Mr. Stanley Featherstonhaugh Ukridge dashed into the room, uttering a
roar of welcome as he caught sight of Garnet, still standing petrified
athwart his portmanteau.
"My dear old man," he shouted, springing at him and seizing his hand
in a clutch that effectually woke Garnet from his stupor. "How _are_
you, old chap? This is good. By Jove, this is good! This is fine,
what?"
He dashed back to the door and looked out.
"Come on, Millie," he shouted.
Garnet was wondering who in the name of fortune Millie could possibly
be, when there appeared on the further side of Mr. Ukridge the figure
of a young woman. She paused in the doorway, and smiled pleasantly.
"Garnet, old horse," said Ukridge with some pride, "let me introduce
you to my wife. Millie, this is old Garnet. You've heard me talk about
him."
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Ukridge.
Garnet bowed awkwardly. The idea of Ukridge married was something too
overpowering to be assimilated on the instant. If ever there was a man
designed by nature to be a bachelor, Stanley Ukridge was that man.
Garnet could feel that he himself was not looking his best. He knew in
a vague, impersonal way that his eyebrows were still somewhere in the
middle of his forehead, whither they had sprung in the first moment of
surprise, and that his jaw, which had dropped, had not yet resumed
its normal posture. Before committing himself to speech he made a
determined effort to revise his facial expression.
"Buck up, old horse," said Ukridge. He had a painful habit of
addressing all and sundry by that title. In his school-master days he
had made use of it while interviewing the parents of new pupils, and
the latter had gone away, as a rule, with a feeling that this must be
either the easy manner of genius or spirits, and hoping for the best.
Later, he had used it to perfect strangers in the streets. On one
occasion he had been heard to address a bishop by that title.
"Surprised to find me married, what? Garny, old boy"--sinking his
voice to what was intended to be a whisper--"take my tip. You go and
do the same. You feel another man. Give up this bachelor business.
It's a mug's game. Go and get married, my boy, go and get married. By
gad, I've forgotten to pay the cabby. Half a moment."
He was out of the door and on his way downstairs before the echoes of
his last remark had ceased to shake the window of the sitting room.
Garnet was left to entertain Mrs. Ukridge.
So far her share in the conversation had been small. Nobody talked
very much when Ukridge was on the scene. She sat on the edge of
Garnet's big basket chair, looking very small and quiet. She smiled
pleasantly, as she had done during the whole of the preceding
dialogue. It was apparently her chief form of expression.
Jerry Garnet felt very friendly toward her. He could not help pitying
her. Ukridge, he thought, was a very good person to know casually, but
a little of him, as his former headmaster had once said in a moody,
reflective voice, went a very long way. To be bound to him for life
was not the ideal state for a girl. If he had been a girl, he felt,
he would as soon have married a volcano.
"And she's so young," he thought, as he looked across at the basket
chair. "Quite a kid."
"You and Stanley have known each other a long time, haven't you?" said
the object of his pity, breaking the silence.
"Yes. Oh, yes," said Garnet. "Several years. We were masters at the
same school together."
Mrs. Ukridge leaned forward with round, shining eyes.
"Isn't he a _wonderful_ man, Mr. Garnet!" she said ecstatically.
Not yet, to judge from her expression and the tone of her voice, had
she had experience of the disadvantages attached to the position of
Mrs. Stanley Ukridge.
Garnet could agree with her there.
"Yes, he is certainly wonderful," he said.
"I believe he could do anything."
"Yes," said Garnet. He believed that Ukridge was at least capable of
anything.
"He has done so many things. Have you ever kept fowls?" she broke off
with apparent irrelevance.
"No," said Garnet. "You see, I spend so much of my time in town. I
should find it difficult."
Mrs. Ukridge looked disappointed.
"I was hoping you might have had some experience. Stanley, of course,
can turn his hand to anything, but I think experience is such a good
thing, don't you?"
