Love Among the Chickens

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Even to my exhausted mind it was plain that there was need here for
explanations. An Irishman's croquet lawn is his castle, and strangers
cannot plunge on to it unannounced through hedges without being
prepared to give reasons.

Unfortunately, speech was beyond me. I could have done many things at
that moment. I could have emptied a water butt, lain down and gone to
sleep, or melted ice with a touch of the finger. But I could not
speak. The conversation was opened by the other man, in whose
soothing hand the hen now lay, apparently resigned to its fate.

"Come right in," he said pleasantly. "Don't knock. Your bird, I
think?"

I stood there panting. I must have presented a quaint appearance. My
hair was full of twigs and other foreign substances. My face was moist
and grimy. My mouth hung open. I wanted to sit down. My legs felt as
if they had ceased to belong to me.

"I must apologize--" I began, and ended the sentence with gasps.

Conversation languished. The elderly gentleman looked at me with what
seemed to me indignant surprise. His daughter looked through me. The
man regarded me with a friendly smile, as if I were some old crony
dropped in unexpectedly.

"I'm afraid--" I said, and stopped again.

"Hard work, big-game hunting in this weather," said the man. "Take a
long breath."

I took several and felt better.

"I must apologize for this intrusion," I said successfully.
"Unwarrantable" would have rounded off the sentence nicely, but
instinct told me not to risk it. It would have been mere bravado to
have attempted unnecessary words of five syllables at that juncture.

I paused.

"Say on," said the man with the hen encouragingly, "I'm a human being
just like yourself."

"The fact is," I said, "I didn't--didn't know there was a private
garden beyond the hedge. If you will give me my hen--"

"It's hard to say good-by," said the man, stroking the bird's head
with the first finger of his disengaged hand. "She and I are just
beginning to know and appreciate each other. However, if it must be--"

He extended the hand which held the bird, and at this point a hitch
occurred. He did his part of the business--the letting go. It was in
my department--the taking hold--that the thing was bungled. The hen
slipped from my grasp like an eel, stood for a moment overcome by the
surprise of being at liberty once more, then fled and intrenched
itself in some bushes at the farther end of the lawn.

There are times when the most resolute man feels that he can battle no
longer with fate; when everything seems against him and the only
course left is a dignified retreat. But there is one thing essential
to a dignified retreat. One must know the way out. It was that fact
which kept me standing there, looking more foolish than anyone has
ever looked since the world began. I could hardly ask to be conducted
off the premises like the honored guest. Nor would it do to retire by
the way I had come. If I could have leaped the hedge with a single
bound, that would have made a sufficiently dashing and debonair exit.
But the hedge was high, and I was incapable at the moment of achieving
a debonair leap over a footstool.

The man saved the situation. He seemed to possess that magnetic power
over his fellows which marks the born leader. Under his command we
became an organized army. The common object, the pursuit of the hen,
made us friends. In the first minute of the proceedings the Irishman
was addressing me as "me dear boy," and the other man, who had
introduced himself rapidly as Tom Chase, lieutenant in his Majesty's
navy, was shouting directions to me by name. I have never assisted at
any ceremony at which formality was so completely dispensed with. The
ice was not merely broken, it was shivered into a million fragments.

"Go in and drive her out, Garnet," shouted Mr. Chase. "In my
direction, if you can. Look out on the left, Phyllis."

Even in that disturbing moment I could not help noticing his use of
the Christian name. It seemed to me sinister. I did not like the idea
of dashing young lieutenants in the royal navy calling a girl Phyllis
whose eyes had haunted me for just over a week--since, in fact, I had
first seen them. Nevertheless, I crawled into the bushes and dislodged
the hen. She emerged at the spot where Mr. Chase was waiting with his
coat off, and was promptly enveloped in that garment and captured.

"The essence of strategy," observed Mr. Chase approvingly, "is
surprise. A devilish neat piece of work."

I thanked him. He deprecated the thanks. He had, he said, only done
his duty, as a man is bound to do. He then introduced me to the
elderly Irishman, who was, it seemed, a professor--of what I do not
know--at Dublin University. By name, Derrick. He informed me that he
always spent the summer at Lyme Regis.

"I was surprised to see you at Lyme Regis," I said. "When you got out
at Yeovil, I thought I had seen the last of you."

I think I am gifted beyond other men as regards the unfortunate
turning of sentences.

"I meant," I added speedily, "I was afraid I had."

"Ah, of course," he said, "you were in our carriage coming down. I was
confident I had seen you before. I never forget a face."

"It would be a kindness," said Mr. Chase, "if you would forget
Garnet's as now exhibited. You'll excuse the personality, but you
seem to have collected a good deal of the professor's property coming
through that hedge."

"I was wondering," I said with gratitude. "A wash--if I might?"

