text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/262

 iron and steel ribs. The width and depth are each 5 ft. 6 in., the intended depth of water being 5 ft. The staves are held by T-iron supports resting on wooden sills spaced 8 ft. apart, and are compressed together by a framework. They were caulked with oakum, on the top of which, to a third of the total depth, hot asphalt was run. The use of nails was altogether avoided except in parts of the framework, it being noticed that decay usually starts at nail-holes. It was found possible to make the flume absolutely watertight, and in case of repair being necessary at any part the framework is easily taken to pieces so that new staves can be inserted. The water in the flume has a velocity of 9.6 ft. per second. The Warm Springs, Deep, and Morton cañons on the line are crossed by wooden stave pipes 52 in. in diameter, bound with round steel rods, and laid above the surface of the ground. The work is planned for two rows of pipes, each capable of carrying 123 cub. ft. per second; of these one so far has been laid. The lengths of the pipes at each of the three cañons are 551, 964 and 756 ft. respectively, and the maximum head at any place is 160 ft. The pipes are not painted, and it has been suggested that they would suffer in their exposed position in case of a bush fire, a contingency to which, of course, flumes are also liable.

Aqueducts of New York.—There are three aqueducts in New York—the Old Croton Aqueduct (1837–1843), the Bronx River Conduit (1880–1885), and the New Croton Aqueduct (1884–1893), discharging respectively 95, 28, and 302 million U.S. gallons a day; their combined delivery is therefore 425 million gallons a day. The Old Croton Aqueduct is about 41 m. in length, and was constructed as a masonry conduit, except at the Harlem and Manhattan valleys, where two lines of 36-in. pipe were used. The inclination of the former is at the rate of about 13 in. per mile. The area of the cross-section is 53.34 sq. ft., the height is 8 ft., and the greatest width 7 ft. 5 in.; the roof is semicircular, the floor segmental, and the sides have a batter on the face of in. per foot. The sides and invert are of concrete, faced with 4 in. of brickwork, the roof being entirely of brickwork. There is a bridge over the Harlem river 1450 ft. in length, consisting of fifteen semicircular arches; its soffit is 100 ft. above high water, and its cost was $963,427. The construction of the New Croton Aqueduct was begun in 1885, and the works were sufficiently advanced by the 15th of July 1890 to allow the supply to be begun. The lengths of the various parts of the aqueduct are as follows:—

The length of tunnel under pressure (circular form) is 7.17 m., and that not under pressure (horse-shoe form) 23.70 m. The maximum pressure in the former is 55 ℔ per sq. in. The width and height of the horse-shoe form are each 13 ft. 7 in., and the diameter of the circular form (with the exception of two short lengths) is 12 ft. 3 in. The reason for constructing the aqueduct in tunnel for so long a distance was the enhanced value of the low-lying ground near the old aqueduct. The tunnel deviates from a straight line only for the purpose of intersecting a few transverse valleys at which it could be emptied. For 25 m. the gradient is 0.7 foot per mile; the tunnel is then depressed below the hydraulic gradient, the maximum depth being at the Harlem river, where it is 300 ft. below high water. The depth of the tunnel varies from 50 to 500 ft. from the surface of the ground. Forty-two shafts were sunk to facilitate driving, and in four cases where the surface of the ground is below the hydraulic gradient these are closed by watertight covers. The whole of the tunnel is lined with brickwork from 1 to 2 ft. in thickness, the voids behind the lining being filled with rubble-in-mortar. The entry to the old and new aqueducts is controlled by a gatehouse of elaborate and massive design, and the pipes which take up the supply at the end of the tunnel are also commanded by a gate-house. The aqueduct, where it passes under the Harlem river, is worthy of special notice. As it approaches the river it has a considerable fall, and eventually ends in a vertical shaft 12 ft. 3 in. in diameter (where the water has a fall of 174 ft.), from the bottom of which, at a depth of 300 ft. below high-water level, the tunnel under the river starts. The latter is circular in form, the diameter being 10 ft. 6 in., and the length is 1300 ft.; it terminates at the bottom of another vertical shaft also 12 ft. 3 in. in diameter. The depth of this shaft, measured from the floor of the lower tunnel to that of the upper tunnel leading away from it, is 321 ft.; it is continued up to the surface of the ground, though closed by double watertight covers a little above the level of the upper tunnel. Adjoining this shaft is another shaft of equal diameter, by means of which the water can be pumped out, and there is also a communication with the river above high-water level, so that the higher parts can be emptied by gravitation. The cost of the Old Croton Aqueduct was $11,500,000; that of the new aqueduct is not far short of $20,000,000.

The Nadrai Aqueduct Bridge, in India, opened at the end of 1889, is the largest structure of its kind in existence. It was built to carry the water of the Lower Ganges canal over the Kali Naddi, in connexion with the irrigation canals of the north-west provinces. In the year 1888–1889 this canal had 564 m. of main line, with 2050 m. of minor distributaries, and irrigated 519,022 acres of crops. The new bridge replaces one of much smaller size (five spans of 35 ft.), which was completely destroyed by a high flood in July 1885. It gives the river a waterway of 21,000 sq. ft., and the canal a waterway of 1040 sq. ft., the latter representing a discharge of 4100 cub. ft. per second. Its length is 1310 ft., and it is carried on fifteen arches having a span of 60 ft. The width between the faces of the arches is 149 ft. The foundations below the river-bed have a depth of 52 ft., and the total height of the structure is 88 ft. It cost 44 lakhs of rupees, and occupied four years in building. The foundations consist of 268 circular brick cylinders, and the fifteen spans are arranged in three groups, divided by abutment piers; the latter are founded on a double row of 12-ft. cylinders, and the intermediate piers on a single row of 20-ft. cylinders, all the cylinders being hearted with hydraulic lime concrete filled in with skips. This aqueduct-bridge has a very fine appearance, owing to its massive proportions and design.

.—For ancient aqueducts in general: Curt Merckel, Die Ingenieurtechnik im Alterthum (Berlin, 1899); ch. vi. contains a very full account from the earliest Assyrian aqueducts onwards, with illustrations, measurements and an excellent bibliography. For Greek aqueducts see E. Curtius, “Über städtische Wasserbauten der Hellenen,” in Archaeologische Zeitung (1847); G. Weber (as above); papers in ''Athen. Mittheil.'' (Samos), 1877, (Enneacrunus) 1892, 1893, 1894, 1905, and articles on, , &c. For Roman aqueducts: R. Lanciani, “I Commentari di Frontino intorno le acque e gli acquedotti,” in Memorie dei Lincei, serie iii. vol. iv. (Rome, 1880), 215 sqq., and separately; C. Herschel, The Two Books on the Water Supply of the City of Rome of Sextus Julius Frontinus (Boston, 1899); T. Ashby in Classical Review (1902), 336, and articles in The Builder; cf. also the maps to T. Ashby’s “Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna,” in Papers of the British School at Rome, i., iii., iv. (in progress).

For modern aqueducts, see Rickman’s Life of Telford (1838); Schramke’s New York Croton Aqueduct; Second Annual Report of the Department of Public Works of the City of New York in 1872; Report of the Aqueduct Commissioners (1887–1895), and The Water Supply of the City of New York (1896), by Wegmann; Mémoires sur les eaux de Paris, presentés par le Préfet de la Seine au Conseil Municipal (1854 and 1858); Recherches statistiques sur les sources du bassin de la Seine, par M. Belgrand, Ingénieur en chef des ponts et chaussées (1854); “Descriptions of Mechanical Arrangements of the Manchester Waterworks,” by John Frederic Bateman, F.R.S., Engineer-in-chief, from the Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1866); The Glasgow Waterworks, by James M. Gale, Member Inst. C.E. (1863 and 1864); The Report of the Royal Commission on Water Supply, and the Minutes of Evidence (1867 and 1868). For accounts of other aqueducts, see the Transactions of the Societies of Engineers in the different countries, and the Engineering Journals.

AQUILA ( ), (1) a Jew from Rome, who with his wife Prisca or Priscilla had settled in Corinth, where Paul stayed with them (Acts xviii. 2,3). They became Christians and fellow-workers with Paul, to whom they seem to have shown their devotion in some special way (Rom. xvi. 3, 4). (2) A native of Pontus, celebrated for a very literal and accurate translation of the Old Testament into Greek. Epiphanius (De Pond. et Mens. c. 15) preserves a tradition that he was a kinsman of the emperor Hadrian, who employed him in rebuilding Jerusalem (, q.v.), and that he was converted to Christianity, but, on being reproved for practising pagan astrology, apostatized to Judaism. He is said also to have been a disciple of Rabbi ʽAqība (d. 132), and seems to be referred to in Jewish writings as . Aquila’s version is said to have been used in place of the Septuagint in the synagogues. The Christians generally disliked it, alleging without due grounds that it rendered the Messianic passages incorrectly, but Jerome and Origen speak in its praise. Origen incorporated it in his Hexapla.

It was thought that this was the only copy extant, but in 1897 fragments of two codices were brought to the Cambridge University Library. These have been published—the fragments containing 1 Kings xx. 7-17; 2 Kings xxiii. 12-27 by F. C. Burkitt in 1897, those containing parts of Psalms xc.-ciii. by C. Taylor in 1899. See F. C. Burkitt’s article in the Jewish Encyclopaedia.

AQUILA, CASPAR (1488–1560), German reformer, was born at Augsburg on the 7th of August 1488, educated there and at Ulm (1502), in Italy (he met Erasmus in Rome), at Bern (1508), Leipzig (1510) and Wittenberg (1513). According to his son, he entered the ministry in August 1514, at Bern. He was for some time a military chaplain. In 1516 he became pastor of Jenga, near Augsburg. Openly proclaiming his adhesion to Luther’s doctrine, he was imprisoned for

title: Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/262


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/54

36 expression of one who has been aroused from deep sleep. He yawned before he spoke.

"I thought I heard a noise, sir," he said.

He called Mr. Wain "father" in private, "sir" in public. The presence of Mike made this a public occasion.

"Has there been a burglary?"

"Yes," said Mike, "only he has got away."

"Shall I go out into the garden, and have a look round, sir?" asked Wyatt helpfully.

