Where
there is only one in a secret, the secret is more liable to remain
unrevealed. There was nothing, he thought, to be gained from telling
Mike. He forgot what the consequences might be if he did not.
So Psmith kept his own counsel, with the result that Mike went over to
school on the Monday morning in gym shoes.
Edmund, summoned from the hinterland of the house to give his opinion
why only one of Mike's shoes was to be found, had no views on the
subject. He seemed to look on it as one of these things which no fellow
can understand.
"'Ere's one of 'em, Mr. Jackson," he said, as if he hoped that Mike
might be satisfied with a compromise.
"One? What's the good of that, Edmund, you chump? I can't go over to
school in one shoe."
Edmund turned this over in his mind, and then said, "No, sir," as much
as to say, "I may have lost a shoe, but, thank goodness, I can still
understand sound reasoning."
"Well, what am I to do? Where _is_ the other shoe?"
"Don't know, Mr. Jackson," replied Edmund to both questions.
"Well, I mean ... Oh, dash it, there's the bell." And Mike sprinted off
in the gym shoes he stood in.
It is only a deviation from those ordinary rules of school life, which
one observes naturally and without thinking, that enables one to realize
how strong public-school prejudices really are.
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