Love Among the Chickens

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Ukridge leaped on the table triumphantly.

"Lyme Regis is just the place for you, then. Perfect hotbed of golf.
Fine links at the top of the hill, not half a mile from the farm.
Bring your clubs. You'll be able to have a round or two in the
afternoons. Get through serious work by lunch time."

"You know," said Garnet, "I am absolutely inexperienced as regards
fowls."

"Excellent!" said Ukridge. "Then you're just the man. You will bring
to the work a mind entirely unclouded by theories. You will act solely
by the light of your intelligence."

"Er--yes," said Garnet.

"I wouldn't have a professional chicken farmer about the place if he
paid to come. Natural intelligence is what we want. Then we can rely
on you?"

"Very well," said Garnet slowly. "It's very kind of you to ask me."

"It's business, Cuthbert, business. Very well, then. We shall catch
the eleven-twenty at Waterloo. Don't miss it. You book to Axminster.
Look out for me on the platform. If I see you first, I'll shout."

Garnet felt that that promise rang true.

"Then good-by for the present. Millie, we must be off. Till to-morrow,
Garnet."

"Good-by, Mr. Garnet," said Mrs. Ukridge.

Looking back at the affair after the lapse of years, Garnet was
accustomed to come to the conclusion that she was the one pathetic
figure in the farce. Under what circumstances she had married Ukridge
he did not learn till later. He was also uncertain whether at any
moment in her career she regretted it. But it was certainly pathetic
to witness her growing bewilderment during the weeks that followed, as
the working of Ukridge's giant mind was unfolded to her little by
little. Life, as Ukridge understood the word, must have struck her as
a shade too full of incident to be really comfortable. Garnet was wont
to console himself by the hope that her very genuine love for her
husband, and his equally genuine love for her, was sufficient to
smooth out the rough places of life.

As he returned to his room, after showing his visitors to the door,
the young man upstairs, who had apparently just finished breakfast,
burst once more into song:

"We'll never come back no more, boys,
We'll never come back no more."

Garnet could hear him wedding appropriate dance to the music.

"Not for a few weeks, at any rate," he said to himself, as he started
his packing at the point where he had left off.

A GIRL WITH BROWN HAIR

III

Waterloo station is one of the things which no fellow can understand.
Thousands come to it, thousands go from it. Porters grow gray-headed
beneath its roof. Buns, once fresh and tender, become hard and
misanthropic in its refreshment rooms, and look as if they had seen
the littleness of existence and were disillusioned. But there the
station stands, year after year, wrapped in a discreet gloom, always
the same, always baffling and inscrutable. Not even the porters
understand it. "I couldn't say, sir," is the civil but unsatisfying
reply with which research is met. Now and then one, more gifted than
his colleagues, will inform the traveler that his train starts from
"No. 3 or No. 7," but a moment's reflection and he hedges with No. 12.

Waterloo is the home of imperfect knowledge. The booking clerks cannot
state in a few words where tickets may be bought for any station. They
are only certain that they themselves cannot sell them.

* * * * *

The gloom of the station was lightened on the following morning at ten
minutes to eleven when Mr. Garnet arrived to catch the train to
Axminster, by several gleams of sunshine and a great deal of bustle
and movement on the various platforms. A cheery activity pervaded the
place. Porters on every hand were giving their celebrated imitations
of the car of Juggernaut, throwing as a sop to the wounded a crisp "by
your leave." Agitated ladies were pouring forth questions with the
rapidity of machine guns. Long queues surged at the mouths of the
booking offices, inside which soured clerks, sending lost sheep empty
away, were learning once more their lesson of the innate folly of
mankind. Other crowds collected at the bookstalls, and the bookstall
keeper was eying with dislike men who were under the impression that
they were in a free library.

An optimistic porter had relieved Garnet of his portmanteau and golf
clubs as he stepped out of his cab, and had arranged to meet him on
No. 6 platform, from which, he asserted, with the quiet confidence
which has made Englishmen what they are, the eleven-twenty would start
on its journey to Axminster. Unless, he added, it went from No. 4.

Garnet, having bought a ticket, after drawing blank at two booking
offices, made his way to the bookstall. Here he inquired, in a loud,
penetrating voice, if they had got "Mr. Jeremy Garnet's last novel,
'The Maneuvers of Arthur.'" Being informed that they had not, he
clicked his tongue cynically, advised the man in charge to order that
work, as the demand for it might be expected shortly to be large, and
spent a shilling on a magazine and some weekly papers. Then, with ten
minutes to spare, he went off in search of Ukridge.