The question stung Mr. Wain into active eruption once more.

"Under no circumstances whatever," he said excitedly. "Stay where you are, James. I will not have boys running about my garden at night. It is preposterous. Inordinately so. Both of you go to bed immediately. I shall not speak to you again on this subject. I must be obeyed instantly. You hear me, Jackson? James, you understand me? To bed at once. And, if I find you outside your dormitory again to-night, you will both be punished with extreme severity. I will not have this lax and reckless behaviour."

"But the burglar, sir?" said Wyatt.

"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 motor-car 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. It is possible that you mistook my meaning. In that case I shall be happy to repeat what I said. It is also in my mind that I threatened to punish you with the utmost severity if you did not retire at once. In these circumstances, James—and you, Jackson—you will doubtless see the necessity of complying with my wishes."

They made it so.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/54


text:
Kings (Kilmer)

 * "Kings" in Main Street and other poems (1917)
 * "Kings" in A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919 (1917)

title: Kings (Kilmer)


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aqueduct

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aqueduct


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/55

Rh

and Clowes, of Donaldson's, were sitting in their study a week after the gramophone incident, preparatory to going on the river. At least Trevor was in the study, getting tea ready. Clowes was on the windowsill, one leg in the room, the other outside, hanging over space. He loved to sit in this attitude, watching some one else work, and giving his views on life to whoever would listen to them. Clowes was tall, and looked sad, which he was not. Trevor was shorter, and very much in earnest over all that he did. On the present occasion he was measuring out tea with a concentration worthy of a general planning a campaign.

"One for the pot," said Clowes.

"All right," breathed Trevor. "Come and help, you slacker."

"Too busy."

"You aren't doing a stroke."

"My lad, I'm thinking of Life. That's a thing you couldn't do. I often say to people, 'Good chap, Trevor, but can't think of Life. Give him a tea-pot and half a pound of butter to mess about with,' I say, 'and he's all right. But when it comes to deep thought, where is he? Among the also-rans.' That's what I say."

"Silly ass," said Trevor, slicing bread. "What particular rot were you thinking about just then? What fun it was sitting back and watching other fellows work, I should think."

"My mind at the moment," said Clowes, "was tensely occupied with the problem of brothers at school. Have you got any brothers, Trevor?"

"One. Couple of years younger than me. I say, we shall want some more jam to-morrow. Better order it to-day."

"See it done, Tigellinus, as our old pal Nero used to remark. Where is he? Your brother, I mean."

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/55


text:
Fulfilment

 * "Fulfilment", a poem by Robert Nichols
 * "Fulfilment", a poem by Dorothy Parker
 * "Fulfilment", a poem by Gretchen Osgood Warren

title: Fulfilment


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/56

38 "Marlborough."

"That shows your sense. I have always had a high opinion of your sense, Trevor. If you'd been a silly ass, you'd have let your people send him here."

"Why not? Shouldn't have minded."

"I withdraw what I said about your sense. Consider it unsaid. I have a brother myself. Aged fifteen. Not a bad chap in his way. Like the heroes of the school stories. 'Big blue eyes literally bubbling over with fun.' At least, I suppose it's fun to him. Cheek's what I call it. My people wanted to send him here. I lodged a protest. I said, 'One Clowes is ample for any public school.' "

"You were right there," said Trevor.

"I said, 'One Clowes is luxury, two excess.' I pointed out that I was just on the verge of becoming rather a blood at Wrykyn, and that I didn't want the work of years spoiled by a brother who would think it a rag to tell fellows who respected and admired me"

"Such as who?"

"Anecdotes of a chequered infancy. There are stories about me which only my brother knows. Did I want them spread about the school? No, laddie, I did not. Hence, we see my brother two terms ago, packing up his little box, and tooling off to Rugby. And here am I at Wrykyn, with an unstained reputation, loved by all who know me, revered by all who don't; courted by boys, fawned upon by masters. People's faces brighten when I throw them a nod. If I frown"

"Oh, come on," said Trevor.

Bread and jam and cake monopolised Clowes's attention for the next quarter of an hour. At the end of that period, however, he returned to his subject.

"After the serious business of the meal was concluded, and a simple hymn had been sung by those present," he said, "Mr. Clowes resumed his very interesting remarks. We were on the subject of brothers at school. Now, take the melancholy case of Jackson Brothers. My heart bleeds for Bob."

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/56


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/57

Rh "Jackson's all right. What's wrong with him? Besides, naturally, young Jackson came to Wrykyn when all his brothers had been here."

"What a rotten argument. It's just the one used by chaps' people, too. They think how nice it will be for all the sons to have been at the same school. It may be all right after they're left, but while they're there, it's the limit. You say Jackson's all right. At present, perhaps, he is. But the term's hardly started yet."

"Well?"

"Look here, what's at the bottom of this sending young brothers to the same school as elder brothers?"

"Elder brother can keep an eye on him, I suppose."

"That's just it. For once in your life you've touched the spot. In other words, Bob Jackson is practically responsible for the kid. That's where the whole rotten trouble starts."

"Why?"

"Well, what happens? He either lets the kid rip, in which case he may find himself any morning in the pleasant position of having to explain to his people exactly why it is that little Willie has just received the boot, and why he didn't look after him better: or he spends all his spare time shadowing him to see that he doesn't get into trouble. He feels that his reputation hangs on the kid's conduct, so he broods over him like a policeman, which is pretty rotten for him and maddens the kid, who looks on him as no sportsman. Bob seems to be trying the first way, which is what I should do myself. It's all right, so far, but, as I said, the term's only just started."

"Young Jackson seems all right. What's wrong with him? He doesn't stick on side any way, which he might easily do, considering his cricket."

"There's nothing wrong with him in that way. I've talked to him several times at the nets, and he's very decent. But his getting into trouble hasn't anything to do with us. It's the masters you've got to consider."

"What's up? Does he rag?"

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/57


text:
Fulfilment (Nichols)

 * "Fulfilment" in The Muse in Arms (1917)
 * "Fulfilment" in A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919 (1917)

title: Fulfilment (Nichols)


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/58

40 "From what I gather from fellows in his form he's got a genius for ragging. Thinks of things that don't occur to anybody else, and does them, too."

"He never seems to be in extra. One always sees him about on half-holidays."

"That's always the way with that sort of chap. He keeps on wriggling out of small rows till he thinks he can do anything he likes without being dropped on, and then all of a sudden he finds himself up to the eyebrows in a record smash. I don't say young Jackson will land himself like that. All I say is that he's just the sort who does. He's asking for trouble. Besides, who do you see him about with all the time?"

"He's generally with Wyatt when I meet him."

"Yes. Well, then!"

"What's wrong with Wyatt? He's one of the decentest men in the school."

"I know. But he's working up for a tremendous row one of these days, unless he leaves before it comes off. The odds are, if Jackson's so thick with him, that he'll be roped into it too. Wyatt wouldn't land him if he could help it, but he probably wouldn't realise what he was letting the kid in for. For instance, I happen to know that Wyatt breaks out of his dorm. every other night. I don't know if he takes Jackson with him. I shouldn't think so. But there's nothing to prevent Jackson following him on his own. And if you're caught at that game, it's the boot every time."

Trevor looked disturbed.

"Somebody ought to speak to Bob."

"What's the good? Why worry him? Bob couldn't do anything. You'd only make him do the policeman business, which he hasn't tune for, and which is bound to make rows between them. Better leave him alone."

"I don't know. It would be a beastly thing for Bob if the kid did get into a really bad row."

"If you must tell anybody, tell the Gazeka. He's head of Wain's, and has got far more chance of keeping an eye on Jakson than Bob has."

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/58


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/59

Rh "The Gazeka is a fool."

"All front teeth and side. Still, he's on the spot. But what's the good of worrying. It's nothing to do with us, anyhow. Let's stagger out, shall we?"

Trevor's conscientious nature, however, made it impossible for him to drop the matter. It disturbed him all the time that he and Clowes were on the river; and, walking back to the house, he resolved to see Bob about it during preparation.

He found him in his study, oiling a bat.

"I say, Bob," he said, "look here. Are you busy?"

"No. Why?"

"It's this way. Clowes and I were talking"

"If Clowes was there he was probably talking. Well?"

"About your brother."

"Oh, by Jove," said Bob, sitting up. "That reminds me. I forgot to get the evening paper. Did he get his century all right?"

"Who?" asked Trevor, bewildered.

"My brother, J. W. He'd made sixty-three not out against Kent in this morning's paper. What happened?"

"I didn't get a paper either. I didn't mean that brother. I meant the one here."

"Oh, Mike? What's Mike been up to?"

"Nothing as yet, that I know of; but, I say, you know, he seems a great pal of Wyatt's."

"I know. I spoke to him about it."

"Oh, you did? That's all right, then."

"Not that there's anything wrong with Wyatt."

"Not a bit. Only he is rather mucking about this term, I hear. It's his last, so I suppose he wants to have a rag."

"Don't blame him."

"Nor do I. Rather rot, though, if he lugged your brother into a row by accident."

"I should get blamed. I think I'll speak to him again."

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/59


text:
No Man's Land

 * No Man's Land, a poem by James Harry Knight-Adkin
 * No Man's Land, a novel by Sapper
 * No Man's Land: A Romance, anovel by Louis Joseph Vance

title: No Man's Land


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/60

42 "I should, I think."

"I hope he isn't idiot enough to go out at night with Wyatt. If Wyatt likes to risk it, all right. That's his look out. But it won't do for Mike to go playing the goat too."

"Clowes suggested putting Firby-Smith on to him. He'd have more chance, being in the same house, of seeing that he didn't come a mucker than you would."

"I've done that. Smith said he'd speak to him."

"That's all right then. Is that a new bat?"

"Got it to-day. Smashed my other yesterday—against the school house."

Donaldson's had played a friendly with the school house during the last two days, and had beaten them.

"I thought I heard it go. You were rather in form."

"Better than at the beginning of the term, anyhow. I simply couldn't do a thing then. But my last three innings have been 33 not out, 18, and 51.

"I should think you're bound to get your first all right."

