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"She's a precious sight too good for you, you old rotter. You bear that fact steadily in mind, and we'll make something of you yet." At this point Mrs. Ukridge joined us. She had been exploring the house, and noting the damage done. Her eyes were open to their fullest extent. "Oh, Mr. Garnet, couldn't you have stopped them?" I felt a worm. Had I done as much as I might have done to stem the tide?
"Hullo, so you're back," I said. "You've discovered my secret," he admitted; "will you have a cigar or a cocoanut?" There was a pause. "Trouble I hear, while I was away," he said. I nodded. "The man I live with, Ukridge, did what you warned me against. Touched on the Irish question." "Home Rule?" "He mentioned it among other things." "And the professor went off?" "Like a bomb." "He would.
Ukridge listened with growing indignation. "Millie, you know how to light a fire. Garnet and I will be collecting cups and things. When that scoundrel Beale arrives I shall tear him limb from limb. Deserting us like this! The man must be a thorough fraud. He told me he was an old soldier. If that's the sort of discipline they used to keep in his regiment, thank God, we've got a Navy!
There were little unpleasantnesses once a roar of anguish told that Ukridge's hammer had found the wrong billet, and on another occasion my flannel trousers suffered on the wire but the work proceeded steadily. By the middle of the afternoon, things were in a sufficiently advanced state to suggest to Ukridge the advisability of a halt for refreshments.
But the probability was that the news would spread, and the injured merchants of Dorchester and Axminster rush to the scene of hostilities. I summoned Beale after dinner and held a council of war. It was no time for airy persiflage. I said, "Beale, we're in the cart." "Sir?" "Mr. Ukridge going away like this has left me in a most unpleasant position. I would like to talk it over with you.
Wants to know when I'm going to settle up for sixteen records." "Sordid brute!" I wanted to get on with my own correspondence, but Ukridge held me with a glittering eye. "The chicken-men, the dealer people, you know, want me to pay for the first lot of hens.
As for her husband, the Hired Retainer, he took life as tranquilly as ever, and seemed to regard the whole thing as the most exhilarating farce he had ever been in. I think he looked on Ukridge as an amiable lunatic, and was content to rough it a little in order to enjoy the privilege of observing his movements. He made no complaints of the food.
It was not much good, as he could not see my face, but it relieved me. "Rather a pretty girl!" What a description! "Of course, yes," continued Ukridge. "She came to dinner here one night with her father, that fat little buffer." "As you were careful to call him to his face at the time, confound you! It was that that started all the trouble." "Trouble? What trouble?" "Why, her father...."
Then he took off his pince-nez, wiped them, re-adjusted the ginger-beer wire behind his ears, and, having hit a brown patch on the knee of his grey flannel trousers several times, in the apparent hope of removing it, resumed: "About fowls." The subject was beginning to interest me. It showed a curious tendency to creep into the conversation of the Ukridge family.
"I have loved your daughter," I said rapidly, "ever since I first saw her ..." "And he's a capital chap," interjected Ukridge. "One of the best. Known him for years. You'll like him." "I learned last night that she loved me. But she will not marry me without your consent. Stretch your arms out straight from the shoulders and fill your lungs well and you can't sink.
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