You are walking along one seemingly fine day, when suddenly there is a
hush, and there falls on you from space one big drop. The next moment
the thing has begun, and you are standing in a shower-bath. It is just
the same with a row. Some trivial episode occurs, and in an instant
the place is in a ferment. It was so with the great picnic at Wrykyn.

The bare outlines of the beginning of this affair are included in a
letter which Mike wrote to his father on the Sunday following the Old
Wrykynian matches.

This was the letter:

"DEAR FATHER,--Thanks awfully for your letter. I hope you are quite
well. I have been getting on all right at cricket lately. My scores
since I wrote last have been 0 in a scratch game (the sun got in my
eyes just as I played, and I got bowled); 15 for the third against an
eleven of masters (without G. B. Jones, the Surrey man, and Spence);
28 not out in the Under Sixteen game; and 30 in a form match. Rather
decent. Yesterday one of the men put down for the second against the
O.W.'s second couldn't play because his father was very ill, so I
played. Wasn't it luck? It's the first time I've played for the
second. I didn't do much, because I didn't get an innings. They stop
the cricket on O.W. matches day because they have a lot of rotten
Greek plays and things which take up a frightful time, and half the
chaps are acting, so we stop from lunch to four. Rot I call it. So I
didn't go in, because they won the toss and made 215, and by the time
we'd made 140 for 6 it was close of play. They'd stuck me in eighth
wicket. Rather rot. Still, I may get another shot. And I made rather a
decent catch at mid-on. Low down. I had to dive for it. Bob played for
the first, but didn't do much. He was run out after he'd got ten. I