"Hope so. I see Mike's playing for the second against the O.W.s."

"Yes. Pretty good for his first term. You have a pro. to coach you in the holidays, don't you?"

"Yes. I didn't go to him much this last time. I was away a lot. But Mike fairly lived inside the net."

"Well, it's not been chucked away. I suppose he'll get his first next year. There'll be a big clearing-out of colours at the end of this term. Nearly all the first are leaving. Henfrey'll be captain, I expect."

"Saunders, the pro. at home, always says that Mike's going to be the star cricketer of the family. Better than J. W. even, he thinks. I asked him what he thought of me, and he said, 'You'll be making a lot of runs some day, Mr. Bob.' There's a subtle difference, isn't there? I shall have Mike cutting me out before I leave school if I'm not careful."

"Sort of infant prodigy," said Trevor. "Don't think he's quite up to it yet, though."

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/60


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Interstate Commerce


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/61

Rh He went back to his study, and Bob, having finished his oiling and washed his hands, started on his Thucydides. And, in the stress of wrestling with the speech of an apparently delirious Athenian general, whose remarks seemed to contain nothing even remotely resembling sense and coherence, he allowed the question of Mike's welfare to fade from his mind like a dissolving view.

beginning of a big row, one of those rows which turn a school upside down like a volcanic eruption and provide old boys with something to talk about, when they meet, for years, is not unlike the beginning of a thunderstorm.

You are walking along one seemingly fine day, when suddenly there is a hush, and there falls on you from space one big drop. The next moment the thing has begun, and you are standing in a shower-bath. It is just the same with a row. Some trivial episode occurs, and in an instant the place is in a ferment. It was so with the great picnic at Wrykyn.

The bare outlines of the beginning of this affair are included in a letter which Mike wrote to his father on the Sunday following the Old Wrykynian matches.

This was the letter:

",—Thanks awfully for your letter. I hope you are quite well. I have been getting on all right at cricket lately. My scores since I wrote last have been 0 in a scratch game (the sun got in my eyes just as I played, and I got bowled); 15 for the third against an eleven of masters (without G. B. Jones, the Surrey man, and Spence); 28 not out in the Under Sixteen game; and 30 in a form match. Rather decent. Yesterday one of the men put down for the second against the O.W.'s second couldn't play because

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/61


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aquila

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aquila


text:
Light after Darkness

 * "Light after Darkness" in The Muse in Arms (1917)
 * "Light after Darkness" in A treasury of war poetry ... 1914-1919 (1917)

title: Light after Darkness


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/62

44 his father was very ill, so I played. Wasn't it luck? It's the first time I've played for the second. I didn't do much, because I didn't get an innings. They stop the cricket on O.W. matches day because they have a lot of rotten Greek plays and things which take up a frightful time, and half the chaps are acting, so we stop from lunch to four. Rot I call it. So I didn't go in, because they won the toss and made 215, and by the time we'd made 140 for 6 it was close of play. They'd stuck me in eighth wicket. Rather rot. Still, I may get another shot. And I made rather a decent catch at mid-on. Low down. I had to dive for it. Bob played for the first, but didn't do much. He was run out after he'd got ten. I believe he's rather sick about it.

"Rather a rummy thing happened after lock-up. I wasn't in it, but a fellow called Wyatt (awfully decent chap. He's Wain's step-son, only they bar one another) told me about it. He was in it all right. There's a dinner after the matches on O.W. day, and some of the chaps were going back to their houses after it when they got into a row with a lot of brickies from the town, and there was rather a row. There was a policeman mixed up in it somehow, only I don't quite know where he comes in. I'll find out and tell you next time I write. Love to everybody. Tell Marjory I'll write to her in a day or two.

"Your loving son, ".

"P.S.—I say, I suppose you couldn't send me five bob, could you? I'm rather broke.

"P.P.S.—Half-a-crown would do, only I'd rather it was five bob."

And, on the back of the envelope, these words: "Or a bob would be better than nothing."

The outline of the case was as Mike had stated. But there were certain details of some importance which had not come to his notice when he sent the letter. On the Monday they were public property.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/62


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/63

Rh The thing had happened after this fashion. At the conclusion of the day's cricket, all those who had been playing in the four elevens which the school put into the field against the old boys, together with the school choir, were entertained by the headmaster to supper in the Great Hall. The banquet, lengthened by speeches, songs, and recitations which the reciters imagined to be songs, lasted, as a rule, till about ten o'clock, when the revellers were supposed to go back to their houses by the nearest route, and turn in. This was the official programme. The school usually performed it with certain modifications and improvements.

About midway between Wrykyn, the school, and Wrykyn, the town, there stands on an island in the centre of the road a solitary lamp-post. It was the custom, and had been the custom for generations back, for the diners to trudge off to this lamp-post, dance round it for some minutes singing the school song or whatever happened to be the popular song of the moment, and then race back to their houses. Antiquity had given the custom a sort of sanctity, and the authorities, if they knew—which they must have done—never interfered.

But there were others.

Wrykyn, the town, was peculiarly rich in "gangs of youths." Like the vast majority of the inhabitants of the place, they seemed to have no work of any kind whatsoever to occupy their time, which they used, accordingly, to spend prowling about and indulging in a mild, brainless, rural type of hooliganism. They seldom proceeded to practical rowdyism and never except with the school. As a rule, they amused themselves by shouting rude chaff. The school regarded them with a lofty contempt, much as an Oxford man regards the townee. The school was always anxious for a row, but it was the unwritten law that only in special circumstances should they proceed to active measures. A curious dislike for school-and-town rows

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/63


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/64

46 and most misplaced severity in dealing with the offenders when they took place, were among the few flaws in the otherwise admirable character of the headmaster of Wrykyn. It was understood that one scragged bargees at one's own risk, and, as a rule, it was not considered worth it.

But after an excellent supper and much singing and joviality, one's views are apt to alter. Risks which before supper seemed great, show a tendency to dwindle.

When, therefore, the twenty or so Wrykynians who were dancing round the lamp-post were aware, in the midst of their festivities, that they were being observed and criticised by an equal number of townees, and that the criticisms were, as usual, essentially candid and personal, they found themselves forgetting the headmaster's prejudices and feeling only that these outsiders must be put to the sword as speedily as possible, for the honour of the school.

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.

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

As the two armies stood facing each other in silence under the dim and mysterious rays of the lamp, it suddenly whizzed out from the enemy's ranks, and hit Wyatt on the right ear.

There was a moment of suspense. Wyatt took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, over which the succulent vegetable had spread itself.

"I don't know how you fellows are going to pass the evening," he said quietly. "My idea of a good after-dinner game is to try and find the chap who threw that. Anybody coming?"

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/64


text:
Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/326

 and suspicious member an answer that, if it did not remove his doubts, made him look supremely ridiculous, and squelched the stupid anti-Papal agitation amidst universal merriment. "Nothing was yet determined," said Mr. Ireland, "as to the material, but the Minister of Public Works was strongly suspected of meditating the use of Roman cement."

Daniel O'Connell once publicly complimented a young Mr. Plunkett as "the man who had liberated the county of Roscommon," meaning thereby that the young man to whom he referred had been chiefly instrumental in inducing his native county to follow in the footsteps of historic Clare, and send a Catholic representative to the House of Commons. In after years that young man became the Hon. John Hubert Plunkett, Q.C., Attorney-General of New South Wales, a position he filled for a quarter of a century under circumstances that are thus described in the representative organ of the colony, the Sydney Morning Herald: "As Attorney-General under the old régime, Mr. Plunkett was both grand jury and public prosecutor, and it is something, indeed, to say that in those days of irresponsibility, Mr. Plunkett showed not only great ability, but the highest independence and impartiality. Nothing could have been more high-minded or public-spirited than his official conduct." In one conspicuous instance he vindicated the outraged majesty of the law with a spirit and determination that brought him some temporary odium, but which, when angry passions gave place to quiet thought, won him the respect and admiration of every honest man on the Australian continent. In these early days, the unfortunate aborigines were treated as worse than dogs by the white men who had dispossessed them of their hunting-grounds,

title: Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/326


text:
The Poplars

 * The Poplars, a poem by William Barnes
 * The Poplars, a poem by Jovan Dučić
 * The Poplars, a poem by Bernard Freeman Trotter
 * The Poplars, a poem by Bernard Freeman Trotter

title: The Poplars


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/65

Rh For the first five minutes it was as even a fight as one could have wished to see. It raged up and down the road without a pause, now in a solid mass, now splitting up into little groups. The science was on the side of the school. Most Wrykynians knew how to box to a certain extent. But, at any rate at first, it was no time for science. To be scientific one must have an opponent who observes at least the more important rules of the ring. It is impossible to do the latest ducks and hooks taught you by the instructor if your antagonist butts you in the chest, and then kicks your shins, while some dear friend of his, of whose presence you had no idea, hits you at the same time on the back of the head. The greatest expert would lose his science in such circumstances.

Probably what gave the school the victory in the end was the righteousness of their cause. They were smarting under a sense of injury, and there is nothing that adds a force to one's blows and a recklessness to one's style of delivering them more than a sense of injury.

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. And their lonely condition seemed to be borne in upon these by a simultaneous brain-wave, for they suddenly gave the fight up, and stampeded as one man.

The leaders were beyond recall, but two remained, tackled low by Wyatt and Clowes after the fashion of the football-field.

The school gathered round its prisoners, panting. The scene of the conflict had shifted little by little to a spot some fifty yards from where it had started. By the side of the road at this point was a green, depressed

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/65


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/66

48 looking pond. Gloomy in the daytime, it looked unspeakable at night. It struck Wyatt, whose finer feelings had been entirely blotted out by tomato, as an ideal place in which to bestow the captives.

"Let's chuck 'em in there," he said.

The idea was welcomed gladly by all, except the prisoners. A move was made towards the pond, and the procession had halted on the brink, when a new voice made itself heard.

"Now then," it said, "what's all this?"

A stout figure in policeman's uniform was standing surveying them with the aid of a small bull's-eye lantern.

"What's all this?"

"It's all right," said Wyatt.

"All right, is it? What's on?"

One of the prisoners spoke.

