.body objects to; and no strain, consequently, had been put upon Stone's and Robinson's allegiance. In view of the M.C.C.

match on the Wednesday, however, he had now added to this an extra dose to be taken before breakfast. Stone and Robinson had left their comfortable beds that day at six o'clock, yawning and heavy-eyed, and had caught catches and fielded drives which, in the cool morning air, had stung like adders and bitten like serpents. Until the sun has really got to work, it is no joke taking a high catch. Stone's dislike of the experiment was only equaled by Robinson's. They were neither of them of the type which likes to undergo hardships for the common good. They played well enough when on the field, but neither cared greatly whether the school had a good season or not. They played the games entirely for their own sakes.

The result was that they went back to the house for breakfast with a never-again feeling, and at the earliest possible moment met to debate as to what was to be done about it. At all costs another experience like today's must be avoided.

"It's all rot," said Stone. "What on earth's the good of sweating about before breakfast? It only makes you tired."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Robinson, "if it wasn't bad for the heart.

Rushing about on an empty stomach, I mean, and all that sort of thing."

"Personally," said Stone, gnawing his bun, "I don't intend to stick it."

"Nor do I."

"I mean, it's such absolute rot. If we aren't good enough to play for the team without having to get up overnight to catch catches, he'd better find somebody else."

"Yes."

At this moment Adair came into the shop.

"Fielding practice again tomorrow," he said briskly, "at six."

"Before breakfast?" said Robinson.

"Rather. You two must buck up, you know. You were rotten today." And he pa.s.sed on, leaving the two malcontents speechless.

Stone was the first to recover.

"I'm hanged if I turn out tomorrow," he said, as they left the shop. "He can do what he likes about it. Besides, what can he do, after all? Only kick us out of the team. And I don't mind that."

"Nor do I."

"I don't think he will kick us out, either. He can't play the M.C.C.

with a scratch team. If he does, we'll go and play for that village Jackson plays for. We'll get Jackson to shove us into the team."

"All right," said Robinson. "Let's."

Their position was a strong one. A cricket captain may seem to be an autocrat of tremendous power, but in reality he has only one weapon, the keenness of those under him. With the majority, of course, the fear of being excluded or ejected from a team is a spur that drives. The majority, consequently, are easily handled. But when a cricket captain runs up against a boy who does not much care whether he plays for the team or not, then he finds himself in a difficult position, and, unless he is a man of action, practically helpless.

Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that they would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The bowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the chance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are runs, wherever and however made.

The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house there were no signs.

Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond the fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great help. Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.

At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.

Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right, was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of his reading to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen the paper, usually formed an interested and appreciative audience.

Today, however, though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of excitement at the news that Sheppard had made a century against Gloucestershire, and that a b.u.t.ter famine was expected in the United States, these world-shaking news items seemed to leave Adair cold. He champed his bread and marmalade with an abstracted air.

He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.

Many captains might have pa.s.sed the thing over. To take it for granted that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe and convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of person who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He never shirked anything, physical or moral.

He resolved to interview the absentees.

It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He went across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and marking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided with a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance and stagger backward against the captain.