“Probably. Ukridge knows nothing about fowls. I know less. He considers it an advantage. He says our minds ought to be unbiassed.”
“Ukridge!” said the professor. “That was the name old Dawlish, the grocer, said. I never forget a name. He is the gentleman who lectures on the management of poultry? You do not?”
I hastened to disclaim any such feat. I had never really approved of these infernal talks on the art of chicken-farming which Ukridge had dropped into the habit of delivering when anybody visited our farm. I admit that it was a pleasing spectacle to see my managing director in a pink shirt without a collar and very dirty flannel trousers lecturing the intelligent native; but I had a feeling that the thing tended to expose our ignorance to men who had probably had to do with fowls from their cradle up.
“His lectures are very popular,” said Phyllis Derrick with a little splutter of mirth.
“He enjoys them,” I said.
“Look here, Garnet,” said Tom Chase, “I hope you won’t consider all these questions impertinent, but you’ve no notion of the thrilling interest we all take—at a distance—in your farm. We have been talking of nothing else for a week. I have dreamed of it three nights running. Is Mr. Ukridge doing this as a commercial speculation, or is he an eccentric millionaire?”
“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.”
“Golf?” said Professor Derrick, with the benevolent approval of the enthusiast towards a brother. “I’m glad you play golf. We must have a round together.”
“As soon as ever my professional duties will permit,” I said gratefully.
There was croquet after lunch,—a game of which I am a poor performer. Phyllis Derrick and I played the professor and Tom Chase. Chase was a little better than myself; the professor, by dint of extreme earnestness and care, managed to play a fair game; and Phyllis was an expert.
“I was reading a book,” she said, as we stood together watching the professor shaping at his ball at the other end of the lawn, “by an author of the same surname as you, Mr. Garnet. Is he a relation of yours?”
“My name is Jeremy, Miss Derrick.”
“Oh, you wrote it?” She turned a little pink. “Then you must have—oh, nothing.”
“I couldn’t help it, I’m afraid.”
“Did you know what I was going to say?”
“I guessed. You were going to say that I must have heard your criticisms in the train. You were very lenient, I thought.”
“I didn’t like your heroine.”
“No. What is a ‘creature,’ Miss Derrick?”
“Pamela in your book is a ‘creature,’ “ she replied unsatisfactorily.
Shortly after this the game came somehow to an end. I do not understand the intricacies of croquet. But Phyllis did something brilliant and remarkable with the balls, and we adjourned for tea. The sun was setting as I left to return to the farm, with Aunt Elizabeth stored neatly in a basket in my hand. The air was deliciously cool, and full of that strange quiet which follows soothingly on the skirts of a broiling midsummer afternoon. Far away, seeming to come from another world, a sheep-bell tinkled, deepening the silence. Alone in a sky of the palest blue there gleamed a small, bright star.
I addressed this star.
“She was certainly very nice to me. Very nice indeed.” The star said nothing.
“On the other hand, I take it that, having had a decent up-bringing, she would have been equally polite to any other man whom she had happened to meet at her father’s house. Moreover, I don’t feel altogether easy in my mind about that naval chap. I fear the worst.”
The star winked.
“He calls her Phyllis,” I said.
“Charawk!” chuckled Aunt Elizabeth from her basket, in that beastly cynical, satirical way which has made her so disliked by all right– thinking people.
Chapter 8.
A Little Dinner at Ukridge’s
“Edwin comes to-day,” said Mrs. Ukridge.
“And the Derricks,” said Ukridge, sawing at the bread in his energetic way. “Don’t forget the Derricks, Millie.”
“No, dear. Mrs. Beale is going to give us a very nice dinner. We talked it over yesterday.”
“Who is Edwin?” I asked.
We were finishing breakfast on the second morning after my visit to the Derricks. I had related my adventures to the staff of the farm on my return, laying stress on the merits of our neighbours and their interest in our doings, and the Hired Retainer had been sent off next morning with a note from Mrs. Ukridge inviting them to look over the farm and stay to dinner.
“Edwin?” said Ukridge. “Oh, beast of a cat.”
“Oh, Stanley!” said Mrs. Ukridge plaintively. “He’s not. He’s such a dear, Mr. Garnet. A beautiful, pure-bred Persian. He has taken prizes.”
“He’s always taking something. That’s why he didn’t come down with us.”
“A great, horrid, /beast/ of a dog bit him, Mr. Garnet. And poor Edwin had to go to a cats’ hospital.”
“And I hope,” said Ukridge, “the experience will do him good. Sneaked a dog’s dinner, Garnet, under his very nose, if you please. Naturally the dog lodged a protest.”
“I’m so afraid that he will be frightened of Bob. He will be very timid, and Bob’s so boisterous. Isn’t he, Mr. Garnet?”
“That’s all right,” said Ukridge. “Bob won’t hurt him, unless he tries to steal his dinner. In that case we will have Edwin made into a rug.”
“Stanley doesn’t like Edwin,” said Mrs. Ukridge, sadly.
Edwin arrived early in the afternoon, and was shut into the kitchen. He struck me as a handsome cat, but nervous.
The Derricks followed two hours later. Mr. Chase was not of the party.
“Tom had to go to London,” explained the professor, “or he would have been delighted to come. It was a disappointment to the boy, for he wanted to see the farm.”
“He must come some other time,” said Ukridge. “We invite inspection. Look here,” he broke off suddenly—we were nearing the fowl-run now, Mrs. Ukridge walking in front with Phyllis Derrick—”were you ever at Bristol?”
“Never, sir,” said the professor.
“Because I knew just such another fat little buffer there a few years ago. 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. “Took some doing, that. By Jove, yes. It was hot work. Nice lot of fowls, aren’t they? Rather a mixed lot, of course. Ha! ha! That’s the dealer’s fault though. We are getting quite a number of eggs now. Hens wouldn’t lay at first. Couldn’t make them.”
I babbled on, till from the corner of my eye I saw the flush fade from the professor’s face and his back gradually relax its poker-like attitude. The situation was saved for the moment but there was no knowing what further excesses Ukridge might indulge in. I managed to draw him aside as we went through the fowl-run, and expostulated.
“For goodness sake, be careful,” I whispered. “You’ve no notion how touchy he is.”
“But /I/ said nothing,” he replied, amazed.
“Hang it, you know, nobody likes to be called a fat little buffer to his face.”
“What! My dear old man, nobody minds a little thing like that. We can’t be stilted and formal. It’s ever so much more friendly to relax and be chummy.”