"Make 'em leave hold of us, Mr. Butt. They're a-going to chuck us in the pond."

"Ho!" said the policeman, with a change in his voice. "Ho, are they? Come now, young gentleman, a lark's a lark, but you ought to know where to stop."

"It's anything but a lark," said Wyatt in the creamy voice he used when feeling particularly savage. "We're the Strong Right Arm of Justice. That's what we are. This isn't a lark, it's an execution."

"I don't want none of your lip, whoever you are," said Mr. Butt, understanding but dimly, and suspecting impudence by instinct.

"This is quite a private matter," said Wyatt. "You run along on your beat. You can't do anything here."

"Ho!"

"Shove 'em in, you chaps."

"Stop!" From Mr. Butt.

"Oo-er!" From prisoner number one.

There was a sounding splash as willing hands urged the first of the captives into the depths. He ploughed his way to the bank, scrambled out, and vanished.

Wyatt turned to the other prisoner.

"You'll have the worst of it, going in second. He'll

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/66


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Kaiser, Isabelle

Kaiser, Isabelle, Swiss writer: b. Beckenried (on Lake Lucerne), 1866. With a command of French and German, she has written in both languages, though most of her writing has been done in French so successfully that she received the prize of the French Academy. Among her published French works are ‘Icibas’ (1888); ‘Sous les étoiles’ (1890); ‘Des ailes’ (1897); ‘Le jardin clos’ (1912), all poems; ‘Cœur de femme’ (1891); ‘Sorcière’ (1895); ‘Héro’ (1898); ‘Notre père qui êtes aux cieux’ (1899); ‘Vive le roi!’ (1903); ‘L'Eclair dans la voile’ (1907); ‘Marcienne de Fluë’ (1909), novels and stories. Her works, written in German, include ‘Wenn die Sonne untergeht’ (1901), a novel; ‘Mein

Herz’ (1908), poems; ‘Die Friedensucherin’ (1908), a romance; ‘Der wandernde See’ (1910), and ‘Von ewiger Liebe’ (1913).


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/69

Rh have churned up the mud a bit. Don't swallow more than you can help, or you'll go getting typhoid. I expect there are leeches and things there, but if you nip out quick they may not get on to you. Carry on, you chaps."

It was here that the regrettable incident occurred. Just as the second prisoner was being launched, Constable Butt, determined to assert himself even at the eleventh hour, sprang forward, and seized the captive by the arm. A drowning man will clutch at a straw. A man about to be hurled into an excessively dirty pond will clutch at a stout policeman. The prisoner did.

Constable Butt represented his one link with dry land. As he came within reach he attached himself to his tunic with the vigour and concentration of a limpet.

At the same moment the executioners gave their man the final heave. The policeman realised his peril too late. A medley of noises made the peaceful night hideous. A howl from the townee, a yell from the policeman, a cheer from the launching party, a frightened squawk from some birds in a neighbouring tree, and a splash compared with which the first had been as nothing, and all was over.

The dark waters were lashed into a maelstrom; and then two streaming figures squelched up the further bank.

The school stood in silent consternation. It was no occasion for light apologies.

"Do you know," said Wyatt, as he watched the Law shaking the water from itself on the other side of the pond, "I'm not half sure that we hadn't better be moving!"

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/69


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/70

50

real, devastating row has many points of resemblance with a prairie fire. A man on a prairie lights his pipe, and throws away the match. The flame catches a bunch of dry grass, and, before any one can realise what is happening, sheets of fire are racing over the country; and the interested neighbours are following their example. (I have already compared a row with a thunderstorm; but both comparisons may stand. In dealing with so vast a matter as a row there must be no stint.)

The tomato which hit Wyatt in the face was the thrown-away match. But for the unerring aim of the town marksman great events would never have happened. A tomato is a trivial thing (though it is possible that the man whom it hits may not think so), but in the present case, it was the direct cause of epoch-making trouble.

The tomato hit Wyatt. Wyatt, with others, went to look for the thrower. The remnants of the thrower's friends were placed in the pond, and "with them," as they say in the courts of law, Police Constable Alfred Butt.

Following the chain of events, we find Mr. Butt, having prudently changed his clothes, calling upon the headmaster.

The headmaster was grave and sympathetic; Mr. Butt fierce and revengeful.

The imagination of the force is proverbial. Nurtured on motor-cars and fed with stop-watches, it has become world-famous. Mr. Butt gave free rein to it.

"Threw me in, they did, sir. Yes, sir."

"Threw you in!"

"Yes, sir. Plop!" said Mr. Butt, with a certain sad relish.

"Really, really!" said the headmaster, "Indeed!

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/70


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/71

Rh This is—dear me! I shall certainly—They threw you in!—Yes, I shall—certainly"

Encouraged by this appreciative reception of his story, Mr. Butt started it again, right from the beginning.

"I was on my beat, sir, and I thought I heard a disturbance. I says to myself, ' 'Allo,' I says, 'a frakkus. Lots of them all gathered together, and fighting.' I says, beginning to suspect something, 'Wot's this all about, I wonder?' I says. 'Blow me if I don't think it's a frakkus.' And," concluded Mr. Butt, with the air of one confiding a secret, "and it was a frakkus!"

"And these boys actually threw you into the pond?"

"Plop, sir! Mrs. Butt is drying my uniform at home at this very moment as we sit talking here, sir. She says to me, 'Why, whatever 'ave you been a-doing? You're all wet.' And," he added, again with the confidential air, " I was wet, too. Wringin' wet."

The headmaster's frown deepened.

"And you are certain that your assailants were boys from the school?"

"Sure as I am that I'm sitting here, sir. They all 'ad their caps on their heads, sir."

"I have never heard of such a thing. I can hardly believe that it is possible. They actually seized you, and threw you into the water"

"Splish, sir!" said the policeman, with a vividness of imagery both surprising and gratifying.

The headmaster tapped restlessly on the floor with his foot.

"How many boys were there?" he asked.

"Couple of 'undred, sir," said Mr, Butt promptly.

"Two hundred!"

"It was dark, sir, and I couldn't see not to say properly; but if you ask me my frank and private opinion I should say couple of 'undred."

"H'm—Well, I will look into the matter at once. They shall be punished."

"Yes, sir."

"Ye-e-s—H'm—Yes—Most severely."

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/71


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/72

52 "Yes, sir."

"Yes—Thank you, constable. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir."

The headmaster of Wrykyn was not a motorist. Owing to this disadvantage he made a mistake. Had he been a motorist, he would have known that statements by the police in the matter of figures must be divided by any number from two to ten, according to discretion. As it was, he accepted Constable Butt's report almost as it stood. He thought that he might possibly have been mistaken as to the exact numbers of those concerned in his immersion; but he accepted the statement in so far as it indicated that the thing had been the work of a considerable section of the school, and not of only one or two individuals. And this made all the difference to his method of dealing with the affair. Had he known how few were the numbers of those responsible for the cold in the head which subsequently attacked Constable Butt, he would have asked for their names, and an extra lesson would have settled the entire matter.

As it was, however, he got the impression that the school, as a whole, was culpable, and he proceeded to punish the school as a whole.

It happened that, about a week before the pond episode, a certain member of the Royal Family had recovered from a dangerous illness, which at one time had looked like being fatal. No official holiday had been given to the schools in honour of the recovery, but Eton and Harrow had set the example, which was followed throughout the kingdom, and Wrykyn had come into line with the rest. Only two days before the O.W.'s matches the headmaster had given out a notice in the hall that the following Friday would be a whole holiday; and the school, always ready to stop work, had approved of the announcement exceedingly.

The step which the headmaster decided to take by way of avenging Mr. Butt's wrongs was to stop this holiday.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/72


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/73

Rh He gave out a notice to that effect on the Monday.

The school was thunderstruck. It could not understand it. The pond affair had, of course, become public property; and those who had had nothing to do with it had been much amused. "There'll be a frightful row about it," they had said, thrilled with the pleasant excitement of those who see trouble approaching and themselves looking on from a comfortable distance without risk or uneasiness. 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. . ..

And here they were, right in it after all. The blow had fallen, and crushed guilty and innocent alike.

The school's attitude can be summed up in three words. It was one vast, blank, astounded "Here, I say!"

Everybody was saying it, though not always in those words. When condensed, everybody's comment on the situation came to that.

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.

The malcontent was Wyatt. He had been responsible for the starting of the matter, and he proceeded now to carry it on till it blazed up into the biggest thing of its kind ever known at Wrykyn—the Great Picnic.

Any one who knows the public schools, their iron-bound conservatism, and, as a whole, intense respect

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/73


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/74

54 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.

It would be an absorbing task for a psychologist to trace the various stages by which an impossibility was changed into a reality. Wyatt's coolness and matter-of-fact determination were his chief weapons. His popularity and reputation for lawlessness helped him. A conversation which he had with Neville-Smith, a day-boy, is typical of the way in which he forced his point of view on the school.

Neville-Smith was thoroughly representative of the average Wrykynian. He could play his part in any minor "rag" which interested him, and probably considered himself, on the whole, a daring sort of person. But at heart he had an enormous respect for authority. Before he came to Wyatt, he would not have dreamed of proceeding beyond words in his revolt. Wyatt acted on him like some drug.

Neville-Smith came upon Wyatt on his way to the nets. The notice concerning the holiday had only been given out that morning, and he was full of it. He expressed his opinion of the headmaster freely and in well-chosen words. He said it was a swindle, that it was all rot, and that it was a beastly shame. He added that something ought to be done about it.

"What are you going to do?" asked Wyatt.

"Well," said Neville-Smith a little awkwardly, guiltily conscious that he had been frothing, and scenting sarcasm, "I don't suppose one can actually do anything."

"Why not?" said Wyatt.

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't you take the holiday?"

"What? Not turn up on Friday!"

"Yes. I'm not going to."

Neville-Smith stopped and stared. Wyatt was unmoved.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/74


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/75

Rh "You're what?"

"I simply sha'n't go to school."

"You're rotting."

"All right."

"No, but, I say, ragging barred. Are you just going to cut off, though the holiday's been stopped?"

"That's the idea."

