would have a bad time that season. And it had been such a wretched
athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had been hopeless,
and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by over sixty points.
Sheen's victory in the light weights at Aldershot had been their one
success. And now, on top of all this, the captain of cricket was removed
during the Easter holidays. Mike's heart bled for Wrykyn, and he found
himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works with a great loathing.

The only thing he could find in its favor was the fact that it was set
in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn country,
but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through woods and
past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this that he
caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings that wore
an unmistakably schoollike look.

This must be Sedleigh.

Ten minutes' walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker's boy
directed him to Mr. Outwood's.

There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings by
a cricket field. Outwood's was the middle one of these.

Mike went to the front door and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always charged
in at the beginning of term at the boys' entrance, but this formal
reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.

He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with books.
Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.