He found him on platform No. 6. The porter's first choice was, it
seemed, correct. The eleven-twenty was already alongside the platform,
and presently Garnet observed his porter cleaving a path toward him
with the portmanteau and golf clubs.

"Here you are!" shouted Ukridge. "Good for you. Thought you were going
to miss it."

Garnet shook hands with the smiling Mrs. Ukridge.

"I've got a carriage," said Ukridge, "and collared two corner seats.
My wife goes down in another. She dislikes the smell of smoke when
she's traveling. Let's pray that we get the carriage to ourselves. But
all London seems to be here this morning. Get in, old horse. I'll just
see her ladyship into her carriage and come back to you."

Garnet entered the compartment, and stood at the door, looking out in
order, after the friendly manner of the traveling Briton, to thwart an
invasion of fellow-travelers. Then he withdrew his head suddenly and
sat down. An elderly gentleman, accompanied by a girl, was coming
toward him. It was not this type of fellow-traveler whom he hoped to
keep out. He had noticed the girl at the booking office. She had
waited by the side of the line, while the elderly gentleman struggled
gamely for the tickets, and he had plenty of opportunity of observing
her appearance. For five minutes he had debated with himself as to
whether her hair should rightly be described as brown or golden. He
had decided finally on brown. It then became imperative that he should
ascertain the color of her eyes. Once only had he met them, and then
only for a second. They might be blue. They might be gray. He could
not be certain. The elderly gentleman came to the door of the
compartment and looked in.

"This seems tolerably empty, my dear Phyllis," he said.

Garnet, his glance fixed on his magazine, made a note of the name. It
harmonized admirably with the hair and the eyes of elusive color.

"You are sure you do not object to a smoking carriage, my dear?"

"Oh, no, father. Not at all."

Garnet told himself that the voice was just the right sort of voice to
go with the hair, the eyes, and the name.

"Then I think--" said the elderly gentleman, getting in. The
inflection of his voice suggested the Irishman. It was not a brogue.
There were no strange words. But the general effect was Irish. Garnet
congratulated himself. Irishmen are generally good company. An
Irishman with a pretty daughter should be unusually good company.

The bustle on the platform had increased momently, until now, when,
from the snorting of the engine, it seemed likely that the train might
start at any minute, the crowd's excitement was extreme. Shrill cries
echoed down the platform. Lost sheep, singly and in companies, rushed
to and fro, peering eagerly into carriages in the search for seats.
Piercing cries ordered unknown "Tommies" and "Ernies" to "keep by
aunty, now." Just as Ukridge returned, the dreaded "Get in anywhere"
began to be heard, and the next moment an avalanche of warm humanity
poured into the carriage. A silent but bitter curse framed itself on
Garnet's lips. His chance of pleasant conversation with the lady of
the brown hair and the eyes that were either gray or blue was at an
end.

The newcomers consisted of a middle-aged lady, addressed as aunty; a
youth called Albert, subsequently described by Garnet as the rudest
boy on earth--a proud title, honestly won; lastly, a niece of some
twenty years, stolid and seemingly without interest in life.

Ukridge slipped into his corner, adroitly foiling Albert, who had made
a dive in that direction. Albert regarded him fixedly for a space,
then sank into the seat beside Garnet and began to chew something
grewsome that smelled of aniseed.

Aunty, meanwhile, was distributing her weight evenly between the toes
of the Irish gentleman and those of his daughter, as she leaned out of
the window to converse with a lady friend in a straw hat and hair
curlers. Phyllis, he noticed, was bearing it with angelic calm. Her
profile, when he caught sight of it round aunty, struck him as a
little cold, even haughty. That, however, might be due to what she was
suffering. It is unfair to judge a lady's character from her face, at
a moment when she is in a position of physical discomfort. The train
moved off with a jerk in the middle of a request on the part of the
straw-hatted lady that her friend would "remember that, you know,
about _him_," and aunty, staggering back, sat down on a bag of food
which Albert had placed on the seat beside him.

"Clumsy!" observed Albert tersely.

"Al_bert_, you mustn't speak to aunty so."

"Wodyer want sit on my bag for, then?" inquired Albert.

They argued the point.

Garnet, who should have been busy studying character for a novel of
the lower classes, took up his magazine and began to read. The odor of
aniseed became more and more painful. Ukridge had lighted a cigar, and
Garnet understood why Mrs. Ukridge preferred to travel in another
compartment. For "in his hand he bore the brand which none but he
might smoke."