"Of course, me boy, of course," said the professor. "Tom, take Mr.
Garnet off to your room, and then we'll have some lunch. You'll stay
to lunch, Mr. Garnet?"

I thanked him for his kindness and went off with my friend, the
lieutenant, to the house. We imprisoned the hen in the stables, to its
profound indignation, gave directions for lunch to be served to it,
and made our way to Mr. Chase's room.

"So you've met the professor before?" he said, hospitably laying out a
change of raiment for me--we were fortunately much of a height and
build.

"I have never spoken to him," I said. "We traveled down together in a
very full carriage, and I saw him next day on the beach."

"He's a dear old boy, if you rub him the right way."

"Yes?" I said.

"But--I'm telling you this for your good and guidance--he can cut up
rough. And when he does, he goes off like a four point seven. I think,
if I were you--you don't mind my saying this?--I think, if I were you,
I should _not_ mention Mr. Tim Healy at lunch."

I promised that I would try to resist the temptation.

"And if you _could_ manage not to discuss home rule--"

"I will make an effort."

"On any other topic he will be delighted to hear your views. Chatty
remarks on bimetallism would meet with his earnest attention. A
lecture on what to do with the cold mutton would be welcomed. But not
Ireland, if you don't mind. Shall we go down?"

We got to know one another very well at lunch.

"Do you hunt hens," asked Mr. Chase, who was mixing the salad--he was
one of those men who seem to do everything a shade better than anyone
else, "for amusement or by your doctor's orders?"

"Neither," I said, "and particularly not for amusement. The fact is I
have been lured down here by a friend of mine who has started a
chicken farm--"

I was interrupted. All three of them burst into laughter. Mr. Chase in
his emotion allowed the vinegar to trickle on to the cloth, missing
the salad bowl by a clear two inches.

"You don't mean to tell us," he said, "that you really come from the
one and only chicken farm?"

I could not deny it.

"Why, you're the man we've all been praying to meet for days past.
Haven't we, professor?"

"You're right, Tom," chuckled Mr. Derrick.

"We want to know all about it, Mr. Garnet," said Phyllis Derrick.

"Do you know," continued Mr. Chase, "that you are the talk of the
town? Everybody is discussing you. Your methods are quite new and
original, aren't they?"

"Probably," I replied. "Ukridge knows nothing about fowls. I know
less. He considers it an advantage. He said our minds ought to be
unbiased by any previous experience."

"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 breeding of poultry, is he not? You do not?"

I hastened to disclaim any such feat.

"His lectures are very popular," said Phyllis with a little splutter
of mirth.

"He enjoys them," I said.

"Look here, Garnet," said Mr. 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. I believe he intends to be, though, before
long, with the assistance of the fowls. But I hope you won't look on
me as in any way responsible for the arrangements at the farm. I am
merely a laborer. The brain work of the business lies in Ukridge's
department."

"Tell me, Mr. Garnet," said Phyllis, "do you use an incubator?"

"Oh, yes, we have an incubator."

"I suppose you find it very useful?"

"I'm afraid we use it chiefly for drying our boots when they get wet,"
I said.

Only that morning Ukridge's spare pair of tennis shoes had permanently
spoiled the future of half-a-dozen eggs which were being hatched on
the spot where the shoes happened to be placed. Ukridge had been quite
annoyed.

"I came down here principally," I said, "in search of golf. I was told
there were links, but up to the present my professional duties have
monopolized me."

"Golf," said Professor Derrick. "Why, yes. We must have a round or two
together. I am very fond of golf. I generally spend the summer down
here improving my game."

I said I should be delighted.

* * * * *

There was croquet after lunch--a game at which I am a poor performer.
Miss Derrick and I played the professor and 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," said she, 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?"

"I am afraid I am the person, Miss Derrick," I said.

"You wrote the book?"

"A man must live," I said apologetically.

"Then you must have--oh, nothing."

"I could not help it, I'm afraid. But your criticism was very kind."

"Did you know what I was going to say?"

"I guessed."

"It was lucky I liked it," she said with a smile.

"Lucky for me," I said.

"Why?"

"It will encourage me to write another book. So you see what you have
to answer for. I hope it will not trouble your conscience."

At the other end of the lawn the professor was still patting the balls
about, Chase the while advising him to allow for windage and elevation
and other mysterious things.

"I should not have thought," she said, "that an author cared a bit for
the opinion of an amateur."

"It all depends."

"On the author?"

"On the amateur."

It was my turn to play at this point. I missed--as usual.

"I didn't like your heroine, Mr. Garnet."

"That was the one crumpled rose leaf. I have been wondering why ever
since. I tried to make her nice. Three of the critics liked her."

"Really?"

"And the modern reviewer is an intelligent young man. What is a
'creature,' Miss Derrick?"