"It is," said Garnet, mystified. "But--"
"I have bought a shilling book called 'Fowls and All About Them,' but
it is very hard to understand. You see, we--but here is Stanley. He
will explain it all."
"Well, Garnet, old horse," said Ukridge, reëntering the room after
another energetic passage of the stairs, "settle down and let's talk
business. Found cabby gibbering on doorstep. Wouldn't believe I didn't
want to bilk him. Had to give him an extra shilling. But now, about
business. Lucky to find you in, because I've got a scheme for you,
Garny, old boy. Yes, sir, the idea of a thousand years. Now listen to
me for a moment."
He sat down on the table and dragged a chair up as a leg rest. Then he
took off his pince-nez, wiped them, readjusted the wire behind his
ears, and, having hit a brown patch on the knee of his gray flannel
trousers several times in the apparent hope of removing it, began to
speak.
"About fowls," he said.
"What about them?" asked Garnet. The subject was beginning to interest
him. It showed a curious tendency to creep into the conversation.
"I want you to give me your undivided attention for a moment," said
Ukridge. "I was saying to my wife only the other day: 'Garnet's the
man. Clever man, Garnet. Full of ideas.' Didn't I, Millie?"
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge, smiling.
"Well?" said Garnet.
"The fact is," said Ukridge, with a Micawber-like burst of candor, "we
are going to keep fowls."
He stopped and looked at Garnet in order to see the effect of the
information. Garnet bore it with fortitude.
"Yes?" he said.
Ukridge shifted himself farther on to the table and upset the inkpot.
"Never mind," he said, "it'll soak in. Don't you worry about that, you
keep listening to me. When I said we meant to keep fowls, I didn't
mean in a small sort of way--two cocks and a couple of hens and a
ping-pong ball for a nest egg. We are going to do it on a large scale.
We are going to keep," he concluded impressively, "a chicken farm!"
"A chicken farm," echoed Mrs. Ukridge with an affectionate and
admiring glance at her husband.
"Ah," said Garnet, who felt his responsibilities as chorus.
"I've thought it all out," continued Ukridge, "and it's as clear as
mud. No expenses, large profits, quick returns. Chickens, eggs, and no
work. By Jove, old man, it's the idea of a lifetime. Just listen to me
for a moment. You buy your hen--"
"One hen?" inquired Garnet.
"Call it one for the sake of argument. It makes my calculations
clearer. Very well, then. You buy your hen. It lays an egg every day
of the week. You sell the eggs--say--six for fivepence. Keep of hen
costs nothing. Profit at least fourpence, three farthings on every
half-dozen eggs. What do you think of that, Bartholomew?"
Garnet admitted that it sounded like an attractive scheme, but
expressed a wish to overhaul the figures in case of error.
"Error!" shouted Ukridge, pounding the table with such energy that it
groaned beneath him. "Error? Not a bit of it. Can't you follow a
simple calculation like that? The thing is, you see, you get your
original hen for next to nothing. That's to say, on tick. Anybody will
let you have a hen on tick. Now listen to me for a moment. You let
your hen set, and hatch chickens. Suppose you have a dozen hens. Very
well, then. When each of the dozen has a dozen chickens, you send the
old hens back with thanks for the kind loan, and there you are,
starting business with a hundred and forty-four free chickens to your
name. And after a bit, when the chickens grow up and begin to lay, all
you have to do is to sit back in your chair and gather in the big
checks. Isn't that so, Millie?"
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge with shining eyes.
"We've fixed it all up. Do you know Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire? On the
borders of Devon. Quiet little fishing village. Bathing. Sea air.
Splendid scenery. Just the place for a chicken farm. I've been looking
after that. A friend of my wife's has lent us a jolly old house with
large grounds. All we've got to do is to get in the fowls. That's all
right. I've ordered the first lot. We shall find them waiting for us
when we arrive."
"Well," said Garnet, "I'm sure I wish you luck. Mind you let me know
how you get on."
