Read Mike at Wrykyn for Free Online Page A

brown
dressing-gown. His hair was ruffled. He looked like some weird bird.
    “Please,
sir, I thought I heard a noise,” said Mike.
    Mr. Wain
continued to stare.
    “What
are you doing here?” said he at last.
    “Thought
I heard a noise, please, sir.”
    “A
noise?”
    “Please,
sir, a row.”
    “You
thought you heard—”
    The
thing seemed to be worrying Mr. Wain.
    “So I
came down, sir,” said Mike.
    The
house-master’s giant brain still appeared to be somewhat clouded. He looked
about him, and, catching sight of the gramophone, drew inspiration from it.
    “Did
you turn on the gramophone?” he asked.
    “Me, sir!” said Mike, with the air of a bishop accused
of contributing to the Police News.
    “Of
course not, of course not,” said Mr. Wain hurriedly. “Of course not. I don’t
know why I asked. All this is very unsettling. What are you doing here?”
    “Thought
I heard a noise, please, sir.”
    “A
noise?”
    “A row,
sir.”
    If it
was Mr. Wain’s wish that he should spend the night playing Massa Tambo to his
Massa Bones, it was not for him to balk the house-master’s innocent pleasure.
He was prepared to continue the snappy dialogue till breakfast-time.
    “I
think there must have been a burglar in here, Jackson.”
    “Looks
like it, sir.”
    “I
found the window open.”
    “He’s
probably in the garden, sir.”
    Mr.
Wain looked out into the garden with an annoyed expression, as if its behaviour
in letting burglars be in it struck him as unworthy of a respectable garden.
    “He
might be still in the house,” said Mr. Wain, ruminatively.
    “Not
likely, sir.”
    “You
think not?”
    “Wouldn’t
be such a fool, sir. I mean, such an ass, sir.”
    “Perhaps
you are right, Jackson.”
    “I
shouldn’t wonder if he was hiding in the shrubbery, sir.”
    Mr.
Wain looked at the shrubbery, as who should say, “Et tu, Brute!”
    “By
Jove! I think I see him,” cried Mike.
    He ran
to the window, and vaulted through it on to the lawn. An inarticulate protest
from Mr. Wain, rendered speechless by this move just as he had been beginning
to recover his faculties, and he was running across the lawn into the
shrubbery. He felt that all was well. There might be a bit of a row on his
return, but he could always plead overwhelming excitement.
    Wyatt
was round at the back somewhere, and the problem was how to get back without
being seen from the dining-room window. Fortunately a belt of evergreens ran
along the path right up to the house. Mike worked his way cautiously through
these till he was out of sight, then tore for the regions at the back.
    The
moon had gone behind the clouds, and it was not easy to find a way through the
bushes. Twice branches sprang out from nowhere, and hit Mike smartly over the
shins, eliciting sharp howls of pain.
    On the
second of these occasions a low voice spoke from somewhere on his right.
    “Who on
earth’s that?” it said.
    Mike
stopped.
    “Is
that you, Wyatt? I say—”
    “Jackson!”
    The
moon came out again, and Mike saw Wyatt clearly. His knees were covered with
mould. He had evidently been crouching in the bushes on all fours.
    “You
young ass,” said Wyatt. “You promised me that you wouldn’t get out.”
     “Yes,
I know, but ”
    “I
heard you crashing through the shrubbery like a hundred elephants. If you must get out at night and chance being sacked, you might at least have the sense
to walk quietly.”
    “Yes,
but you don’t understand.”
    And
Mike rapidly explained the situation.
    “But
how the dickens did he hear you, if you were in the dining-room?” asked Wyatt.
“It’s miles from his bedroom. You must tread like a policeman.”
    “It
wasn’t that. The thing was, you see, it was rather a rotten thing to do, I
suppose, but I turned on the gramophone.”
    “You—what?”
    “The
gramophone. It started playing ‘The Quaint Old Bird.’ Ripping it was, till Wain
came along.”
    Wyatt
doubled up with noiseless laughter.
    “You’re
a