Garnet looked stealthily across the carriage to see how his lady of
the hair and eyes was enduring this combination of evils, and noticed
that she, too, had begun to read. And as she put down the book to look
out of the window at the last view of London, he saw with a thrill
that it was "The Maneuvers of Arthur." Never before had he come upon a
stranger reading his work. And if "The Maneuvers of Arthur" could make
the reader oblivious to surroundings such as these, then, felt Garnet,
it was no common book--a fact which he had long since suspected.

The train raced on toward the sea. It was a warm day, and a torpid
peace began to settle down on the carriage.

Soon only Garnet, the Irishman, and the lady were awake.

"What's your book, me dear?" asked the Irishman.

"'The Maneuvers of Arthur,' father," said Phyllis. "By Jeremy Garnet."

Garnet would not have believed without the evidence of his ears that
his name could possibly have sounded so well.

"Dolly Strange gave it to me when I left the abbey," continued
Phyllis. "She keeps a shelf of books for her guests when they are
going away. Books that she considers rubbish and doesn't want, you
know."

Garnet hated Dolly Strange without further evidence.

"And what do you think of it, me dear?"

"I like it," said Phyllis decidedly. The carriage swam before
Garnet's eyes. "I think it is very clever. I shall keep it."

"Bless you," thought Garnet, "and I will write my precious autograph
on every page, if you want it."

"I wonder who Jeremy Garnet is?" said Phyllis. "I imagine him rather
an old young man, probably with an eyeglass and conceited. He must be
conceited. I can tell that from the style. And I should think he
didn't know many girls. At least, if he thinks Pamela Grant an
ordinary sort of girl."

"Is she not?" asked her father.

"She's a cr-r-reature," said Phyllis emphatically.

This was a blow to Garnet, and demolished the self-satisfaction which
her earlier criticisms had caused to grow within him. He had always
looked on Pamela as something very much out of the ordinary run of
feminine character studies. That scene between her and the curate in
the conservatory.... And when she finds Arthur at the meet of the
Blankshire.... He was sorry she did not like Pamela. Somehow it
lowered Pamela in his estimation.

"But I like Arthur," said Phyllis, and she smiled--the first time
Garnet had seen her do so.

Garnet also smiled to himself. Arthur was the hero. He was a young
writer. Ergo, Arthur was himself.

The train was beginning to slow down. Signs of returning animation
began to be noticeable among the sleepers. A whistle from the engine,
and the train drew up in a station. Looking out of the window, Garnet
saw that it was Yeovil. There was a general exodus. Aunty became
instantly a thing of dash and electricity, collected parcels, shook
Albert, replied to his thrusts with repartee, and finally headed a
stampede out of the door.

To Garnet's chagrin the Irish gentleman and his daughter also rose.
Apparently this was to be the end of their brief acquaintanceship.
They alighted and walked down the platform.

"Where are we?" said Ukridge sleepily, opening his eyes. "Yeovil? Not
far now, old horse."

With which remark he closed his eyes again and returned to his
slumbers.

Garnet's eye, roving disconsolately over the carriage, was caught by
something lying in the far corner. It was the criticized "Maneuvers of
Arthur." The girl had left it behind.

What follows shows the vanity that obsesses our young and rising
authors. It did not enter into his mind that the book might have been
left behind of set purpose, as being of no further use to the owner.
It only occurred to him that if he did not act swiftly the lady of the
hair and eyes would suffer a loss beside which the loss of a purse or
a hand bag were trivial.

He acted swiftly.

Five seconds later he was at the end of the platform, flushed but
courteous.

"Excuse me," he said, "I think--"

"Thank you," said the girl.

Garnet made his way back to his carriage.

"They are blue," he said.

THE ARRIVAL

IV

From Axminster to Lyme Regis the line runs through country as pretty
as any that can be found in the island, and the train, as if in
appreciation of this fact, does not hurry over the journey. It was
late afternoon by the time the chicken farmers reached their
destination.

The arrangements for the carrying of luggage at Lyme Regis border on
the primitive. Boxes are left on the platform, and later, when he
thinks of it, a carrier looks in and conveys them down into the valley
and up the hill on the opposite side to the address written on the
labels. The owner walks. Lyme Regis is not a place for the halt and
maimed.

Ukridge led his band in the direction of the farm, which lay across
the valley, looking through woods to the sea. The place was visible
from the station, from which, indeed, standing as it did on the top of
a hill, the view was extensive.