"Pamela in your book is a creature," she replied unsatisfactorily,
with the slightest tilt of the chin.

"My next heroine shall be a triumph," I said.

She should be a portrait, I resolved, from life.

Shortly after, 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, which had been
made ready at the edge of the lawn while we played.

The sun was setting as I left to return to the farm, with the hen
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--the sound seemed almost to
come from another world--the tinkle of a sheep bell made itself heard,
deepening the silence. Alone in a sky of the palest blue there
twinkled a small bright star.

I addressed this star.

"She was certainly very nice to me," I said. "Very nice, indeed."

The star said nothing.

"On the other hand," I went on, "I don't like that naval man. He is a
good chap, but he overdoes it."

The star winked sympathetically.

"He calls her Phyllis," I said.

"Charawk," said the hen satirically from her basket.

A LITTLE DINNER

VIII

"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 neighbors 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. "Beast of a cat."

"O 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--generally food. That's why he didn't
come down with us."

"A great, horrid _beast_ of a dog bit him, Mr. Garnet." Mrs. Ukridge's
eyes became round and shining. "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 bone, 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 exceedingly boisterous. Isn't he, Mr. Garnet?"

I owned that Bob's manner was not that of a Vere de Vere.

"That's all right," said Ukridge; "Bob won't hurt him, unless he tries
to steal his bone. In that case we will have Edwin made into a rug."

"Stanley doesn't like Edwin," said Mrs. Ukridge plaintively.

* * * * *

Edwin arrived early in the afternoon, and was shut into the kitchen.
He struck me as a handsome cat, but nervous. He had an excited eye.

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 color. 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 pokerlike
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 the professor 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 else could I call him? 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."

Here we rejoined the others, and I was left with a leaden foreboding
of grewsome things in store. I knew what manner of man Ukridge was
when he relaxed and became chummy. Friendships of years' standing had
failed to survive the test.

For the time being, however, all went well. In his role of lecturer he
offended no one, and Phyllis and her father behaved admirably. They
received the strangest theories without a twitch of the mouth.

"Ah," the professor would say, "now, is that really so? Very
interesting, indeed."

Only once, when Ukridge was describing some more than usually original
device for the furthering of the interests of his fowls, did a slight
spasm disturb Phyllis's look of attentive reverence.

"And you have really had no previous experience in chicken farming?"
she said.

"None," said Ukridge, beaming through his glasses, "not an atom. But I
can turn my hand to anything, you know. Things seem to come naturally
to me, somehow."

"I see," said Phyllis.

It was while matters were progressing with such beautiful smoothness
that I observed the square form of the hired retainer approaching us.
Somehow--I cannot say why--I had a feeling that he came with bad news.
Perhaps it was his air of quiet satisfaction which struck me as
ominous.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Ukridge, sir."

Ukridge was in the middle of a very eloquent excursus on the feeding
of fowls. The interruption annoyed him.

"Well, Beale," he said, "what is it?"

"That there cat, sir, what came to-day."

"O Beale," cried Mrs. Ukridge in agitation, "_what_ has happened?"

"Having something to say to the missus--"

"What has happened? O Beale, don't say that Edwin has been hurt? Where
is he? Oh, _poor_ Edwin!"

"Having something to say to the missus--"

"If Bob has bitten him, I hope he had his nose _well_ scratched," said
Mrs. Ukridge vindictively.

"Having something to say to the missus," resumed the hired retainer
tranquilly, "I went into the kitchen ten minutes back. The cat was
sitting on the mat."

Beale's narrative style closely resembled that of a certain book I had
read in my infancy. I wish I could remember its title. It was a
well-written book.

"Yes, Beale, yes?" said Mrs. Ukridge. "Oh, do go on!"

"'Halloo, puss,' I says to him, 'and 'ow are you, sir?' 'Be careful,'
says the missus. ''E's that timid,' she says, 'you wouldn't believe,'
she says. ''E's only just settled down, as you may say,' she says.
'Ho, don't you fret,' I says to her, ''im and me we understands each
other. 'Im and me,' I says, 'is old friends. 'E's me dear old pal,
Corporal Banks, of the Skrimshankers.' She grinned at that, ma'am,
Corporal Banks being a man we'd 'ad many a 'earty laugh at in the old
days. 'E was, in a manner of speaking, a joke between us."

"Oh, do--go--on, Beale! What has happened to Edwin?"

The hired retainer proceeded in calm, even tones.

"We was talking there, ma'am, when Bob, which had followed me unknown,
trotted in. When the cat ketched sight of 'im sniffing about, there
was such a spitting and swearing as you never 'eard, and blowed," said
Mr. Beale amusedly, as if the recollection tickled him, "blowed if the
old cat didn't give one jump and move in quick time up the chimley,
where 'e now remains, paying no 'eed to the missus's attempts to get
him down again."

