"And, if Mr. Ukridge calls again..."
3
At this point a thunderous knocking on the front door interrupted me. Something seemed to tell me who was at the end of that knocker. I heard Mrs. Medley's footsteps pass along the hall. There was the click of the latch. A volume of sound rushed up the stairs.
"Is Mr. Garnet in? Where is he? Show me the old horse. Where is the man of wrath? Exhibit the son of Belial." There followed a violent crashing on the stairs, shaking the house.
"Garnet! Where are you, laddie? Garnet!! GARNET!!!!!"
Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge was in my midst.
CHAPTER II
MR. AND MRS. S. F. UKRIDGE
I have often thought that Who's Who, though a bulky and well-meaning volume, omits too many of England's greatest men. It is not comprehensive enough. I am in it, nestling among the G's:--
"Garnet, Jeremy, o.s. of late Henry Garnet, vicar of Much Middlefold, Salop; author. Publications: 'The Outsider,' 'The Manoeuvres of Arthur.' Hobbies: Cricket, football, swimming, golf. Clubs: Arts."
But if you search among the U's for UKRIDGE, Stanley Featherstonehaugh, details of whose tempestuous career would make really interesting reading, you find no mention of him. It seems unfair, though I imagine Ukridge bears it with fortitude. That much-endur- ing man has had a lifetime's training in bearing things with fortitude.
He seemed in his customary jovial spirits now, as he dashed into the room, clinging on to the pince-nez which even gingerbeer wire
rarely kept stable for two minutes together.
"My dear old man," he shouted, springing at me and seizing my hand in the grip like the bite of a horse. "How are you, old buck?
This is good. By Jove, this is fine, what?"
He dashed to the door and looked out.
"Come on Millie! Pick up the waukeesis. Here's old Garnet, looking just the same as ever. Devilish handsome fellow! You'll be glad you came when you see him. Beats the Zoo hollow!"
There appeared round the corner of Ukridge a young woman. She paused in the doorway and smiled pleasantly.
"Garny, old horse," said Ukridge with some pride, "this is her! The pride of the home. Companion of joys and sorrows and all the rest of it. In fact," in a burst of confidence, "my wife."
I bowed awkwardly. The idea of Ukridge married was something too overpowering to be readily assimilated.
"Buck up, old horse," said Ukridge encouragingly. He had a painful habit of addressing all and sundry by that title. In his schoolmaster days--at one period of his vivid career he and I had been colleagues on the staff of a private school--he had made use of it interviewing the parents of new pupils, and the latter had gone away, as a rule, with a feeling that this must be either the easy manner of Genius or due to alcohol, and hoping for the best. He also used it to perfect strangers in the streets, and on one occasion had
been heard to address a bishop by that title, rendering that dignitary, as Mr. Baboo Jaberjee would put it, sotto voce with gratification. "Surprised to find me married, what? Garny, old boy,"--sinking his voice to a whisper almost inaudible on the other side of the street--"take my tip. Go and jump off the dock yourself. You'll feel another man. Give up this bachelor business. It's a mug's game.
I look on you bachelors as excrescences on the social system. I regard you, old man, purely and simply as a wart. Go and get married, laddie, go and get married. By gad, I've forgotten to pay the cabby. Lend me a couple of bob, Garny old chap."
He was out of the door and on his way downstairs before the echoes of his last remark had ceased to shake the window. I was left to
4
entertain Mrs. Ukridge.
So far her share in the conversation had been confined to the pleasant smile which was apparently her chief form of expression. No-body talked very much when Ukridge was present. She sat on the edge of the armchair, looking very small and quiet. I was conscious of feeling a benevolent pity for her. If I had been a girl, I would have preferred to marry a volcano. A little of Ukridge, as his former head master had once said in a moody, reflective voice, went a very long way. "You and Stanley have known each other a long time, haven't you?" said the object of my commiseration, breaking the silence.
"Yes. Oh, yes. Several years. We were masters at the same school." Mrs. Ukridge leaned forward with round, shining eyes.
"Really? Oh, how nice!" she said ecstatically.
Not yet, to judge from her expression and the tone of her voice, had she found any disadvantages attached to the arduous position
of being Mrs. Stanley Ukridge.
"He's a wonderfully versatile man," I said. "I believe he could do anything."
"He'd have a jolly good try!"
"Have you ever kept fowls?" asked Mrs. Ukridge, with apparent irrelevance. I had not. She looked disappointed.
"I was hoping you might have had some experience. Stanley, of course, can turn his hand to anything; but I think experience is rather a good thing, don't you?"
"Yes. But ..."
"I have bought a shilling book called 'Fowls and All About Them,' and this week's copy of C.A.C." "C.A.C.?"
"Chiefly About Chickens. It's a paper, you know. But it's all rather hard to understand. You see, we ... but here is Stanley. He will
explain the whole thing."
"Well, Garny, old horse," said Ukridge, re-entering the room after another energetic passage of the stairs. "Years since I saw you. Still buzzing along?"
"Still, so to speak, buzzing," I assented.
"I was reading your last book the other day."
"Yes?" I said, gratified. "How did you like it?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, laddie, I didn't get beyond the third page, because the scurvy knave at the bookstall said he wasn't running a free library, and in one way and another there was a certain amount of unpleasantness. Still, it seemed bright and interesting up to page three. But let's settle down and talk business. I've got a scheme for you, Garny old man. Yessir, the idea of a thousand years. Now listen to me for a moment. Let me get a word in edgeways."
He sat down on the table, and dragged up a chair as a leg-rest. Then he took off his pince-nez, wiped them, re-adjusted the gingerbeer 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."
5
The subject was beginning to interest me. It showed a curious tendency to creep into the conversation of the Ukridge family.
"I want you to give me your undivided attention for a moment. I was saying to my wife, as we came here, 'Garnet's the man! Clever
devil, Garnet. Full of ideas.' Didn't I, Millie?" "Yes, dear."
"Laddie," said Ukridge impressively, "we are going to keep fowls." He shifted himself farther on to the table and upset the ink-pot.
"Never mind," he said, "it'll soak in. It's good for the texture. Or am I thinking of tobacco-ash on the carpet? Well, never mind. Listen to me! When I said that we were going to keep fowls, I didn't mean in a small, piffling sort of way--two cocks and a couple of hens and a golf-ball for a nest-egg. We are going to do it on a large scale. We are going to run a chicken farm!"
"A chicken farm," echoed Mrs. Ukridge with an affectionate and admiring glance at her husband. "Ah," I said, feeling my responsibilities as chorus. "A chicken farm."
"I've thought it all over, laddie, and it's as clear as mud. No expenses, large profits, quick returns. Chickens, eggs, and the money streaming in faster than you can bank it. Winter and summer underclothing, my bonny boy, lined with crackling Bradbury's. It's the idea of a lifetime. Now listen to me for