@siena-sevenwits (and everyone else), here's something that might be of interest. @allieinarden, if I recall correctly, made a point of this a long time ago: the fact that, in Wodehouse's school stories, Mike is a Raffles fan, while Psmith prefers Holmes.
There's a bit in Mike at Wrykyn (aka Jackson Junior, aka the first half of the combined novel Mike), in which fifteen-year-old schoolboy Mike Jackson, having been forbidded by his roommate not to follow him on an expedition of sneaking out of the house after lights-out, decides to sneak around inside the house instead. He gets into the housemaster's dining room, steals some biscuits and fruit and soda water, plays an obnoxious song on the gramophone, and has a great time. Until the housemaster comes to investigate, and then we get these references:
Mike crept across the room on tip-toe and opened the window. It had occurred to him, just in time, that if Mr. Wain, on entering the room, found that the occupant had retired by way of the boys’ part of the house, he might possibly obtain a clue to his identity. If, on the other hand, he opened the window, suspicion would be diverted. Mike had not read his “Raffles” for nothing. The handle-rattling was resumed. This was good. So long as the frontal attack was kept up, there was no chance of his being taken in the rear—his only danger. He stopped the gramophone, which had been pegging away patiently at “The Quaint Old Bird” all the time, and reflected. It seemed a pity to evacuate the position and ring down the curtain on what was, to date, the most exciting episode of his life; but he must not overdo the thing, and get caught. At any moment the noise might bring reinforcements to the besieging force, though it was not likely, for the dining-room was a long way from the dormitories; and it might flash upon their minds that there were two entrances to the room. Or the same bright thought might come to Wain himself. “Now what,” pondered Mike, “would A. J. Raffles have done in a case like this? Suppose he’d been after somebody’s jewels, and found that they were after him, and he’d locked one door, and could get away by the other.” The answer was simple. “He’d clear out,” thought Mike. Two minutes later he was in bed.
On the other hand, there's Psmith and his Holmes references, like in Psmith in the City when he's trying to figure out what his supervisor's hobby is so he can manipulate lenient relations with him.
"[...] Has Comrade Rossiter any hobby that you know of? Spillikins, brass-rubbing, the Near Eastern Question, or anything like that? I have tried him with postage-stamps (which you'd think, as head of a postage department, he ought to be interested in), and dried seaweed, Hall Caine, but I have the honour to report total failure. The man seems to have no pleasures. What does he do with himself when the day's toil is ended? That giant brain must occupy itself somehow." "I don't know," said Bannister, "unless it's football. I saw him once watching Chelsea. I was rather surprised." "Football," said Psmith thoughtfully, "football. By no means a scaly idea. I rather fancy, Comrade Bannister, that you have whanged the nail on the head. Is he strong on any particular team? I mean, have you ever heard him, in the intervals of business worries, stamping on his desk and yelling, 'Buck up Cottagers!' or 'Lay 'em out, Pensioners!' or anything like that? One moment." Psmith held up his hand. "I will get my Sherlock Holmes system to work. What was the other team in the modern gladiatorial contest at which you saw Comrade Rossiter?" "Manchester United." "And Comrade Rossiter, I should say, was a Manchester man." "I believe he is." "Then I am prepared to bet a small sum that he is nuts on Manchester United. My dear Holmes, how—! Elementary, my dear fellow, quite elementary. But here comes the lad in person."
And if he sees himself as Holmes, then Mike is his Watson, as he refers to him once while explaining a plan: "You follow me, Watson?"
In Psmith, Journalist, he makes multiple references to his "Sherlock Holmes system." He jokingly tells office boy Pugsy Maloney that he is "like Sherlock Holmes. After you've explained a thing from start to finish—or, as you prefer to do, from finish to start—it becomes quite simple." He comments "regretfully," while held at gunpoint in a cab, "Sherlock Holmes was right [...] You may remember that he advised Doctor Watson never to take the first cab, or the second. He should have gone further, and urged him not to take cabs at all. Walking is far healthier." And he utters one of the earliest uses of the line "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary." (Holmes never says that. Psmith does!)
Psmith's preference for Holmes, especially with identifying himself as the character, reflects his self-image as a great thinker, an analyst and observer. In terms of personality, he's not especially Holmes-like at all, but he's correct in drawing a parallel between Holmes and Watson and himself and Mike. These friendships have similarities.
Mike, however, prefers a character who operates outside of the law, who is more of an action hero, and who is an excellent cricketer. That last part especially would appeal to Mike, who eats, sleeps, and breathes cricket. It would make sense that he'd prefer his literary heroes as more men of action than intellectuals, because he's that way himself. And while Mike never actually does anything worse than make childish mischief, it's clear that he sees a kind of glamour in imagining himself as doing dangerous and forbidden things.
And, like Psmith, Mike is associating himself with the hero, not the "sidekick." Even if Mike will come to play more of a Bunny-like role in his friendship with Psmith (getting dragged into the shenanigans). Mike, however, has more of a backbone than Bunny, and though he's close to Psmith, his identity/self-esteem isn't so much bound up in his friend. Of course, Mike was a protagonist in his own right before Psmith was ever introduced!
