"
"No?" said Mike.
"No. I was superannuated last term."
"Bad luck."
"For Eton, yes. But what Eton loses, Sedleigh gains."
"But why Sedleigh, of all places?"
"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--"
"Not Barlitt!" exclaimed Mike.
"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."
"Do you come from Crofton?"
"Yes."
"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.
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