"Do you come from Crofton?"     

       "Yes."     

       "I've lived at Lower Benford all my life. We are practically long-lost brothers. Cheer a little, will you?"     

       Mike felt as Robinson Crusoe felt when he met Friday. Here was a fellow human being in this desert place. He could almost have embraced Psmith. The very sound of the name Lower Benford was heartening. His dislike for his new school was not diminished, but now he felt that life there might at least be tolerable.     

       "Where were you before you came here?" asked Psmith. "You have heard my painful story. Now tell me yours."     

       "Wrykyn. My father took me away because I got such a lot of bad reports."     

       "My reports from Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in every sentence. How do you like this place, from what you've seen of it?"     

       "Rotten."     

       "I am with you, Comrade Jackson. You won't mind my calling you Comrade, will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by collaring all you can and sitting on it. We must stick together. We are companions in misfortune. Lost lambs. Sheep that have gone astray. Divided, we fall, together we may worry through. Have you seen Professor Radium yet? I should say Mr. Outwood. What do you think of him?"     

       "He doesn't seem a bad sort of chap. Bit off his nut. Jawed about apses and things."     

       "And thereby," said Psmith, "hangs a tale. I've been making inquiries of a stout sportsman in a sort of Salvation Army uniform, whom I met in the grounds—he's the school sergeant or something, quite a solid man—and I hear that Comrade Outwood's an archaeological cove. Goes about the country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark you, laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off cricket. To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser leg, "was the       

 Prev. P 13/165 next