Mike quotes

In face, he was curiously like his brother Joe, whose appearance is familiar to everyone who takes an interest in first-class cricket. The resemblance was even more marked on the cricket field. Mike had Joe’s batting style to the last detail.

He was a pocket edition of his century-making brother.

“Hullo,” he said, “sorry I’m late.”

The train was just moving out of the station when his eye was suddenly caught by the stranger’s bag, lying snugly in the rack.

And here, I regret to say, Mike acted from the best motives, which is always fatal.

He realised in an instant what had happened. The fellow had forgotten his bag.

“Then, dash it, where’s my frightful bag?”

Life teems with embarrassing situations. This was one of them.

“The fact is,” said Mike, “I chucked it out.”

He was on the verge of the cricket team and had been the school fullback for two seasons. Mike found that people came up and spoke to him, anxious to know if he were Jackson’s brother; and became friendly when he replied in the affirmative.

Influential relations are a help in every stage of life.

It was Wyatt who gave him his first chance at cricket. There were nets on the first afternoon of term for all old colours of the three teams and a dozen or so of those most likely to fill the vacant places.

Mike grinned. The fact was that he had far too good an opinion of himself to be nervous.

An entirely modest person seldom makes a good batsman.

Batting is one of those things which demand first and foremost a thorough belief in oneself. It need not be aggressive, but it must be there.

Not that he would try to. But you might think it was the blood thing to do to imitate him, and the first thing you knew you’d be dropped on by Wain or somebody. See what I mean?”

Bob was well-intentioned, but tact did not enter greatly into his composition.

“All right. But don’t you go doing it. I’m going over to the nets. I see Burgess has shoved you down for them. You’d better be going and changing. Stick on here a bit, though, if you want any more tea.

It was a rattling at the handle of the door. A rattling that turned almost immediately into a spirited banging. A voice accompanied the banging. “Who is there?” inquired the voice. Mike recognised it as Mr. Wain’s. He was not alarmed.

The man who holds the ace of trumps has no need to be alarmed.

His position was impregnable. The enemy was held in check by the locked door, while the other door offered an admirable and instantaneous way of escape.

“I shouldn’t wonder if he was hiding in the shrubbery, sir.”

Mr. Wain looked at the shrubbery, as who should say, “Et tu, Brute!”

“By Jove! I think I see him,” cried Mike. He ran to the window, and vaulted through it on to the lawn. An inarticulate protest from Mr.

“We might catch him, sir,” said Mike.

Mr. Wain’s manner changed to a slow and stately sarcasm, in much the same way as a motorcar changes from the top speed to its first.

“I was under the impression,” he said, in the heavy way almost invariably affected by weak masters in their dealings with the obstreperous, “I was distinctly under the impression that I had ordered you to retire immediately to your dormitory.

Possibly, if the town brigade had stuck to a purely verbal form of attack, all might yet have been peace. Words can be overlooked.

But tomatoes cannot.

No man of spirit can bear to be pelted with overripe tomatoes for any length of time without feeling that if the thing goes on much longer he will be reluctantly compelled to take steps.

Possibly, if the town brigade had stuck to a purely verbal form of attack, all might yet have been peace. Words can be overlooked.

No man of spirit can bear to be pelted with overripe tomatoes for any length of time without feeling that if the thing goes on much longer he will be reluctantly compelled to take steps.

In the present crisis, the first tomato was enough to set matters moving.

Wyatt, one side of his face still showing traces of the tomato, led the school with a vigour that could not be resisted.

He very seldom lost his temper, but he did draw the line at bad tomatoes.

Presently the school noticed that the enemy were vanishing little by little into the darkness which concealed the town. Barely a dozen remained.

They were not malicious. They did not want to see their friends in difficulties. But there is no denying that a row does break the monotony of a school term.

The thrilling feeling that something is going to happen is the salt of life.

…

There is something rather pathetic in the indignation of a school. It must always, or nearly always, expend itself in words, and in private at that. Even the consolation of getting on to platforms and shouting at itself is denied to it.

A public school has no Hyde Park.

There is every probability—in fact, it is certain—that, but for one malcontent, the school’s indignation would have been allowed to simmer down in the usual way, and finally become a mere vague memory.

Anyone who knows the public schools, their ironbound conservatism, and, as a whole, intense respect for order and authority, will appreciate the magnitude of his feat, even though he may not approve of it.

Leaders of men are rare. Leaders of boys are almost unknown.

It requires genius to sway a school.

“Anything I can do for you, sir?” inquired the landlord politely.

“Yes, please,” said Wyatt, “I want lunch for five hundred and fifty.”

That was the supreme moment in mine host’s life. It was his big subject of conversation ever afterwards. He always told that as his best story, and he always ended with the words, “You could ha’ knocked me down with a feather!”

That was the supreme moment in mine host’s life. It was his big subject of conversation ever afterwards. He always told that as his best story, and he always ended with the words, “

You could ha’ knocked me down with a feather!

