“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“He’s in the study. He seems—” added Phyllis, throwing in the information by way of a make-weight, “in a beastly wax.”
Mike’s jaw fell slightly. “I hope the dickens it’s nothing to do with that bally report,” was his muttered exclamation.
Mike’s dealings with his father were as a rule of a most pleasant nature. Mr. Jackson was an understanding sort of man, who treated his sons as companions. From time to time, however, breezes were apt to ruffle the placid sea of good-fellowship. Mike’s end-of-term report was an unfailing wind-raiser; indeed, on the arrival of Mr. Blake’s sarcastic résumé of Mike’s short-comings at the end of the previous term, there had been something not unlike a typhoon. It was on this occasion that Mr. Jackson had solemnly declared his intention of removing Mike from Wrykyn unless the critics became more flattering; and Mr. Jackson was a man of his word.
It was with a certain amount of apprehension, therefore, that Jackson entered the study.
“Come in, Mike,” said his father, kicking the waste-paper basket; “I want to speak to you.”
Mike, skilled in omens, scented a row in the offing. Only in moments of emotion was Mr. Jackson in the habit of booting the basket.
There followed an awkward silence, which Mike broke by remarking that he had carted a half-volley from Saunders over the on-side hedge that morning.
“It was just a bit short and off the leg stump, so I stepped out—may I bag the paper-knife for a jiffy? I’ll just show——”