"Let you know!" roared Ukridge. "Why, old horse, you've got to come,
too. We shall take no refusal. Shall we, Millie?"
"No, dear," murmured Mrs. Ukridge.
"Of course not," said Ukridge. "No refusal of any sort. Pack up
to-night, and meet us at Waterloo to-morrow."
"It's awfully good of you--" began Garnet a little blankly.
"Not a bit of it, not a bit of it. This is pure business. I was saying
to my wife when we came in that you were the very man for us. 'If old
Garnet's in town,' I said, 'we'll have him. A man with his flow of
ideas will be invaluable on a chicken farm.' Didn't I, Millie?"
Mrs. Ukridge murmured the response.
"You see, I'm one of these practical men. I go straight ahead,
following my nose. What you want in a business of this sort is a touch
of the dreamer to help out the practical mind. We look to you for
suggestions, Montmorency. Timely suggestions with respect to the
comfort and upbringing of the fowls. And you can work. I've seen you.
Of course you take your share of the profits. That's understood. Yes,
yes, I must insist. Strict business between friends. We must arrange
it all when we get down there. My wife is the secretary of the firm.
She has been writing letters to people, asking for fowls. So you see
it's a thoroughly organized concern. There's money in it, old horse.
Don't you forget that."
"We should be so disappointed if you did not come," said Mrs. Ukridge,
lifting her childlike eyes to Garnet's face.
Garnet stood against the mantelpiece and pondered. In after years he
recognized that that moment marked an epoch in his life. If he had
refused the invitation, he would not have--but, to quote the old
novelists, we anticipate. At any rate, he would have missed a
remarkable experience. It is not given to everyone to see Mr. Stanley
Ukridge manage a chicken farm.
"The fact is," he said at last, "I was thinking of going somewhere
where I could get some golf."
Ukridge leaped on the table triumphantly.
"Lyme Regis is just the place for you, then. Perfect hotbed of golf.
Fine links at the top of the hill, not half a mile from the farm.
Bring your clubs. You'll be able to have a round or two in the
afternoons. Get through serious work by lunch time."
"You know," said Garnet, "I am absolutely inexperienced as regards
fowls."
"Excellent!" said Ukridge. "Then you're just the man. You will bring
to the work a mind entirely unclouded by theories. You will act solely
by the light of your intelligence."
"Er--yes," said Garnet.
"I wouldn't have a professional chicken farmer about the place if he
paid to come. Natural intelligence is what we want. Then we can rely
on you?"
"Very well," said Garnet slowly. "It's very kind of you to ask me."
"It's business, Cuthbert, business. Very well, then. We shall catch
the eleven-twenty at Waterloo. Don't miss it. You book to Axminster.
Look out for me on the platform. If I see you first, I'll shout."
Garnet felt that that promise rang true.
"Then good-by for the present. Millie, we must be off. Till to-morrow,
Garnet."
"Good-by, Mr. Garnet," said Mrs. Ukridge.
Looking back at the affair after the lapse of years, Garnet was
accustomed to come to the conclusion that she was the one pathetic
figure in the farce. Under what circumstances she had married Ukridge
he did not learn till later. He was also uncertain whether at any
moment in her career she regretted it. But it was certainly pathetic
to witness her growing bewilderment during the weeks that followed, as
the working of Ukridge's giant mind was unfolded to her little by
little. Life, as Ukridge understood the word, must have struck her as
a shade too full of incident to be really comfortable. Garnet was wont
to console himself by the hope that her very genuine love for her
husband, and his equally genuine love for her, was sufficient to
smooth out the rough places of life.
As he returned to his room, after showing his visitors to the door,
the young man upstairs, who had apparently just finished breakfast,
burst once more into song:
"We'll never come back no more, boys,
We'll never come back no more."
Garnet could hear him wedding appropriate dance to the music.
"Not for a few weeks, at any rate," he said to himself, as he started
his packing at the point where he had left off.