”

It seemed to be the general opinion among the members of the Wrykyn eleven on the pavilion balcony that Morris and Marsh were in luck. The team did not grudge them their good fortune, because they had earned it; but they were distinctly envious.

Lobs are the most dangerous, insinuating things in the world.

Everybody knows in theory the right way to treat them. Everybody knows that the man who is content not to try to score more than a single cannot get out to them. Yet nearly everybody does get out to them.

Beastly man to bowl to. Knocked me off in half a dozen overs. And, when he does give a couple of easy chances, Bob puts them both on the floor. Billy wouldn’t have given him his cap after the match if he’d made a hundred.

Bob’s the sort of man who wouldn’t catch a ball if you handed it to him on a plate, with watercress round it.

”

He took his quarter of an hour, and a little more. He woke from a sort of doze to find that it was twenty-five past.

Man’s inability to get out of bed in the morning is a curious thing.

One may reason with oneself clearly and forcibly without the slightest effect. One knows that delay means inconvenience. Perhaps it may spoil one’s whole day. And one also knows that a single resolute heave will do the trick. But logic is of no use.

“In passing, rather rum when you think that a burglar would get it hot for breaking in, while I get dropped on if I break out.

Why should there be one law for the burglar and one for me?

But you were saying—just so. I thank you. About my breaking out. When you’re a white-haired old man like me, young Jackson, you’ll see that there are two sorts of discipline at school. One you can break if you feel like taking the risks;

The more he thought of it, the sorrier he was for him. If he could have pleased himself, he would have kept Bob in. But, as the poet has it, “Pleasure is pleasure, and biz is biz, and kep’ in a sepyrit jug.”

The first duty of a captain is to have no friends.

From small causes great events do spring. If Burgess had not picked up a particularly interesting novel after breakfast on the morning of Mike’s interview with Firby-Smith in the study, the list would have gone up on the notice-board after prayers.

That it had not been a friendly conversation would have been evident to the most casual observer from the manner in which Mike stumped off, swinging his cricket-bag as if it were a weapon of offence.

There are many kinds of walk. Mike’s was the walk of the Overwrought Soul.

“Young Jackson, do you mean? Oh, nothing. I was only telling him that there was going to be house-fielding tomorrow before breakfast.”

When affairs get into a real tangle, it is best to sit still and let them straighten themselves out. Or, if one does not do that, simply to think no more about them. This is Philosophy.

The true philosopher is the man who says “All right,” and goes to sleep in his armchair.

One’s attitude towards Life’s Little Difficulties should be that of the gentleman in the fable, who sat down on an acorn one day, and happened to doze.

“You have been out, James?”

It is curious how in the more dramatic moments of life the inane remark is the first that comes to us.

“I am astonished. Exceedingly astonished.”

“It seemed hours. About an hour, I suppose, really.”

“It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever struck. Me sweating to get in quietly, and all the time him camping out on my bed!”

“But look here, what’ll happen?”

He had made up his mind on this point in the train.

There is a certain fascination about making the very worst of a bad job.

Achilles knew his business when he sat in his tent. The determination not to play cricket for Sedleigh as he could not play for Wrykyn gave Mike a sort of pleasure.

‘Now we’ll let her rip.’ So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot-brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: ‘

Never confuse the unusual and the impossible.

’ Take the present case. If you had only realised the possibility of somebody some day collaring your study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared.

“You are a chap!” said Jellicoe.

Waiting in the dark for something to happen is always a trying experience, especially if, as on this occasion, silence is essential.

Mike found his thoughts wandering back to the vigil he had kept with Mr. Wain at Wrykyn on the night when Wyatt had come in through the window and found authority sitting on his bed, waiting for him.

He had nothing approaching style, but he had twice won the mile and half-mile at the Sports off elegant runners, who knew all about stride and the correct timing of the sprints and all the rest of it.

Briefly, he was a worker. He had heart.

A boy of Adair’s type is always a force in a school. In a big public school of six or seven hundred, his influence is felt less; but in a small school like Sedleigh he is like a tidal wave, sweeping all before him.

When you are being carried back to the pavilion after your century against Loamshire—do you play Loamshire?—we shall be grubbing in the hard ground for ruined abbeys. The old choice between Pleasure and Duty, Comrade Adair. A Boy’s Crossroads.”

“Archaeology,” said Psmith, with a deprecatory wave of the hand, “will brook no divided allegiance from her devotees.”

Adair turned, and walked on.

Mike on these occasions was silent and jumpy, his brow “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of care.” But Psmith followed his leader with the pleased and indulgent air of a father whose infant son is showing him round the garden.

Psmith’s attitude towards archaeological research struck a new note in the history of that neglected science. He was amiable, but patronising. He patronised fossils, and he patronised ruins. If he had been confronted with the Great Pyramid, he would have patronised that.

