They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over hiswrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into theroom, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a sovereign.

　　When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings andborrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a sovereign comesas something of a blow.

　　"What on earth for?" asked Mike.

　　"I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody.

　　The fact is, I'm in a beastly hole.""Oh, sorry," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have aquid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I havegot, so don't be shy about paying it back."Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud ofgratitude.

　　Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturdaymeant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock againstClaythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scoredninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whomhe was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereignto Jellicoe--why on earth did the man want all that?--meant that,unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had thedesired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.

　　In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playingregularly for the 'Varsity this season, and only the previous week hadmade a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in asufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may bestated at once, he did, by return of post.)Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter--he wasnever a very ready writer--when Stone and Robinson burst into theroom.

　　Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, andwelcomed the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, theyshould have it.

　　But the motives of the expedition were obviously friendly. Stonebeamed. Robinson was laughing.

　　"You're a sportsman," said Robinson.

　　"What did he give you?" asked Stone.

　　They sat down, Robinson on the table, Stone in Psmith' s deck-chair.

　　Mike's heart warmed to them. The little disturbance in the dormitorywas a thing of the past, done with, forgotten, contemporary withJulius Caesar. He felt that he, Stone and Robinson must learn to knowand appreciate one another.

　　There was, as a matter of fact, nothing much wrong with Stone andRobinson. They were just ordinary raggers of the type found at everypublic school, small and large. They were absolutely free from brain.

　　They had a certain amount of muscle, and a vast store of animalspirits. They looked on school life purely as a vehicle for ragging.

　　The Stones and Robinsons are the swashbucklers of the school world.

　　They go about, loud and boisterous, with a whole-hearted and cheerfulindifference to other people's feelings, treading on the toes of theirneighbour and shoving him off the pavement, and always with an eyewide open for any adventure. As to the kind of adventure, they are notparticular so long as it promises excitement. Sometimes they gothrough their whole school career without accident. More often theyrun up against a snag in the shape of some serious-minded and muscularperson who objects to having his toes trodden on and being shoved offthe pavement, and then they usually sober down, to the mutualadvantage of themselves and the rest of the community.

　　One's opinion of this type of youth varies according to one's point ofview. Small boys whom they had occasion to kick, either from pure highspirits or as a punishment for some slip from the narrow path whichthe ideal small boy should tread, regarded Stone and Robinson asbullies of the genuine "Eric" and "St. Winifred's" brand. Masters wererather afraid of them. Adair had a smouldering dislike for them. Theywere useful at cricket, but apt not to take Sedleigh as seriously ashe could have wished.

　　As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get outthe tea-things.

　　"............