X
It would be interesting to know to what extent the work of authors is
influenced by their private affairs. If life is flowing smoothly for
them, are the novels they write in that period of content colored with
optimism? And if things are running crosswise, do they work off the
resultant gloom on their faithful public? If, for instance, Mr. W. W.
Jacobs had toothache, would he write like Mr. Hall Caine? If Maxim
Gorky were invited to lunch by the Czar, would he sit down and dash
off a trifle in the vein of Mr. Dooley? Probably great authors have
the power of detaching their writing self from their living, workaday
self. For my own part, the frame of mind in which I now found myself
completely altered the scheme of my novel. I had designed it as a
light-comedy effort. Here and there a page or two to steady the
reader, and show him what I could do in the way of pathos if I cared
to try; but in the main a thing of sunshine and laughter. But now
great slabs of gloom began to work themselves into the scheme of it.
Characters whom I had hitherto looked upon as altogether robust
developed fatal illnesses. A magnificent despondency became the
keynote of the book. Instead of marrying, my hero and heroine had a
big scene in the last chapter, at the end of which she informed him
that she was already secretly wedded to another, a man with whom she
had not even a sporting chance of being happy. I could see myself
correcting proofs made pulpy by the tears of emotional printers.
It would not do. I felt that I must make a determined effort to shake
off my depression. More than ever the need for conciliating the
professor was borne in upon me. Day and night I spurred my brain to
think of some suitable means of engineering a reconciliation.
In the meantime I worked hard among the fowls, drove furiously on the
links, and swam about the harbor when the affairs of the farm did not
require my attention.
Things were not going very well on our model chicken farm. Little
accidents marred the harmony of life in the fowl run. On one occasion
a hen fell into a pot of tar, and came out an unspeakable object.
Chickens kept straying into the wrong coops, and, in accordance with
fowl etiquette, were promptly pecked to death by the resident. Edwin
murdered a couple of Wyandottes, and was only saved from execution by
the tears of Mrs. Ukridge.
In spite of these occurrences, however, his buoyant optimism never
deserted Ukridge. They were incidents, annoying, but in no way
affecting the prosperity of the farm.
"After all," he said, "what's one bird more or less? Yes, I know I was
angry when that beast of a cat lunched off those two, but that was
more for the principle of the thing. I'm not going to pay large sums
for chickens so that a beastly cat can lunch well. Still, we've plenty
left, and the eggs are coming in better now, though we've a deal of
leeway to make up yet in that line. I got a letter from Whiteley's
this morning asking when my first consignment was to arrive. You know,
these people make a mistake in hurrying a man. It annoys him. It
irritates him. When we really get going, Garny, my boy, I shall drop
Whiteley's. I shall cut them out of my list, and send my eggs to their
trade rivals. They shall have a sharp lesson. It's a little hard. Here
am I, worked to death looking after things down here, and these men
have the impertinence to bother me about their wretched business!"
[Illustration: Things were not going very well on our model chicken
farm.]
It was on the morning after this that I heard him calling me in a
voice in which I detected agitation. I was strolling about the
paddock, as was my habit after breakfast, thinking about Phyllis and
my wretched novel. I had just framed a more than usually murky scene
for use in the earlier part of the book, when Ukridge shouted to me
from the fowl run.
"Garnet, come here," he cried, "I want you to see the most astounding
thing."