He seemed to be consumed by a thirst for knowledge.

Cricket is the great safety-valve.

If you like the game, and are in a position to play it at least twice a week, life can never be entirely grey.

This happened now with Mr. Downing. He suddenly abandoned science and ran amok. His run lost its stateliness and increased its vigour. He charged up to the wicket as a wounded buffalo sometimes charges a gun. His whole idea now was to bowl fast.

When a slow bowler starts to bowl fast, it is usually as well to be batting, if you can manage it.

By the time the over was finished, Mike’s score had been increased by sixteen, and the total of his side, in addition, by three wides.

It was remarkable what a number of members of Outwood’s house appeared to cherish a personal grudge against Mr. Downing. It had been that master’s somewhat injudicious practice for many years to treat his own house as a sort of Chosen People.

Of all masters, the most unpopular is he who by the silent tribunal of a school is convicted of favouritism.

And the dislike deepens if it is a house which he favours and not merely individuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other houses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr.

In no previous Sedleigh match, after a full day’s play, had the pathetic words “Did not bat” been written against the whole of one of the contending teams.

These are the things which mark epochs.

Play was resumed at 2:15. For a quarter of an hour Mike was comparatively quiet. Adair, fortified by food and rest, was bowling really well, and his first half-dozen overs had to be watched carefully.

“There’ll be a row about this,” said Stone.

“Rows are rather sport when you’re not mixed up in them,” said Robinson, philosophically.

“There’ll be another if we don’t start off for chapel soon. It’s a quarter to.”

It was only with an effort that he could keep himself from rushing to the sergeant then and there, and leaving the house lunch to look after itself. He resolved to go the moment that meal was at an end.

Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest functions in existence.

It drags its slow length along like a languid snake, but it finishes in time. In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second helping, found himself at liberty.

Sunday lunch at a public-school house is probably one of the longest functions in existence.

It drags its slow length along like a languid snake, but it finishes in time.

In due course Mr. Downing, after sitting still and eyeing with acute dislike everybody who asked for a second helping, found himself at liberty.

Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar-ash. But Doctor Watson has got to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a label attached.

The average man is a Doctor Watson.

We are wont to scoff in a patronising manner at that humble follower of the great investigator, but, as a matter of fact, we should have been just as dull ourselves.

If you go to a boy and say, “Either you or Jones were out of your house last night at twelve o’clock,” the boy does not reply, “Sir, I cannot tell a lie—I was out of my house last night at twelve o’clock.”

He simply assumes the animated expression of a stuffed fish, and leaves the next move to you.

It is practically Stalemate.

“Where is the pair he wore yesterday?”

“Where are the boots of yesteryear?” murmured Psmith to himself.

“I should say at a venture, sir, that they would be in the basket downstairs. Edmund, our genial knife-and-boot boy, collects them, I believe, at early dawn.”

“It is undoubtedly black now, Mr. Downing.”

“A sort of chameleon boot,” murmured Psmith.

The goaded housemaster turned on him.

Mr. Downing stalked out of the room.

“But,” added Psmith pensively to himself, as the footsteps died away, “I did not promise that it would be the same boot.”

He took the key from his pocket, unlocked the cupboard, and took out the boot. Then he selected from the basket a particularly battered specimen. Placing this in the cupboard, he re-locked the door.

“Then what did you mean by putting it there?” roared Mr. Downing.

“Animal spirits, sir,” said Psmith.

What Mr. Downing would have replied to this one cannot tell, though one can guess roughly. For, just as he was opening his mouth, Mr. Outwood, catching sight of his Chirgwin-like countenance, intervened.

“You’ve quite made up your minds?”

“Right,” said Adair quietly, and knocked him down.

He was up again in a moment. Adair had pushed the table back, and was standing in the middle of the open space.

Psmith turned away, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, gazed at himself mournfully in the looking-glass.

“I’m not the man I was,” he sighed, after a prolonged inspection. “There are lines on my face, dark circles beneath my eyes. The fierce rush of life at Sedleigh is wasting me away.”

“Stone and I had a discussion about early-morning fielding-practice,” said Adair, turning to Mike.

Psmith was one of those people who lend a dignity to everything they touch.

Under his auspices the most unpromising ventures became somehow enveloped in an atmosphere of measured stateliness. On the present occasion, what would have been, without his guiding hand, a mere unscientific scramble, took on something of the impressive formality of the National Sporting Club.

“Now that you and Smith are going to play, we ought to have a jolly good season.”

“Rummy, Smith turning out to be a cricketer.”

“Yes. I should think he’d be a hot bowler, with his height.”

“I’ve always been fairly keen on the place,” he said. “But I don’t suppose I’ve done anything much.”

“You’ve loosened one of my front teeth,” said Mike, with a grin, “if that’s any comfort to you.”

“I couldn’t eat anything except porridge this morning. My jaw still aches.”