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My own house, and the first thing I find when I arrive is somebody else's beastly dog scratching holes in the doors and ruining the expensive paint. Stop it, you brute!" The dog's reply was to continue his operations with immense vigour. Ukridge's eyes gleamed behind their glasses. "Give me a good large jug, laddie," he said with ominous calm.
After a time we introduced some sort of system into it. Mrs. Ukridge stood at the door. We chased the hens and brought them in. Then, as we put each through into the basement, she shut the door on it. We also arranged Ukridge's sugar-box coops in a row, and when we caught a fowl we put it in the coop and stuck a board in front of it.
It is true that we had not seen a great deal of one another, and that, when we had met, our interview had been brief and our conversation conventional; but it is the intervals between the meeting that do the real damage. Absence I do not claim the thought as my own makes the heart grow fonder. And now, thanks to Ukridge's amazing idiocy, a barrier had been thrust between us.
"He's not a millionaire yet, but I believe he intends to be one shortly, with the assistance of the fowls. But you mustn't look on me as in any way responsible for the arrangements at the farm. I am merely a labourer. The brainwork of the business lies in Ukridge's department. As a matter of fact, I came down here principally in search of golf."
I couldn't pay your bills if I wanted to." It began to be borne upon me that I was becoming unpopular. "I am here simply as Mr. Ukridge's guest," I proceeded. After all, why should I spare the man? "I have nothing whatever to do with his business affairs. I refuse absolutely to be regarded as in any way indebted to you. I am sorry for you. You have my sympathy.
Finally, a black bottle of whisky stood grimly beside Ukridge's plate. The professor looked the sort of man who drank claret of a special year, or nothing. We got through the meal somehow, and did our best to delude ourselves into the idea that it was all great fun; but it was a shallow pretence. The professor was very silent by the time we had finished. Ukridge had been terrible.
Gay old bird, he was. He " "This is the fowl-run, professor," I broke in, with a moist, tingling feeling across my forehead and up my spine. I saw the professor stiffen as he walked, while his face deepened in colour. Ukridge's breezy way of expressing himself is apt to electrify the stranger. "You will notice the able way ha! ha! in which the wire-netting is arranged," I continued feverishly.
'I'm afraid that proverb doesn't apply to me, Aunt Elizabeth, she said, 'because I haven't repented! What do you think of that, Laddie?" "Of course, she hasn't had much leisure lately," I agreed. Ukridge's jaw dropped slightly. But he rallied swiftly. "Idiot! That wasn't what she meant. Millie's an angel!" "Of course she is," I said cordially.
You're an excellent chap, sound in wind and limb, and didn't you once tell me that, if you married, you came into a pretty sizeable bit of money?" "Yes, I do. That part of it is all right." Ukridge's voice betrayed perplexity. "I don't understand this thing, old horse," he said. "I should have thought the old boy would have been all over you. Why, damme, I never heard of anything like it.
The dark moments of optimistic minds are sacred, and I would no more have ventured to break in on Ukridge's thoughts at that moment than, if I had been a general in the Grand Army, I would have opened conversation with Napoleon during the retreat from Moscow. I was withdrawing as softly as I could, when my foot grated on the shingle. Ukridge turned. "Hullo, Garny." "Hullo, old man."
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