Other editions of book Mike's Little Brother

It was a morning in the middle of April; and the Jackson family were consequently breakfasting in comparative silence. The cricket season had not begun; and except during the cricket season they were in the habit of devoting their powerful minds at breakfast almost exclusively to the task of victualling against the labours of the day. In May; June; July; and August the silence was broken. The three grown-up Jacksons played regularly in first-class cricket; and there was always keen competition among their brothers and sisters for the copy of the Sportsman which was to be found on the hall table with the letters. Whoever got it usually gloated over it in silence till urged wrathfully by the multitude to let them know what had happened; when it would appear that Joe had notched his seventh century; or that Reggie had been run out when he was just getting set; or; as sometimes occurred; that that ass Frank had dropped Fry or Hayward in the slips before he had scored; with the result that the spared expert had made a couple of hundred and was still going strong.

The first half of the story, found in Mike at Wrykyn, introduces Michael "Mike" Jackson. Mike is the youngest son of a renowned cricketing family. Mike's eldest brother Joe is a successful first-class player, while another brother, Bob, is on the verge of his school team. When Mike arrives at Wrykyn himself, his cricketing talent and love of adventure bring him success and trouble in equal measure. The second part, also known as Enter Psmith or Mike and Psmith, takes place two years later. Mike, due to take over as cricket captain at Wrykyn, is withdrawn from the school by his father and sent to a lesser school, called Sedleigh. On arrival at Sedleigh, he meets the eccentric Rupert Psmith, another new arrival from the superior school of Eton. Becoming fast friends, the two eschew cricket and indulge in all manner of high-jinks and adventures. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)

These things happened in New York, which is the capital of the Land of Unexpectedness; which, like Shakespeare’s divinity, shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will. The fool of the family, sent there in despair to add one more to his list of failures, returns home at the end of three years a confirmed victim to elephantitis of the income. His brOther with the bulging forehead and the college education falls, protesting, into the eighteen dollars a week class. Anything may happen in New York. Michael Burke and his brOther Tim had journeyed from Skibbereen to the land where the dollar bills grow on trees, without any definite idea what they were going to do when they arrived there; and New York had handled such promising material in its best manner. Michael it had given to the ranks of the police. Tim it had spirited away. Utterly and absolutely he had vanished. Michael had left Ellis Island while Tim was still there. “And divil a sign,” said he, swinging his club sadly, “have I seen of me little brOther from that day on.” We were patrolling Merlin Street, on the East Side, together, one night when he first told me the story. I was the smallest of all possible reporters on The Manhattan Daily Chronicle at the time, and my most important duty was to cover the Windle Market police-station, which is within a stone’s throw of Merlin Street. It was there that I had met Michael; and when matters were quiet at the station, I would accompany him on his beat, and we would talk of many things, but principally of his little brOther Tim. As the days went on, I must have heard the story fifty times. In the telling it sometimes varied, according to Michael’s mood. Sometimes it would be long and unrestrainedly pathetic. At Other times it would have all the brevity of an official report. But it always ended in the same way. “And divil a sign,” Mike would say, “have I seen of me little brOther from that time on.” My imagination got to work on the thing. I liked Michael, and the contrast between his words and his granite, expressionless face appealed to me. It was not long before I began to build up in my mind’s eye a picture of the vanished Tim. Each night some remark of Mike’s would add anOther touch to the portrait. Why I got the idea that Tim was delicate I do not know. I suppose it came from Mike’s insistence on the epithet “little.” At any rate, Tim to me was a slightly-built boy, curly-haired, blue-eyed and pale. Not unlike little Lord Fauntleroy, grown up. Sometimes he had a cough

It was a morning in the middle of April, and the Jackson family were consequently breakfasting in comparative silence. The cricket season had not begun, and except during the cricket season they were in the habit of devoting their powerful minds at breakfast almost exclusively to the task of victualling against the labours of the day. In May, June, July, and August the silence was broken. The three grown-up Jacksons played regularly in first-class cricket, and there was always keen competition among their brothers and sisters for the copy of the Sportsman which was to be found on the hall table with the letters. Whoever got it usually gloated over it in silence till urged wrathfully by the multitude to let them know what had happened; when it would appear that Joe had notched his seventh century, or that Reggie had been run out when he was just getting set, or, as sometimes occurred, that that ass Frank had dropped Fry or Hayward in the slips before he had scored, with the result that the spared expert had made a couple of hundred and was still going strong. In such a case the criticisms of the family circle, particularly of the smaller Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs. Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed, Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the standard was not kept up. On this particular morning silence reigned. A deep gasp from some small Jackson, wrestling with bread-and-milk, and an occasional remark from Mr. Jackson on the letters he was reading, alone broke it. “He’s getting up,” said Marjory. “I went in to see what he was doing, and he was asleep. So,” she added with a satanic chuckle, “I squeezed a sponge over him. He swallowed an awful lot, and then he woke up, and tried to catch me, so he’s certain to be down soon.” “Marjory

"Mike" by P. G. Wodehouse. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Excerpt from Mike: A Public School StoryAbout the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

P. G. Wodehouse's third novel set at the Wrykyn School. Part 1 was orginally entitled "Mike at Wrykyn" or "Jackson Junior". Part 2 was originally entitled "Mike and Psmith" or "The Lost Lambs", and includes the first appearance of Wodehouse's beloved and recurring character Psmith. Mike was preceded by Wodehouse's novels The Gold Bat and The White Feather.