Halfway up the slope on the other side of the valley the party left
the road and made their way across a spongy field, Ukridge explaining
that this was a short cut. They climbed through a hedge, crossed a
stream and another field, and after negotiating a difficult bank
topped with barbed wire, found themselves in a kitchen garden.

Ukridge mopped his forehead and restored his pince-nez to their
original position, from which the passage of the barbed wire had
dislodged them.

"This is the place," he said. "We have come in by the back way. It
saves time. Tired, Millie?"

"No, dear, thank you."

"Without being tired," said Garnet, "I am distinctly ready for tea.
What are the prospects?"

"That'll be all right," said Ukridge, "don't you worry. A most
competent man, of the name of Beale, and his wife are in charge at
present. I wrote to them telling them that we were coming to-day. They
will be ready for us."

They were at the front door by this time. Ukridge rang the bell. The
noise reechoed through the house, but there were no answering
footsteps. He rang again. There is no mistaking the note of a bell in
an empty house. It was plain that the most competent man and his wife
were out.

"Now what are you going to do?" said Garnet.

Mrs. Ukridge looked at her husband with quiet confidence.

Ukridge fell back on reminiscence.

"This," he said, leaning against the door and endeavoring to button
his collar at the back, "reminds me of an afternoon in the Argentine.
Two other men and myself tried for three quarters of an hour to get
into an empty house, where there looked as if there might be something
to eat, and we'd just got the door open when the owner turned up from
behind a tree with a shotgun. It was a little difficult to explain.
There was a dog, too. We were glad to say good-by."

At this moment history partially repeated itself. From the other side
of the door came a dissatisfied whine, followed by a short bark.

"Halloo," said Ukridge, "Beale has a dog."

"And the dog," said Garnet, "will have us if we're not careful. What
are you going to do?"

"Let's try the back," said Ukridge. "We must get in. What right," he
added with pathos, "has a beastly mongrel belonging to a man I employ
to keep me out of my own house? It's a little hard. Here am I, slaving
to support Beale, and when I try to get into my house, his infernal
dog barks at me. But we will try kindness first. Let me get to the
keyhole. I will parley with the animal."

He put his mouth to the keyhole and roared the soothing words "Goo'
dog!" through it. Instantly the door shook as some heavy object hurled
itself against it. The barking rang through the house.

"Kindness seems to be a drug in the market," said Garnet. "Do you see
your way to trying a little force?"

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Ukridge, rising. "We'll go round
and get in at the kitchen window."

"And how long are we to stay there? Till the dog dies?"

"I never saw such a man as you," protested Ukridge. "You have a
perfect mania for looking on the dark side. The dog won't guard the
kitchen door. We shall manage to shut him up somewhere."

"Oh," said Garnet.

"And now let's get in and have something to eat, for goodness' sake."

The kitchen window proved to be insecurely latched. Ukridge flung it
open and they climbed in.

The dog, hearing the sound of voices, raced back along the passage and
flung himself at the door. He then proceeded to scratch at the panels
in the persevering way of one who feels that he is engaged upon a
business at which he is a specialist.

Inside the kitchen, Ukridge took command.

"Never mind the dog," he said, "let it scratch."

"I thought," said Garnet, "we were going to shut it up somewhere?"

"Go out and shut it into the dining room, then. Personally, I mean to
have some tea. 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 this was the
sort of discipline they used to keep in his regiment, I don't wonder
that the service is going to the dogs. There goes a plate! How is the
fire getting on, Millie? I'll chop Beale into little bits. What's that
you've got there, Garny, old horse? Tea? Good! Where's the bread?
There! Another plate. Look here, I'll give that dog three minutes, and
if it doesn't stop scratching that door by then, I'll take the bread
knife and go out and have a soul-to-soul talk with it. It's a little
hard. My own house, and the first thing I find in it when I arrive is
somebody else's beastly dog scratching holes in the doors. Stop it,
you beast!"

The dog's reply was to continue his operations _piu mosso_.

Ukridge's eyes gleamed behind their glasses.

"Give me a good large jug," he said with ominous calm.

He took the largest of the jugs from the dresser and strode with it
into the scullery, whence came the sound of running water. He returned
carrying the jug in both hands. His mien was that of a general who
sees his way to a master stroke of strategy.

"Garny, old horse," he said, "tack on to the handle, and when I give
the word fling wide the gates. Then watch that beast beyond the door
get the surprise of its lifetime."

