"Return of the exile," said Psmith. "A joyful occasion tinged with melancholy. Have a cherry?—take one or two. These little acts of unremembered kindness are what one needs after a couple of hours in extra pupil-room. Restore your tissues, Comrade Jackson, and when you have finished those, apply again.
"Is your name Jackson?" inquired Dunster, because Jellicoe wants to see you."
"Alas, poor Jellicoe!" said Psmith. "He is now prone on his bed in the dormitory—there a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Jellicoe, the darling of the crew, faithful below he did his duty, but Comrade Dunster has broached him to. I have just been hearing the melancholy details."
"Old Smith and I," said Dunster, "were at a private school together. I'd no idea I should find him here."
"It was a wonderfully stirring sight when we met," said Psmith; "not unlike the meeting of Ulysses and the hound Argos, of whom you have doubtless read in the course of your dabblings in the classics. I was Ulysses; Dunster gave a life-like representation of the faithful dawg."
"You still jaw as much as ever, I notice," said the animal delineator, fondling the beginnings of his moustache.
"More," sighed Psmith, "more. Is anything irritating you?" he added, eyeing the other's manœuvres with interest.
"You needn't be a funny ass, man," said Dunster, pained; "heaps of people tell me I ought to have it waxed."
"What it really wants is top-dressing with guano. Hullo! another man out. Adair's bowling better to-day than he did yesterday."
I heard about yesterday," said Dunster. "It must have been a rag! Couldn't we work off some other rag on somebody before I go? I shall be stopping here till Monday in the village. Well hit, sir—Adair's bowling is perfectly simple if you go out to it."
