Mike said he saw. Psmith thanked him with a certain stately old world courtesy.
"Let us start at the beginning," he resumed. "My infancy. When I was but a babe, my eldest sister was bribed with a shilling an hour by my nurse to keep an eye on me, and see that I did not raise Cain. At the end of the first day she struck for one-and-six, and got it. We now pass to my boyhood. At an early age, I was sent to Eton, everybody predicting a bright career for me. But," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze on Mike through the eyeglass, "it was not to be."
"For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
"This is the most painful part of my narrative. It seems that a certain scug in the next village to ours happened last year to collar a Balliol--"
"That was the man. The son of the vicar. The vicar told the curate, who told our curate, who told our vicar, who told my father, who sent me off here to get a Balliol too. Do _you_ know Barlitt?"
"His father's vicar of our village. It was because his son got a Balliol that I was sent here."
"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?"
"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?"