Garnet attached himself to the handle as directed. Ukridge gave the
word. They had a momentary vision of an excited dog of the mongrel
class framed in the open doorway, all eyes and teeth; then the passage
was occupied by a spreading pool, and indignant barks from the
distance told that the mongrel was thinking the thing over in some
safe retreat.

"Settled _his_ hash," said Ukridge complacently. "Nothing like
resource, Garnet, my boy. Some men would have gone on letting a good
door be ruined."

"And spoiled the dog for a ha-porth of water," said Garnet. "I suppose
we shall have to clean up that mess some time."

"There you go," said Ukridge, "looking on the dark side. Be an
optimist, my boy, be an optimist. Beale and Mrs. Beale shall clean
that passage as a penance. How is the fire, Millie?"

"The kettle is just boiling, dear."

Over a cup of tea Ukridge became the man of business.

[Illustration: They had a momentary vision of an excited dog, framed
in the doorway.]

"I wonder when those fowls are going to arrive. They should have been
here to-day. If they don't come to-morrow, I shall lodge a complaint.
There must be no slackness. They must bustle about. After tea I'll
show you the garden, and we will choose a place for a fowl run.
To-morrow we must buckle to. Serious work will begin immediately after
breakfast."

"Suppose," said Garnet, "the fowls arrive before we are ready for
them?"

"Why, then, they must wait."

"But you can't keep fowls cooped up indefinitely in a crate. I suppose
they will come in a crate. I don't know much about these things."

"Oh, that'll be all right. There's a basement to this house. We'll let
'em run about there till we're ready for them. There's always a way of
doing things if you look for it."

"I hope you are going to let the hens hatch some of the eggs,
Stanley, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge. "I should so love to have some dear
little chickens."

"Of course," said Ukridge. "My idea was this: These people will send
us fifty fowls of sorts. That means--call it forty eggs a day. Let 'em
hatch out thirty a day, and we will use the other ten for the table.
We shall want at least ten. Well, I'm hanged, that dog again! Where's
that jug?"

But this time an unforeseen interruption prevented the maneuver from
being the success it had been before. Garnet had turned the handle,
and was just about to pull the door open, while Ukridge, looking like
some modern and dilapidated version of Discobolus, stood beside him
with his jug poised, when a hoarse voice spoke from the window.

"Stand still!" said the voice, "or I'll corpse you."

Garnet dropped the handle, Ukridge dropped the jug, Mrs. Ukridge
screamed.

At the window, with a double-barreled gun in his hands, stood a short,
square, red-headed man. The muzzle of his gun, which rested on the
sill, was pointing in a straight line at the third button of Garnet's
waistcoat. With a distant recollection of the Deadwood Dick literature
of his childhood, Garnet flung both hands above his head.

Ukridge emitted a roar like that of a hungry lion.

"Beale!" he shouted. "You scoundrelly, unprincipled blackguard! What
are you doing with that gun? Why were you out? What have you been
doing? Why did you shout like that? Look what you've made me do."

He pointed to the floor. Broken crockery, spreading water, his own
shoes--exceedingly old tennis shoes--well soaked, attested the fact
that damage had been done.

"Lor'! Mr. Ukridge, sir, is that you?" said the red-headed man calmly.
"I thought you was burglars."

A sharp bark from the other side of the kitchen door, followed by a
renewal of the scratching, drew Mr. Beale's attention to his faithful
hound.

"That's Bob," he said.

"I don't know what you call the brute," said Ukridge. "Come in and tie
him up."

"'Ow am I to get in, Mr. Ukridge, sir?"

"Come in through the window, and mind what you're doing with that gun.
After you've finished with the dog, I should like a brief chat with
you, if you can spare the time and have no other engagements."

Mr. Beale, having carefully deposited his gun against the wall of the
kitchen, and dropped a pair of very limp rabbits with a thud to the
floor, proceeded to climb through the window. This operation
performed, he stood on one side while the besieged garrison passed out
by the same road.

"You will find me in the garden, Beale," said Ukridge. "I have one or
two little things to say to you."

Mr. Beale grinned affably.

The cool air of the garden was grateful after the warmth of the
kitchen. It was a pretty garden, or would have been, if it had not
been so neglected. Garnet seemed to see himself sitting in a deck
chair on the lawn, looking through the leaves of the trees at the
harbor below. It was a spot, he felt, in which it would be an easy and
pleasant task to shape the plot of his novel. He was glad he had come.
About now, outside his lodgings in town, a particularly lethal barrel
organ would be striking up the latest revolting air with which the
halls had inflicted London.

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