"Here are Mr. Appleby's remarks: 'The boy has genuine ability, which he declines to use in the smallest degree.'"
Mike moaned a moan of righteous indignation.
"'An abnormal proficiency at games has apparently destroyed all desire in him to realise the more serious issues of life.' There is more to the same effect."
Mr. Appleby was a master with very definite ideas as to what constituted a public-school master's duties. As a man he was distinctly pro-Mike. He understood cricket, and some of Mike's shots on the off gave him thrills of pure æsthetic joy; but as a master he always made it his habit to regard the manners and customs of the boys in his form with an unbiased eye, and to an unbiased eye Mike in a form-room was about as near the extreme edge as a boy could be, and Mr. Appleby said as much in a clear firm hand.
"You remember what I said to you about your report at Christmas, Mike? " said Mr. Jackson, folding the lethal document and replacing it in its envelope.
Mike said nothing; there was a sinking feeling in his interior.
"I shall abide by what I said."
Mike's heart thumped.
"You will not go back to Wrykyn next term."
Somewhere in the world the sun was shining, birds were twittering; somewhere in the world lambkins frisked and peasants sang blithely at their toil (flat, perhaps, but still blithely), but to Mike at that moment the sky was black, and an icy wind blew over the face of the earth.
The tragedy had happened, and there was an end of it. He made no attempt to appeal against the sentence. He knew it would be useless, his father, when he made up his mind, having all the unbending tenacity of the normally easy-going man.
Mr. Jackson was sorry for Mike. He understood him, and for that reason he said very little now.
"I am sending you to Sedleigh," was his next remark.