Sensation, as they say in the reports.

"But he'll be cooked," cried Phyllis, open-eyed.

Ukridge uttered a roar of dismay.

"No, he won't. Nor will our dinner. Mrs. Beale always lets the kitchen
fire out during the afternoon. It's a cold dinner we'll get to-night,
if that cat doesn't come down."

The professor's face fell. I had remarked on the occasion when I had
lunched with him his evident fondness for the pleasures of the table.
Cold, impromptu dinners were plainly not to his taste.

We went to the kitchen in a body. Mrs. Beale was standing in front of
the empty grate making seductive cat noises up the chimney.

"What's all this, Mrs. Beale?" said Ukridge.

"He won't come down, sir, not while he thinks Bob's about. And how I'm
to cook dinner for five with him up the chimney I don't see, sir."

"Prod at him with a broom handle, Mrs. Beale," urged Ukridge.

"I 'ave tried that, sir, but I can't reach him, and I've only bin and
drove 'im further up. What must be," added Mrs. Beale philosophically,
"must be. He may come down of his own accord in the night. Bein'
'ungry."

"Then what we must do," said Ukridge in a jovial manner which to me at
least seemed out of place, "is to have a regular, jolly, picnic
dinner, what? Whack up whatever we have in the larder, and eat that."

"A regular, jolly, picnic dinner," repeated the professor gloomily. I
could read what was passing in his mind.

"That will be delightful," said Phyllis.

[Illustration: "I've only bin and drove 'im further up," said Mrs.
Beale.]

"Er--I think, my dear sir," said her father, "it would be hardly fair
of us to give any further trouble to Mrs. Ukridge and yourself. If you
will allow me, therefore, I will--"

Ukridge became gushingly hospitable. He refused to think of allowing
his guests to go empty away. He would be able to whack up something,
he said. There was quite a good deal of the ham left, he was sure. He
appealed to me to indorse his view that there was a tin of sardines
and part of a cold fowl and plenty of bread and cheese.

"And after all," he said, speaking for the whole company in the
generous, comprehensive way enthusiasts have, "what more do we want in
weather like this? A nice, light, cold dinner is ever so much better
for us than a lot of hot things."

The professor said nothing. He looked wan and unhappy.

We strolled out again into the garden, but somehow things seemed to
drag. Conversation was fitful, except on the part of Ukridge, who
continued to talk easily on all subjects, unconscious of the fact that
the party was depressed, and at least one of his guests rapidly
becoming irritable. I watched the professor furtively as Ukridge
talked on, and that ominous phrase of Mr. Chase's concerning
four-point-seven guns kept coming into my mind. If Ukridge were to
tread on any of his pet corns, as he might at any minute, there would
be an explosion. The snatching of the dinner from his very mouth, as
it were, and the substitution of a bread-and-cheese and sardines menu
had brought him to the frame of mind when men turn and rend their
nearest and dearest.

The sight of the table, when at length we filed into the dining room,
sent a chill through me. It was a meal for the very young or the very
hungry. The uncompromising coldness and solidity of the viands was
enough to appall a man conscious that his digestion needed humoring. A
huge cheese faced us in almost a swash-buckling way, and I noticed
that the professor shivered slightly as he saw it. Sardines, looking
more oily and uninviting than anything I had ever seen, appeared in
their native tin beyond the loaf of bread. There was a ham, in its
third quarter, and a chicken which had suffered heavily during a
previous visit to the table.

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
pretense. The professor was very silent by the time we had finished.
Ukridge had been terrible. When the professor began a story--his
stories would have been the better for a little more briskness and
condensation--Ukridge interrupted him before he had got halfway
through, without a word of apology, and began some anecdote of his
own. He disagreed with nearly every opinion he expressed. It is true
that he did it all in such a perfectly friendly way, and was obviously
so innocent of any intention of giving offense, that another man might
have overlooked the matter. But the professor, robbed of his good
dinner, was at the stage when he had to attack somebody. Every moment
I had been expecting the storm to burst.

It burst after dinner.

We were strolling in the garden when some demon urged Ukridge, apropos
of the professor's mention of Dublin, to start upon the Irish
question. My heart stood still.

Ukridge had boomed forth some very positive opinions of his own on the
subject of Ireland before I could get near enough to him to stop him.
When I did, I suppose I must have whispered louder than I had
intended, for the professor heard my words, and they acted as the
match to the powder.

"He's touchy on the Irish question, is he?" he thundered. "Drop it, is
it? And why? Why, sir? I'm one of the best-tempered men that ever came
from Ireland, let me tell you, and I will not stay here to be insulted
by the insinuation that I cannot discuss Irish affairs as calmly as
anyone."

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