"You'll get sacked."

"I suppose so. But only because I shall be the only one to do it. If the whole school took Friday off, they couldn't do much. They couldn't sack the whole school."

"By Jove, nor could they! I say!"

They walked on, Neville-Smith's mind in a whirl, Wyatt whistling.

"I say," said Neville-Smith after a pause. "It would be a bit of a rag."

"Not bad.'

"Do you think the chaps would do it?"

"If they understood they wouldn't be alone."

Another pause.

"Shall I ask some of them?" said Neville-Smith.

"Do."

"I could get quite a lot, I believe."

"That would be a start, wouldn't it? I could get a couple of dozen from Wain's. We should be forty or fifty strong to start with."

"I say, what a score, wouldn't it be?"

"Yes."

"I'll speak to the chaps to-night, and let you know."

"All right," said Wyatt. "Tell them that I shall be going anyhow. I should be glad of a little company."

The school turned in on the Thursday night in a restless, excited way. There were mysterious whisperings and gigglings. Groups kept forming in corners apart, to disperse casually and innocently on the approach of some person in authority.

An air of expectancy permeated each of the houses.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/75


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/76

56

school at Wrykyn started at nine o'clock. At that hour there was a call-over in each of the form-rooms. After call-over the forms proceeded to the Great Hall for prayers.

A strangely desolate feeling was in the air at nine o'clock on the Friday morning. Sit in the grounds of a public school any afternoon in the summer holidays, and you will get exactly the same sensation of being alone in the world as came to the dozen or so day-boys who bicycled through the gates that morning. Wrykyn was a boarding-school for the most part, but it had its leaven of day-boys. The majority of these lived in the town, and walked to school. A few, however, whose homes were farther away, came on bicycles. One plutocrat did the journey in a motor-car, rather to the scandal of the authorities, who, though unable to interfere, looked askance when compelled by the warning toot of the horn to skip from road to pavement. A form-master has the strongest objection to being made to skip like a young ram by a boy to whom he has only the day before given a hundred lines for shuffling his feet in form.

It seemed curious to these cyclists that there should be nobody about. Punctuality is the politeness of princes, but it was not a leading characteristic of the school; and at three minutes to nine, as a general rule, you might see the gravel in front of the buildings freely dotted with sprinters, trying to get in in time to answer their names.

It was curious that there should be nobody about to-day. A wave of reform could scarcely have swept through the houses during the night.

And yet—where was everybody?

Time only deepened the mystery. The form-rooms, like the gravel, were empty.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/76


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/77

Rh The cyclists looked at one another in astonishment. What could it mean?

It was an occasion on which sane people wonder if their brains are not playing them some unaccountable trick.

"I say," said Willoughby, of the Lower Fifth, to Brown, the only other occupant of the form-room, "the old man did stop the holiday to-day, didn't he?"

"Just what I was going to ask you," said Brown. "It's jolly rum. I distinctly remember him giving it out in hall that it was going to be stopped because of the O.W.'s day row."

"So do I. I can't make it out. Where is everybody?"

"They can't all be late."

"Somebody would have turned up by now. Why, it's just striking."

"Perhaps he sent another notice round the houses late last night, saying it was on again all right. I say, what a swindle if he did. Some one might have let us know. I should have got up an hour later."

"So should I."

"Hullo, here is somebody."

It was the master of the Lower Fifth, Mr. Spence. He walked briskly into the room, as was his habit. Seeing the obvious void, he stopped in his stride, and looked puzzled.

"Willoughby. Brown. Are you the only two here? Where is everybody?"

"Please, sir, we don't know. We were just wondering.

"Have you seen nobody?"

"No, sir."

"We were just wondering, sir, if the holiday had been put on again, after all."

"I've heard nothing about it. I should have received some sort of intimation if it had been."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you mean to say that you have seen nobody, Brown?"

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/77


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/78

58 "Only about a dozen fellows, sir. The usual lot who come on bikes, sir."

"None of the boarders?"

"No, sir. Not a single one."

"This is extraordinary."

Mr. Spence pondered.

"Well," he said, "you two fellows had better go along up to Hall. I shall go to the Common Room and make inquiries. Perhaps, as you say, there is a holiday to-day, and the notice was not brought to me."

Mr. Spence told himself, as he walked to the Common Room, that this might be a possible solution of the difficulty. He was not a house-master, and lived by himself in rooms in the town. It was just conceivable that they might have forgotten to tell him of the change in the arrangements.

But in the Common Room the same perplexity reigned. Half a dozen masters were seated round the room, and a few more were standing. And they were all very puzzled.

A brisk conversation was going on. Several voices hailed Mr. Spence as he entered.

"Hullo, Spence. Are you alone in the world too?"

"Any of your boys turned up, Spence?"

"You in the same condition as we are, Spence?"

Mr. Spence seated himself on the table.

"Haven't any of your fellows turned up, either?" he said.

"When I accepted the honourable post of Lower Fourth master in this abode of sin," said Mr. Seymour, "it was on the distinct understanding that there was going to be a Lower Fourth. Yet I go into my form-room this morning, and what do I find? Simply Emptiness, and Pickersgill II. whistling 'The Church Parade,' all flat. I consider I have been hardly treated."

"I have no complaint to make against Brown and Willoughby, as individuals," said Mr. Spence; "but, considered as a form, I call them short measure."

"I confess that I am entirely at a loss," said Mr.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/78


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Kaiser

KAISER, kīzėr, a title, the German equivalent for emperor. The Romans added the name of Cæsar to their own kings in honor of the “divine Julius.” Diocletian first made it a distinctive title, and in 395 A.D., on the division of the empire, the title was borne by both the Eastern and Western emperors. It lapsed in 476 A.D. with the last emperor, but was revived in 800 A.D. by Charlemagne, who was crowned emperor of the West at Rome in that year, after which the title was associated with the king of the Franks and after 962 with the Germans, whose kings became emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. The kings continued to be crowned by the Roman pontiffs at Rome, or at least in Italy, until 1530, when Charles V was crowned at Bologna. On the fall of Constantinople in 1453 the sultan assumed the title, but his claim was not recognized by the Holy Roman emperors until 1718. In 1721 the title of czar was assumed by Peter the Great of Russia. In 1806 the title of Holy Roman emperor was dropped by Francis II of Austria, who retained that of emperor of Austria. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 William I of Prussia assumed the title of German emperor, and this title is distinct from the older title of emperor of Germany. See ;


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/79

Rh Shields precisely. "I have never been confronted with a situation like this since I became a schoolmaster."

"It is most mysterious," agreed Mr. Wain, plucking at his beard. "Exceedingly so."

The younger masters, notably Mr. Spence and Mr. Seymour, had begun to look on the thing as a huge jest.

"We had better teach ourselves," said Mr. Seymour. "Spence, do a hundred lines for laughing in form."

The door burst open.

"Hullo, here's another scholastic Little Bo-Peep," said Mr. Seymour. "Well, Appleby, have you lost your sheep, too?"

"You don't mean to tell me" began Mr. Appleby.

"I do," said Mr. Seymour. "Here we are, fifteen of us, all good men and true, graduates of our Universities, and, as far as I can see, if we divide up the boys who have come to school this morning on fair share-and-share-alike lines, it will work out at about two-thirds of a boy each. Spence, will you take a third of Pickersgill II.?"

"I want none of your charity," said Mr. Spence loftily. "You don't seem to realise that I'm the best off of you all. I've got two in my form. It's no good offering me your Pickersgills. I simply haven't room for them."

"What does it all mean?" exclaimed Mr. Appleby.

"If you ask me," said Mr. Seymour, "I should say that it meant that the school, holding the sensible view that first thoughts are best, have ignored the head's change of mind, and are taking their holiday as per original programme."

"They surely cannot!"

"Well, where are they then?"

"Do you seriously mean that the entire school has—has rebelled?"

" 'Nay, sire,' " quoted Mr. Spence, "'a revolution!'"

"I never heard of such a thing!"

"We're making history," said Mr. Seymour.

"It will be rather interesting," said Mr Spence, "to

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/79


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/80

60 see how the head will deal with a situation like this. One can rely on him to do the statesman-like thing, but I'm bound to say I shouldn't care to be in his place. It seems to me these boys hold all the cards. You can't expel a whole school. There's safety in numbers. The thing is colossal."

"It is deplorable," said Mr. Wain, with austerity. "Exceedingly so."

"I try to think so," said Mr. Spence, "but it's a struggle. There's a Napoleonic touch about the business that appeals to one. Disorder on a small scale is bad, but this is immense. I've never heard of anything like it at any public school. When I was at Winchester, my last year there, there was pretty nearly a revolution because the captain of cricket was expelled on the eve of the Eton match. I remember making inflammatory speeches myself on that occasion. But we stopped on the right side of the line. We were satisfied with growling. But this!"

Mr. Seymour got up.

"It's an ill wind," he said. "With any luck we ought to get the day off, and it's ideal weather for a holiday. The head can hardly ask us to sit indoors, teaching nobody. If I have to stew in my form-room all day, instructing Pickersgill II., I shall make things exceedingly sultry for that youth. He will wish that the Pickersgill progeny had stopped short at his elder brother. He will not value life. In the meantime, as it's already ten past, hadn't we better be going up to Hall to see what the orders of the day are?"

"Look at Shields," said Mr. Spence. "He might be posing for a statue to be called 'Despair!' He reminds me of Macduff. Macbeth, Act iv., somewhere near the end. 'What, all my pretty chickens, at one fell swoop?' That's what Shields is saying to himself."

"It's all very well to make a joke of it, Spence," said Mr. Shields querulously, "but it is most disturbing. Most."

"Exceedingly," agreed Mr. Wain.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/80


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/81

Rh The bereaved company of masters walked on up the stairs that led to the Great Hall.

the form-rooms had been lonely, the Great Hall was doubly, trebly, so. It was a vast room, stretching from side to side of the middle block, and its ceiling soared up into a distant dome. At one end was a daïs and an organ, and at intervals down the room stood long tables. The panels were covered with the names of Wrykynians who had won scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge, and of Old Wrykynians who had taken first in Mods or Greats, or achieved any other recognised success, such as a place in the Indian Civil Service list. A silent testimony, these panels, to the work the school had done in the world.

