I ENLIST THE SERVICES OF A MINION
It would be interesting to know to what extent the work of authors is
influenced by their private affairs. If life is flowing smoothly, are
the novels they write in that period of content coloured 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 Hugh Walpole? If Maxim Gorky were
invited to lunch by Trotsky, to meet Lenin, would he sit down and dash
off a trifle in the vein of Stephen Leacock? Probably the eminent have
the power of detaching their writing self from their living, work-a-day
self; but, for my own part, the frame of mind in which I now found
myself had a disastrous effect on my novel that was to be. 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. A magnificent despondency became its keynote. It would not do. I
felt that I must make a resolute effort to shake off my depression.
More than ever the need of 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 harbour when the affairs of the farm did not
require my attention.
Things were not going well on our model chicken farm. Little accidents
marred the harmony of life in the fowl-run. On one occasion a hen--not
Aunt Elizabeth, I am sorry to say,--fell into a pot of tar, and came
out an unspeakable object. Ukridge put his spare pair of tennis shoes
in the incubator to dry them, and permanently spoiled the future of
half-a-dozen eggs which happened to have got there first. Chickens kept
straying into the wrong coops, where they got badly pecked by the
residents. Edwin slew 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.
"After all," he said, "What's one bird more or less? Yes, I know I made
a fuss when that beast of a cat lunched off those two, but that was
simply the principle of the thing. I'm not going to pay large sums for
chickens purely in order that a cat which I've never liked can lunch
well. Still, we've plenty left, and the eggs are coming in better now,
though we've still 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 going 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. Come in and have a drink, laddie, and let's talk it
over."
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 trying to get
my novel into shape. 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.
"Garny, come here. I want you to see the most astounding thing."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Blast if I know. Look at those chickens. They've been doing that for
the last half-hour."
I inspected the chickens. There was certainly something the matter with
them. They were yawning--broadly, as if we bored them. They stood about
singly and in groups, opening and shutting their beaks. It was an
uncanny spectacle.
"What's the matter with them?"
"Can a chicken get a fit of the blues?" I asked. "Because if so, that's
what they've got. I never saw a more bored-looking lot of birds."
"Oh, do look at that poor little brown one by the coop," said Mrs.
Ukridge sympathetically; "I'm sure it's not well. See, it's lying down.
What _can_ be the matter with it?"
"I tell you what we'll do," said Ukridge. "We'll ask Beale. He once
lived with an aunt who kept fowls. He'll know all about it. Beale!"
No answer.
"Beale!!"
A sturdy form in shirt-sleeves appeared through the bushes, carrying a
boot. We seemed to have interrupted him in the act of cleaning it.
"Beale, you know all about fowls. What's the matter with these
chickens?"
The Hired Retainer examined the blase birds with a wooden expression on
his face.
"Well?" said Ukridge.
"The 'ole thing 'ere," said the Hired Retainer, "is these 'ere fowls
have been and got the roop."
I had never heard of the disease before, but it sounded bad.
"Is that what makes them yawn like that?" said Mrs. Ukridge.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Poor things!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And have they all got it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What ought we to do?" asked Ukridge.
"Well, my aunt, sir, when 'er fowls 'ad the roop, she gave them snuff."
"Give them snuff, she did," he repeated, with relish, "every morning."
"Snuff!" said Mrs. Ukridge.
"Yes, ma'am. She give 'em snuff till their eyes bubbled."
Mrs. Ukridge uttered a faint squeak at this vivid piece of
word-painting.
"And did it cure them?" asked Ukridge.
"No, sir," responded the expert soothingly.
"Oh, go away, Beale, and clean your beastly boots," said Ukridge.
"You're no use. Wait a minute. Who would know about this infernal roop
thing? One of those farmer chaps would, I suppose. Beale, go off to the
nearest farmer, and give him my compliments, and ask him what he does
when his fowls get the roop."
"Yes, sir."
"No, I'll go, Ukridge," I said. "I want some exercise."
I whistled to Bob, who was investigating a mole-heap in the paddock,
and set off in the direction of the village of Up Lyme to consult
Farmer Leigh on the matter. He had sold us some fowls shortly after our
arrival, so might be expected to feel a kindly interest in their ailing
families.