Nobody knew exactly how many the Hall could hold, when packed to its fullest capacity. The six hundred odd boys at the school seemed to leave large gaps unfilled.

This morning there was a mere handful, and the place looked worse than empty.

The Sixth Form were there, and the school prefects. The Great Picnic had not affected their numbers. The Sixth stood by their table in a solid group. The other tables were occupied by ones and twos. A buzz of conversation was going on, which did not cease when the masters filed into the room and took their places. Every one realised by this time that the biggest row in Wrykyn history was well under way; and the thing had to be discussed.

In the Masters' library Mr. Wain and Mr. Shields, the spokesmen of the Common Room, were breaking the news to the headmaster.

The headmaster was a man who rarely betrayed emotion in his public capacity. He heard Mr. Shields's rambling remarks, punctuated by Mr. Wain's "

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/81


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/82

62 ," to an end. Then he gathered up his cap and gown.

"You say that the whole school is absent?" he remarked quietly.

Mr. Shields, in a long-winded flow of words, replied that that was what he did say.

"Ah!" said the headmaster.

There was a silence.

"'M!" said the headmaster.

There was another silence.

"Ye—e—s!" said the headmaster.

He then led the way into the Hall.

Conversation ceased abruptly as he entered. The school, like an audience at a theatre when the hero has just appeared on the stage, felt that the serious interest of the drama had begun. There was a dead silence at every table as he strode up the room and on to the daïs.

There was something Titanic in his calmness. Every eye was on his face as he passed up the Hall, but not a sign of perturbation could the school read. To judge from his expression, he might have been unaware of the emptiness around him.

The master who looked after the music of the school, and incidentally accompanied the hymn with which prayers at Wrykyn opened, was waiting, puzzled, at the foot of the daïs. It seemed improbable that things would go on as usual, and he did not know whether he was expected to be at the organ, or not. The headmaster's placid face reassured him. He went to his post.

The hymn began. It was a long hymn, and one which the school liked for its swing and noise. As a rule, when it was sung, the Hall re-echoed. To-day, the thin sound of the voices had quite an uncanny effect. The organ boomed through the deserted room.

The school, or the remnants of it, waited impatiently while the prefect whose turn it was to read stammered nervously through the lesson. They were anxious to get on to what the Head was going to say at the end of prayers. At last it was over. The school waited, all ears.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/82


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/83

Rh The headmaster bent down from the daïs and called to Firby-Smith, who was standing in his place with the Sixth.

The Gazeka, blushing warmly, stepped forward.

"Bring me a school list, Firby-Smith," said the headmaster.

The Gazeka was wearing a pair of very squeaky boots that morning. They sounded deafening as he walked out of the room.

The school waited.

Presently a distant squeaking was heard, and Firby-Smith returned, bearing a large sheet of paper.

The headmaster thanked him, and spread it out on the reading-desk.

Then, calmly, as if it were an occurrence of every day, he began to call the roll.

"Abney."

No answer.

"Adams."

No answer.

"Allenby."

"Here, sir," from a table at the end of the room. Allenby was a prefect, in the Science Sixth.

The headmaster made a mark against his name with a pencil.

"Arkwright."

No answer.

He began to call the names more rapidly.

"Arlington. Arthur. Ashe. Aston."

"Here, sir," in a shrill treble from the rider in motor-cars.

The headmaster made another tick.

The list came to an end after what seemed to the school an unconscionable time, and he rolled up the paper again, and stepped to the edge of the daïs.

"All boys not in the Sixth Form," he said, "will go to their form-rooms and get their books and writing-materials, and return to the Hall."

("Good work," murmured Mr. Seymour to himself. "Looks as if we should get that holiday after all.")

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/83


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/84

64 "The Sixth Form will go to their form-room as usual. I should like to speak to the masters for a moment."

He nodded dismissal to the school.

The masters collected on the daïs.

"I find that I shall not require your services to-day," said the headmaster. "If you will kindly set the boys in your forms some work that will keep them occupied, I will look after them here. It is a lovely day," he added, with a smile, "and I am sure you will all enjoy yourselves a great deal more in the open air."

"That," said Mr. Seymour to Mr. Spence, as they went downstairs, "is what I call a genuine sportsman."

"My opinion neatly expressed," said Mr. Spence. "Come on the river. Or shall we put up a net, and have a knock?"

"River, I think. Meet you at the boat-house."

"All right. Don't be long."

"If every day were run on these lines, school-mastering wouldn't be such a bad profession. I wonder if one could persuade one's form to run amuck as a regular thing."

"Pity one can't. It seems to me the ideal state of things. Ensures the greatest happiness of the greatest number."

"I say! Suppose the school has gone up the river, too, and we meet them! What shall we do?"

"Thank them," said Mr. Spence, "most kindly. They've done us well."

The school had not gone up the river. They had marched in a solid body, with the school band at their head playing Sousa, in the direction of Worfield, a market town of some importance, distant about five miles. Of what they did and what the natives thought of it all, no very distinct records remain. The thing is a tradition on the countryside now, an event colossal and heroic, to be talked about in the tap-room of the village inn during the long winter evenings. The papers got hold of it, but were curiously misled as to the nature of the demonstration. This was the fault of the reporter

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/84


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/85

Rh on the staff of the Worfield Intelligencer and Farmers' Guide, who saw in the thing a legitimate "march-out," and, questioning a straggler as to the reason for the expedition and gathering foggily that the restoration to health of the Eminent Person was at the bottom of it, said so in his paper. And two days later, at about the time when Retribution had got seriously to work, the Daily Mail reprinted the account, with comments and elaborations, and headed it "Loyal Schoolboys." The writer said that great credit was due to the headmaster of Wrykyn for his ingenuity in devising and organising so novel a thanksgiving celebration. And there was the usual conversation between "a rosy-cheeked lad of some sixteen summers" and "our representative," in which the rosy-cheeked one spoke most kindly of the headmaster, who seemed to be a warm personal friend of his.

The remarkable thing about the Great Picnic was its orderliness. Considering that five hundred and fifty boys were ranging the country in a compact mass, there was wonderfully little damage done to property. Wyatt's genius did not stop short at organising the march. In addition, he arranged a system of officers which effectually controlled the animal spirits of the rank and file. The prompt and decisive way in which rioters were dealt with during the earlier stages of the business proved a wholesome lesson to others who would have wished to have gone and done likewise. A spirit of martial law reigned over the Great Picnic. And towards the end of the day fatigue kept the rowdy-minded quiet.

At Worfield the expedition lunched. It was not a market-day, fortunately, or the confusion in the narrow streets would have been hopeless. On ordinary days Worfield was more or less deserted. It is astonishing that the resources of the little town were equal to satisfying the needs of the picnickers. They descended on the place like an army of locusts.

Wyatt, as generalissimo of the expedition, walked into the "Grasshopper and Ant," the leading inn of the town.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/85


text:
Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/77

Rh us two leagues to Oberwald, and from there the usual reckoning makes six leagues to Realp. Our mule is to follow us with the baggage as far as it is possible to take him.

, Nov. 12, 1779.

Evening.

We reached this place just at nightfall. We have surmounted all difficulties, and the knots which entangled our path have been cut in two. Before I tell you where we are lodged, and before I describe to you the character of our hosts, allow me the gratification of going over in thought the road which we did not see before us without anxiety, but which we have left behind us without accident, though not without difficulty. About seven we started from Munster, and saw before us the snow-covered amphitheatre of mountain summits, and took to be the Furca the mountain which in the background stood obliquely before it. But, as we afterward learned, we made a mistake: it was concealed from our view by the mountains on our left and by high clouds. The east wind blew strong, and fought with some snow-clouds, chasing the drifts, now over the mountains, now up the valley. But this only made the snow-drifts deeper on the ground, and caused us several times to miss our way; although, shut in as we were on both sides, we could not fail of reaching Oberwald eventually. About nine we actually got there: and, when we dropped in at an inn, its inmates were not a little surprised to see such characters appear there this time of the year. We asked whether the pass over the Furca were still practicable; and they answered, that their folk crossed for the greater part of the winter, but whether we should be able to get across, they could not tell. We immediately sent for some of these persons to be our guides. There soon appeared a strong, thick-set peasant, whose very look and shape inspired confidence. With him we


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/86

66 "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!"

The first shock over, the staff of the "Grasshopper and Ant" bustled about. Other inns were called upon for help. Private citizens rallied round with bread, jam, and apples. And the army lunched sumptuously.

In the early afternoon they rested, and as evening began to fall, the march home was started.

At the school, net practice was just coming to an end when, faintly, as the garrison of Lucknow heard the first skirl of the pipes of the relieving force, those on the grounds heard the strains of the school band and a murmur of many voices. Presently the sounds grew more distinct, and up the Wrykyn road came marching the vanguard of the column, singing the school song. They looked weary but cheerful.

As the army drew near to the school, it melted away little by little, each house claiming its representatives. At the school gates only a handful were left.

Bob Jackson, walking back to Donaldson's, met Wyatt at the gate, and gazed at him, speechless.