The path to Up Lyme lies across deep-grassed meadows. At intervals it
passes over a stream by means of a footbridge. The stream curls through
the meadows like a snake.
And at the first of these bridges I met Phyllis.
I came upon her quite suddenly. The other end of the bridge was hidden
from my view. I could hear somebody coming through the grass, but not
till I was on the bridge did I see who it was. We reached the bridge
simultaneously. She was alone. She carried a sketching-block. All nice
girls sketch a little.
There was room for one alone on the footbridge, and I drew back to let
her pass.
It being the privilege of woman to make the first sign of recognition,
I said nothing. I merely lifted my hat in a non-committing fashion.
"Are you going to cut me, I wonder?" I said to myself. She answered the
unspoken question as I hoped it would be answered.
"Mr. Garnet," she said, stopping at the end of the bridge. A pause.
"I couldn't tell you so before, but I am so sorry this has happened."
"Oh, thanks awfully," I said, realising as I said it the miserable
inadequacy of the English language. At a crisis when I would have given
a month's income to have said something neat, epigrammatic, suggestive,
yet withal courteous and respectful, I could only find a hackneyed,
unenthusiastic phrase which I should have used in accepting an
invitation from a bore to lunch with him at his club.
"Of course you understand my friends--must be my father's friends."
"Yes," I said gloomily, "I suppose so."
"So you must not think me rude if I--I----"
"Cut me," said I, with masculine coarseness.
"Don't seem to see you," said she, with feminine delicacy, "when I am
with my father. You will understand?"
"I shall understand."
"You see,"--she smiled--"you are under arrest, as Tom says."
Tom!
"I see," I said.
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
I watched her out of sight, and went on to interview Mr. Leigh.
We had a long and intensely uninteresting conversation about the
maladies to which chickens are subject. He was verbose and reminiscent.
He took me over his farm, pointing out as we went Dorkings with pasts,
and Cochin Chinas which he had cured of diseases generally fatal on, as
far as I could gather, Christian Science principles.
I left at last with instructions to paint the throats of the stricken
birds with turpentine--a task imagination boggled at, and one which I
proposed to leave exclusively to Ukridge and the Hired Retainer--and
also a slight headache. A visit to the Cob would, I thought, do me
good. I had missed my bathe that morning, and was in need of a breath
of sea-air.
It was high-tide, and there was deep water on three sides of the Cob.
In a small boat in the offing Professor Derrick appeared, fishing. I
had seen him engaged in this pursuit once or twice before. His only
companion was a gigantic boatman, by name Harry Hawk, possibly a
descendant of the gentleman of that name who went to Widdicombe Fair
with Bill Brewer and old Uncle Tom Cobley and all on a certain
memorable occasion, and assisted at the fatal accident to Tom Pearse's
grey mare.
I sat on the seat at the end of the Cob and watched the professor. It
was an instructive sight, an object-lesson to those who hold that
optimism has died out of the race. I had never seen him catch a fish.
He never looked to me as if he were at all likely to catch a fish. Yet
he persevered.
There are few things more restful than to watch some one else busy
under a warm sun. As I sat there, my pipe drawing nicely as the result
of certain explorations conducted that morning with a straw, my mind
ranged idly over large subjects and small. I thought of love and
chicken-farming. I mused on the immortality of the soul and the
deplorable speed at which two ounces of tobacco disappeared. In the end
I always returned to the professor. Sitting, as I did, with my back to
the beach, I could see nothing but his boat. It had the ocean to itself.
I began to ponder over the professor. I wondered dreamily if he were
very hot. I tried to picture his boyhood. I speculated on his future,
and the pleasure he extracted from life.
It was only when I heard him call out to Hawk to be careful, when a
movement on the part of that oarsman set the boat rocking, that I began
to weave romances round him in which I myself figured.
But, once started, I progressed rapidly. I imagined a sudden upset.