"Hullo," said Wyatt, "been to the nets? I wonder if there's time for a ginger-beer before the shop shuts."

headmaster was quite bland and business-like about it all. There were no impassioned addresses from the daïs. He did not tell the school that it ought to be ashamed of itself. Nor did he say that he should never

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/86


text:
Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/78

68 began to treat: if he thought the pass was practicable for us, let him say so, and then take one or more comrades and come with us. After a short pause he agreed, and went away to get ready and to fetch the others. In the meantime we paid our muleteer the hire of his beast, since we could no longer make any use of his mule; and having eaten some bread and cheese, and drank a glass of red wine, felt full of strength and spirits, as our guide came back, followed by another man, who looked still bigger and stronger, and, seeming to have all the strength and courage of a horse, he quickly shouldered our portmanteau. And now we set out, a party of five, through the village, and soon reached the foot of the mountain, which lay on our left, and began gradually to ascend it. At first we had to follow a beaten track which came down from a neighbouring Alp: soon, however, this came to an end, and we had to go up the mountainside through the snow. Our guides, with great skill, tracked their way among the rocks around which the usual path winds, although the deep and smooth snow had covered all alike. Still our road lay through a forest of pines, while the Rhone flowed beneath us in a narrow, unfruitful valley. Into it we also, after a little while, had to descend, and, by crossing a little foot-bridge, we came in sight of the glacier of the Rhone. It is the hugest we have as yet had so full a view of. Being of very great breadth, it occupies the whole saddle of the mountain, and descends uninterruptedly down to the point, where, in the valley, the Rhone flows out of it. At this source the people tell us it has for several years been decreasing. But that is as nothing compared with all the rest of the huge mass. Although everything was full of snow, still the rough crags of ice, on which the wind did not allow the snow to lie, were visible with their dark blue fissures, and you could see clearly where the glacier ended and the snow-covered


text:
Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/79

Rh rock began. To this point, which lay on our left, we came very close. Presently we again reached a light foot-bridge over a little mountain-stream, which flowed through a barren, trough-shaped valley to join the Rhone. After passing the glacier, neither on the right, nor on the left, nor before you, was there a tree to be seen: all was one desolate waste,—no rugged and prominent rocks, nothing but long smooth valleys, slightly inclining eminences, which now, in the snow,, which levelled all inequalities, presented to us their simple, unbroken surfaces. Turning now to the left, we ascended a mountain, sinking at every step deep in the snow. One of our guides had to go first, and, boldly treading down the snow, break the way by which we were to follow.

It was a strange sight, when, turning for a moment your attention from the road, you directed it to yourself and your fellow travellers. In the most desolate region of the world, in a boundless, monotonous wilderness of mountains enveloped in snow, where, for three leagues before and behind, you would not expect to meet a living soul, while on both sides you had the deep hollows of a web of mountains, you might see a line of men wending their way, treading each in the deep footsteps of the one before him, and where, in the whole of the wide expanse thus smoothed over, the eye could discern nothing but the track they left behind them. The hollows as we left them lay behind us gray and boundless in the mist. The changing clouds continually passed over the pale disk of the sun, and spread over the whole scene a perpetually moving veil. I am convinced that any one, who, while pursuing this route, allowed his imagination to gain the mastery, would, even in the absence of all immediate danger, fall a victim to his own apprehensions and fears. In reality, there is little or no risk of a fall here. The great danger is from the avalanches, when the snow


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/87

Rh have thought it of them. Prayers on the Saturday morning were marked by no unusual features. There was, indeed, a stir of excitement when he came to the edge of the daïs, and cleared his throat as a preliminary to making an announcement. Now for it, thought the school.

This was the announcement.

"There has been an outbreak of chicken-pox in the town. All streets except the High Street will in consequence be out of bounds till further notice."

He then gave the nod of dismissal.

The school streamed downstairs, marvelling.

The less astute of the picnickers, unmindful of the homely proverb about hallooing before leaving the wood, were openly exulting. It seemed plain to them that the headmaster, baffled by the magnitude of the thing, had resolved to pursue the safe course of ignoring it altogether. To lie low is always a shrewd piece of tactics, and there seemed no reason why the Head should not have decided on it in the present instance.

Neville-Smith was among these premature rejoicers.

"I say," he chuckled, overtaking Wyatt in the cloisters, "this is all right, isn't it! He's funked it. I thought he would. Finds the job too big to tackle."

Wyatt was damping.

"My dear chap," he said, "it's not over yet by a long chalk. It hasn't started yet."

"What do you mean? Why didn't he say anything about it in Hall, then?"

"Why should he? Have you ever had tick at a shop?"

"Of course I have. What do you mean? Why?"

"Well, they didn't send in the bill right away. But it came all right."

"Do you think he's going to do something then?"

"Rather. You wait."

Wyatt was right.

Between ten and eleven on Wednesdays and Saturdays old Bates, the school sergeant, used to copy out the

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/87


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/88

68 names of those who were in extra lesson, and post them outside the school shop. The school inspected the list during the quarter to eleven interval.

To-day, rushing to the shop for its midday bun, the school was aware of a vast sheet of paper where usually there was but a small one. They surged round it. Buns were forgotten. What was it?

Then the meaning of the notice flashed upon them. The headmaster had acted. This bloated document was the extra lesson list, swollen with names as a stream swells with rain. It was a comprehensive document. It left out little.

"The following boys will go in to extra lesson this afternoon and next Wednesday," it began. And "the following boys" numbered four hundred.

"Bates must have got writer's cramp," said Clowes, as he read the huge scroll.

Wyatt met Mike after school, as they went back to the house.

"Seen the 'extra' list?" he remarked. "None of the kids are in it, I notice. Only the bigger fellows. Rather a good thing. I'm glad you got off."

"Thanks," said Mike, who was walking a little stiffly. "I don't know what you call getting off. It seems to me you're the chaps who got off."

"How do you mean?"

"We got tanned," said Mike ruefully.

"What!"

"Yes. Everybody below the Upper Fourth."

Wyatt roared with laughter.

"By Gad," he said, "he is an old sportsman. I never saw such a man. He lowers all records."

"Glad you think it funny. You wouldn't have if you'd been me. I was one of the first to get it. He was quite fresh."

"Sting?"

"Should think it did."

"Well, buck up. Don't break down."

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/88


text:
Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/80

70 has become deeper than it is at present, and begins to roll. However, our guide told us that they cross the mountains throughout the winter, carrying from Valais to St. Gothard skins of the chamois, in which a considerable trade is carried on here. But then, to avoid the avalanches, they do not take the route that we did, but remain for some time longer in the broad valley, and then go straight up the mountain. This road is safer, but much more inconvenient. After a march of about three hours and a half, we reached the saddle of the Furca, near the cross which marks the boundary of Valais and Uri. Even here we could not distinguish the double peak from which the Furca derives its name. We now hoped for an easier descent; but our guides soon announced to us still deeper snow, as we immediately found it to be. Our march continued in single file, as before; and the foremost man, who broke the path, often sank up to his waist in the snow. The readiness of the people, and their light way of speaking of matters, served to keep up our courage; and I will say, for myself, that I have accomplished the journey without fatigue, although I cannot say that it was a mere walk. The huntsman Hermann asserted that he had often before met with equally deep snow in the forests of Thuringia; but at last he could not help bursting out with a loud exclamation, "The Furca is a"——

A vulture, or lammergeyer, swept over our heads with incredible rapidity. It was the only living thing that we had met with in this waste. In the distance we saw the mountains of the Ursi lighted up with the bright sunshine. Our guides wished to enter a shepherd's hut which had been abandoned and snowed up, and to take something to eat; but we urged them to go onwards to avoid standing still in the cold. Here, again, is another group of valleys; and at last we gained an open view into the valley of the Ursi.


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/89

Rh "I'm not breaking down," said Mike indignantly.

"All right. I thought you weren't. Anyhow, you're better off than I am."

"An extra's nothing much," said Mike.

"It is when it happens to come on the same day as the M.C.C. match."

"Oh, by Jove! I forgot. That's next Wednesday, isn't it? You won't be able to play!"

"No."

"I say, what rot!"

"It is, rather. Still, nobody can say I didn't ask for it. If one goes out of one's way to beg and beseech the Old Man to put one in extra, it would be a little rough on him to curse him when he does it."

"I should be awfully sick, if it were me."

"Well, it isn't you, so you're all right. You'll probably get my place in the team."

Mike smiled dutifully at what he supposed to be a humorous sally.

"Or, rather, one of the places," continued Wyatt, who seemed to be sufficiently in earnest. "They'll put a bowler in instead of me. Probably Druce. But there'll be several vacancies. Let's see. Me. Adams. Ashe. Any more? No, that's the lot. I should think they'd give you a chance."

"You needn't rot," said Mike uncomfortably. He had his day-dreams, like everybody else, and they always took the form of playing for the first eleven (and, incidentally, making a century in record time). To have to listen while the subject was talked about lightly made him hot and prickly all over.

"I'm not rotting," said Wyatt seriously, "I'll suggest it to Burgess to-night."

"You don't think there's any chance of it, really, do you?" said Mike awkwardly.

"I don't see why not? Buck up in the scratch game this afternoon. Fielding especially. Burgess is simply mad on fielding. I don't blame him either, especially as he's a bowler himself. He'd shove a man into the

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/89


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/90

70 team like a shot, whatever his batting was like, if his fielding was something extra special. So you field like a demon this afternoon, and I'll carry on the good work in the evening."

"I say," said Mike, overcome, "it's awfully decent of you, Wyatt."

Billy Burgess, captain of Wrykyn cricket, was a genial giant, who seldom allowed himself to be ruffled. The present was one of the rare occasions on which he permitted himself that luxury. Wyatt found him in his study, shortly before lock-up, full of strange oaths, like the soldier in Shakespeare.

"You rotter! You rotter! You worm!" he observed crisply, as Wyatt appeared.

"Dear old Billy!" said Wyatt. "Come on, give me a kiss, and let's be friends."

"You!"

"William! William!"

"If it wasn't illegal, I'd like to tie you and Ashe and that blackguard Adams up in a big sack, and drop you into the river. And I'd jump on the sack first. What do you mean by letting the team down like this? I know you were at the bottom of it all."

He struggled into his shirt—he was changing after a bath—and his face popped wrathfully out at the other end.

"I'm awfully sorry, Bill," said Wyatt. "The fact is, in the excitement of the moment the M.C.C. match went clean out of my mind."

"You haven't got a mind," grumbled Burgess. "You've got a cheap brown paper substitute. That's your trouble."

Wyatt turned the conversation tactfully.

"How many wickets did you get to-day?" he asked.

"Eight. For a hundred and three. I was on the spot. Young Jackson caught a hot one off me at third man. That kid's good."

"Why don't you play him against the M.C.C. on

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/90


text:
Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/81

Rh We now proceeded at a shorter pace; and, after travelling about three leagues and a half from the cross, we saw the scattered roofs of Realp. We had several times questioned our guides as to what sort of an inn, and what kind of wine, we were likely to find in Realp. The hopes they gave us were anything but good; but they assured us that the Capuchins there, although they had not, like those on the summit of St. Gothard, an hospice, were in the habit of entertaining strangers. We should there get some good red wine, and better food than at an inn. We therefore sent one of our party forward to inform the Capuchins of our arrival, and procure a lodging for us. We did not loiter long behind, and arrived very soon after him, when we were received at the door by one of the fathers,—a portly, good-looking man. With much friendliness of manner he invited us to enter, and at the threshold begged that we would put up with such entertainment as they could offer, since at no time, and least of all at this season of the year, were they prepared to receive such guests. He therefore led us into a warm room, and was very busy waiting upon us while we took off our boots, and changed our linen. He begged us once for all to make ourselves perfectly at home. As to our meat, we must, he said, be indulgent; for they were in the middle of their long fast, which would last till Christmas Day. We assured him that a warm room, a bit of bread, and a glass of red wine, would, in our present circumstances, fully satisfy all our wishes. He procured us what we asked for; and we had scarcely refreshed ourselves a little, ere he began to recount to us all that concerned the establishment, and the settlement of himself and fellows, on this waste spot. "We have not," he said, "an hospice, like the fathers on Mount St. Gothard: we are here in the capacity of parish priests, and there are three of us. The duty of preaching falls to my


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/91

Rh Wednesday?" said Wyatt, jumping at his opportunity.

"What? Are you sitting on my left shoe?"

"No. There it is in the corner."

"Right ho! . . . What were you saying?"

"Why not play young Jackson for the first?"

"Too small."

"Rot. What does size matter? Cricket isn't footer. Besides, he isn't small. He's as tall as I am."

"I suppose he is. Dash, I've dropped my stud."

Wyatt waited patiently till he had retrieved it. Then he returned to the attack.

"He's as good a bat as his brother, and a better field."

"Old Bob can't field for toffee. I will say that for him. Dropped a sitter off me to-day. Why the deuce fellows can't hold catches when they drop slowly into their mouths I'm hanged if I can see."

"You play him," said Wyatt. "Just give him a trial. That kid's a genius at cricket. He's going to be better than any of his brothers, even Joe. Give him a shot."

Burgess hesitated.

"You know, it's a bit risky," he said. "With you three lunatics out of the team we can't afford to try many experiments. Better stick to the men at the top of the second."

Wyatt got up, and kicked the wall as a vent for his feelings.

"You rotter," he said. "Can't you see when you've got a good man? Here's this kid waiting for you ready made with a style like Trumper's, and you rave about top men in the second, chaps who play forward at everything, and pat half-volleys back to the bowler! Do you realise that your only chance of being known to Posterity is as the man who gave M. Jackson his colours at Wrykyn? In a few years he'll be playing for England, and you'll think it a favour if he nods to you in the pav. at Lord's. When you're a white-haired old man you'll go doddering about, gassing to your grandchildren,

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/91


text:
Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/82

72 lot; the second father has to look after the school; and the brother, after the household." He went on to describe their hardships and toils, here, at the farthest end of a lonely valley, separated from all the world, and working hard to very little profit. This spot, like all others, was formerly provided with a secular priest; but, an avalanche having buried half of the village, the last one had run away, and taken the pyx with him, whereupon he was suspended, and they, of whom more resignation was expected, were sent there in his place.

In order to write all this, I had retired to an upper room, which is warmed from below by a hole in the floor; and I have just received an intimation that dinner is ready, which, notwithstanding our luncheon, is right welcome news.

About nine.

The fathers, priests, servants, guides, and all, took their dinner together at a common table. The brother, however, who superintended the cooking, did not make his appearance till dinner was nearly over. Out of milk, eggs, and flour he had compounded a variety of dishes, which we tasted one after another, and found them all very good. Our guides, who took great pleasure in speaking of the successful issue of our expedition, praised us for our uncommon dexterity in travelling, and assured us that it was not every one that they would have undertaken the task of being guides to. They even confessed, also, that this morning, when their services were required, one had gone first to reconnoitre, and to see if we looked like people who would really go through all difficulties with them; for they were particularly cautious how they accompanied old or weak people at this time of the year, since it was their duty to take over in safety every one they had once engaged to guide, being bound, in case of his falling sick, to carry him, even though it should


text: Page:Magic (Ellis Stanyon).djvu/247

title: Page:Magic (Ellis Stanyon).djvu/247


text:
Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/83

Rh be at the imminent risk of their own lives, and, if he were to die on the passage, not to leave his body behind. This confession at once opened the floodgates to a host of anecdotes; and each, in turn, had his story to tell of the difficulties and dangers of wandering over the mountains amidst which the people had here to live as in their proper element; so that with the greatest indifference they speak of mischances and accidents to which they themselves are daily liable. One of them told a story of how, on the Candersteg, on his way to Mount Gemmi, he and a comrade with him (he is mentioned on every occasion with both Christian and surname) found a poor family in the deep snow, the mother dying, her boy half dead, and the father in that state of indifference which verges on a total prostration of intellect. He took the woman on his back, and his comrade her son; and thus laden, they had driven before them the father, who was unwilling to move from the spot.

During the descent of Gemmi the woman died on his back; but he brought her, dead as she was, to Leukerbad. When we asked what sort of people they were, and what could have brought them at such a season into the mountains, he said they were poor people of the canton of Berne, who, driven by want, had taken to the road at an unseasonable period of the year, in the hope of finding some relations either in Valais or the Italian canton, and had been overtaken by a snow-storm. Moreover, they told many anecdotes of what had happened to themselves during the winter journeys over the Furca with the chamois-skins; on which expeditions, however, they always travelled in companies. Every now and then our reverend host would make excuses for the dinner, and we redoubled our assurances that we wished for nothing better. We also found that he contrived to bring back the conversation to himself and his own matters, observing that


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/92

72 poor kids, how you 'discovered' M. Jackson. It'll be the only thing they'll respect you for."

Wyatt stopped for breath.

"All right," said Burgess, "I'll think it over. Frightful gift of the gab you've got, Wyatt."

"Good," said Wyatt. "Think it over. And don't forget what I said about the grandchildren. You would like little Wyatt Burgess and the other little Burgesses to respect you in your old age, wouldn't you? Very well, then. So long. The bell went ages ago. I shall be locked out."

On the Monday morning Mike passed the notice-board just as Burgess turned away from pinning up the list of the team to play the M.C.C. He read it, and his heart missed a beat. For, bottom but one, just above the W. B. Burgess, was a name that leaped from the paper at him. His own name.

the day happens to be fine, there is a curious, dream-like atmosphere about the opening stages of a first eleven match. Everything seems hushed and expectant. The rest of the school have gone in after the interval at eleven o'clock, and you are alone on the grounds with a cricket-bag. The only signs of life are a few pedestrians on the road beyond the railings and one or two blazer and flannel-clad forms in the pavilion. The sense of isolation is trying to the nerves, and a school team usually bats 25 per cent. better after lunch, when the strangeness has worn off.

Mike walked across from Wain's, where he had changed, feeling quite hollow. He could almost have cried with pure fright. Bob had shouted after him from a window as he passed Donaldson's, to wait, so that they could walk over together; but conversation was the last thing Mike desired at that moment.

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/92


text:
Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/93

Rh He had almost reached the pavilion when one of the M.C.C. team came down the steps, saw him, and stopped dead.

"By Jove, Saunders!" cried Mike.

"Why, Master Mike!"

The professional beamed, and quite suddenly, the lost, hopeless feeling left Mike. He felt as cheerful as if he and Saunders had met in the meadow at home, and were just going to begin a little quiet net-practice.

"Why, Master Mike, you don't mean to say you're playing for the school already?"

Mike nodded happily.

"Isn't it ripping," he said.

Saunders slapped his leg in a sort of ecstasy.

"Didn't I always say it, sir," he chuckled. "Wasn't I right? I used to say to myself it 'ud be a pretty good school team that 'ud leave you out."

"Of course, I'm only playing as a sub., you know. Three chaps are in extra, and I got one of the places."

"Well, you'll make a hundred to-day, Master Mike, and then they'll have to put you in."

"Wish I could!"

"Master Joe's come down with the Club," said Saunders.

"Joe! Has he really? How ripping! Hullo, here he is. Hullo, Joe?"

The greatest of all the Jacksons was descending the pavilion steps with the gravity befitting an All England batsman. He stopped short, as Saunders had done.

"Mike! You aren't playing!"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm hanged! Young marvel, isn't he, Saunders?"

"He is, sir," said Saunders. "Got all the strokes. I always said it, Master Joe. Only wants the strength."

Joe took Mike by the shoulder, and walked him off in the direction of a man in a Zingari blazer who was bowling slows to another of the M.C.C. team. Mike

title: Page:Mike (Wodehouse).djvu/93


text:
Page:Ruskin - The Seven Lamps of Architecture.djvu/36

10 :Devotional; including all buildings raised for God's service or honour.

 * Memorial; including both monuments and tombs.

 * Civil; including every edifice raised by nations or societies, for purposes of common business or pleasure.

 * Military; including all private and public architecture of defence.

 * Domestic; including every rank and kind of dwelling-place.

Now, of the principles which I would endeavour to develop, while all must be, as I have said, applicable to every stage and style of the art, some, and especially those which are exciting rather than directing, have necessarily fuller reference to one kind of building than another; and among these I would place first that spirit which, having influence in all, has nevertheless such especial reference to devotional and memorial architecture—the spirit which offers for such work precious things, simply because they are precious; not as being necessary to the building, but as an offering, surrendering, and sacrifice of what is to ourselves desirable. It seems to me, not only that this feeling is in most cases wholly wanting in those who forward the devotional buildings of the present day; but that it would even be regarded as a dangerous, or perhaps criminal principle by many among us. I have not space to enter into dispute of all the various objections which may be urged against it—they are many and specious; but I may, perhaps, ask the reader's patience while I set down those simple reasons which cause me to believe it a good and just feeling, and as well-pleasing to God and honourable in men, as it is beyond all dispute necessary to the production of any great work in the kind with which we are at present concerned.

III. Now, first, to define this Lamp, or Spirit, of Sacrifice, clearly. I have said that it prompts us to