Professor struggling in water. Myself (heroically): "Courage! I'm
coming!" A few rapid strokes. Saved! Sequel, a subdued professor,
dripping salt water and tears of gratitude, urging me to become his
son-in-law. That sort of thing happened in fiction. It was a shame that
it should not happen in real life. In my hot youth I once had seven
stories in seven weekly penny papers in the same month, all dealing
with a situation of the kind. Only the details differed. In "Not really
a Coward" Vincent Devereux had rescued the earl's daughter from a fire,
whereas in "Hilda's Hero" it was the peppery old father whom Tom
Slingsby saved. Singularly enough, from drowning. In other words, I, a
very mediocre scribbler, had effected seven times in a single month
what the Powers of the Universe could not manage once, even on the
smallest scale.
* * * * *
It was precisely three minutes to twelve--I had just consulted my
watch--that the great idea surged into my brain. At four minutes to
twelve I had been grumbling impotently at Providence. By two minutes to
twelve I had determined upon a manly and independent course of action.
Briefly it was this. Providence had failed to give satisfaction. I
would, therefore, cease any connection with it, and start a rival
business on my own account. After all, if you want a thing done well,
you must do it yourself.
In other words, since a dramatic accident and rescue would not happen
of its own accord, I would arrange one for myself. Hawk looked to me
the sort of man who would do anything in a friendly way for a few
shillings.
I had now to fight it out with Conscience. I quote the brief report
which subsequently appeared in the _Recording Angel_:--
* * * * *
_Three-Round Contest_: CONSCIENCE (Celestial B.C.) v. J. GARNET
(Unattached).
_Round One_.--Conscience came to the scratch smiling and confident. Led
off lightly with a statement that it would be bad for a man of the
professor's age to get wet. Garnet countered heavily, alluding to the
warmth of the weather and the fact that the professor habitually
enjoyed a bathe every day. Much sparring, Conscience not quite so
confident, and apparently afraid to come to close quarters with this
man. Time called, with little damage done.
_Round Two_.--Conscience, much freshened by the half minute's rest,
feinted with the charge of deceitfulness, and nearly got home heavily
with "What would Phyllis say if she knew?" Garnet, however,
side-stepped cleverly with "But she won't know," and followed up the
advantage with a damaging, "Besides, it's all for the best." The round
ended with a brisk rally on general principles, Garnet crowding in a
lot of work. Conscience down twice, and only saved by the call of time.
_Round Three (and last)_.--Conscience came up very weak, and with
Garnet as strong as ever it was plain that the round would be a brief
one. This proved to be the case. Early in the second minute Garnet
cross-countered with "All's Fair in Love and War." Conscience down and
out. The winner left the ring without a mark.
* * * * *
I rose, feeling much refreshed.
That afternoon I interviewed Mr. Hawk in the bar-parlour of the Net and
Mackerel.
"Hawk," I said to him darkly, over a mystic and conspirator-like pot of
ale, "I want you, next time you take Professor Derrick out
fishing"--here I glanced round, to make sure that we were not
overheard--"to upset him."
His astonished face rose slowly from the pot of ale like a full moon.
"What 'ud I do that for?" he gasped.
"Five shillings, I hope," said I, "but I am prepared to go to ten."
He gurgled.
I encored his pot of ale.
He kept on gurgling.
I argued with the man.
I spoke splendidly. I was eloquent, but at the same time concise. My
choice of words was superb. I crystallised my ideas into pithy
sentences which a child could have understood.
And at the end of half-an-hour he had grasped the salient points of the
scheme. Also he imagined that I wished the professor upset by way of a
practical joke. He gave me to understand that this was the type of
humour which was to be expected from a gentleman from London. I am
afraid he must at one period in his career have lived at one of those
watering-places at which trippers congregate. He did not seem to think
highly of the Londoner.
I let it rest at that. I could not give my true reason, and this served
as well as any.
* * * * *
At the last moment he recollected that he, too, would get wet when the
accident took place, and he raised the price to a sovereign.
A mercenary man. It is painful to see how rapidly the old simple spirit
is dying out of our rural districts. Twenty years ago a fisherman would
have been charmed to do a little job like that for a screw of tobacco.