Love Among the Chickens
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P. G. Wodehouse >> Love Among the Chickens
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I rose to the surface close to the upturned boat. The first sight I
saw was the spluttering face of Mr. Hawk. I ignored him and swam to
where the professor's head bobbed on the waters.
"Keep cool," I said. A silly remark in the circumstances.
He was swimming energetically but unskillfully. In his shore clothes
it would have taken him at least a week to struggle to land.
I knew all about saving people from drowning. We used to practice it
with a dummy in the swimming bath at school. I attacked him from the
rear and got a good grip of him by the shoulders. I then swam on my
back in the direction of land, and beached him at the feet of an
admiring crowd. I had thought of putting him under once or twice just
to show him he was being rescued, but decided against such a course as
needlessly realistic. As it was, I fancy he had swallowed two or three
hearty draughts of sea water.
The crowd was enthusiastic.
"Brave young feller," said somebody.
I blushed. This was fame.
"Jumped in, he did, sure enough, an' saved the gentleman!"
"Be the old soul drownded?"
"That girt fule, 'Arry 'Awk!"
I was sorry for Mr. Hawk. Popular opinion, in which the professor
wrathfully joined, was against him. I could not help thinking that my
fellow-conspirator did well to keep out of it all. He was now sitting
in the boat, which he had restored to its normal position, baling
pensively with an old tin can. To satire from the shore he paid no
attention.
The professor stood up and stretched out his hand to me.
I grasped it.
"Mr. Garnet," he said, for all the world as if he had been the father
of the heroine of "Hilda's Hero," "we parted recently in anger. Let me
thank you for your gallant conduct, and hope that bygones will be
bygones."
[Illustration: "Mr. Garnet," he said, "we parted recently in anger. I
hope that bygones will be bygones."]
Like Mr. Samuel Weller, I liked his conversation much. It was "werry
pretty."
I came out strong. I continued to hold his hand. The crowd raised a
sympathetic cheer.
I said:
"Professor, the fault was mine. Show that you have forgiven me by
coming up to the farm and putting on something dry."
"An excellent idea, me boy. I _am_ a little wet."
We walked briskly up the hill to the farm. Ukridge met us at the gate.
He diagnosed the situation rapidly.
"You're all wet," he said.
I admitted it.
"Professor Derrick has had an unfortunate boating accident," I
explained.
"And Mr. Garnet heroically dived in, in all his clothes, and saved me
life," broke in the professor. "A hero, sir. _A-choo!_"
"You're catching cold, old horse," said Ukridge, all friendliness and
concern, his little differences with the professor having vanished
like thawed snow. "This'll never do. Come upstairs and get into
something of Garnet's. My own toggery wouldn't fit, what? Come along,
come along. I'll get you some hot water. Mrs. Beale--Mrs. _Beale_! We
want a large can of hot water. At once. What? Yes, immediately. What?
Very well, then, as soon as you can. Now, then, Garny, my boy, out
with the duds. What do you think of this, now, professor? A sweetly
pretty thing in gray flannel. Here's a shirt. Get out of that wet
toggery, and Mrs. Beale shall dry it. Don't attempt to tell me about
it till you've changed. Socks? Socks forward. Show socks. Here you
are. Coat? Try this blazer. That's right. That's right."
He bustled about till the professor was clothed, then marched him
downstairs and gave him a cigar.
"Now, what's all this? What happened?"
The professor explained. He was severe in his narration upon the
unlucky Mr. Hawk.
"I was fishing, Mr. Ukridge, with me back turned, when I felt the boat
rock violently from one side to the other to such an extent that I
nearly lost me equilibrium. And then the boat upset. The man's a fool,
sir. I could not see what had happened, my back being turned, as I
say."
"Garnet must have seen. What happened, Marmaduke?"
I tried to smooth things over for Mr. Hawk.
"It was very sudden," I said. "It seemed to me as if the man had got
an attack of cramp. That would account for it. He has the reputation
of being a most sober and trustworthy fellow."
"Never trust that sort of man," said Ukridge. "They are always the
worst. It's plain to me that this man was beastly drunk, and upset the
boat while trying to do a dance."
The professor was in the best of tempers, and I worked strenuously to
keep him so. My scheme had been so successful that its iniquity did
not worry me. I have noticed that this is usually the case in matters
of this kind. It is the bungled crime that brings remorse.
"We must go round the links together one of these days, Mr. Garnet,"
said the professor. "I have noticed you there on several occasions,
playing a strong game. I have lately taken to using a Schenectady
putter. It is wonderful what a difference it makes."
Golf is a great bond of union. We wandered about the grounds
discussing the game, the _entente cordiale_ growing more firmly
established every moment.
"We must certainly arrange a meeting," concluded the professor. "I
shall be interested to see how we stand with regard to one another. I
have improved my game considerably since I have been down
here--considerably."
"My only feat worthy of mention since I started the game," I said,
"has been to halve a round with Angus McLurkin at St. Andrew's."
"_The_ McLurkin?" asked the professor, impressed.
"Yes. But it was one of his very off days, I fancy. He must have had
gout, or something. And I have certainly never played so well since."
"Still--" said the professor. "Yes, we must really arrange to meet."
With Ukridge, who was in one of his less tactless moods, he became
very friendly.
Ukridge's ready agreement with his strictures on the erring Hawk had a
great deal to do with this. When a man has a grievance he feels drawn
to those who will hear him patiently and sympathize. Ukridge was all
sympathy.
"The man is an unprincipled scoundrel," he said, "and should be torn
limb from limb. Take my advice, Cholmondeley, and don't go out with
him again. Show him that you are not a man to be trifled with. The
spilled child dreads the water, what? Human life isn't safe with such
men as Hawk roaming about."
"You are perfectly right, sir. The man can have no defense. I shall
not employ him again."
I felt more than a little guilty while listening to this duet on the
subject of the man whom I had lured from the straight and narrow
path. But my attempts at excusing him were ill received. Indeed, the
professor showed such distinct signs of becoming heated that I
abandoned my fellow-conspirator to his fate with extreme promptness.
After all, an addition to the stipulated reward--one of these
days--would compensate him for any loss which he might sustain from
the withdrawal of the professor's custom. Mr. Harry Hawk was in good
enough case. I would see that he did not suffer.
Filled with these philanthropic feelings, I turned once more to talk
with the professor of niblicks and approach shots and holes done in
three without a brassy. We were a merry party at lunch--a lunch,
fortunately, in Mrs. Beale's best vein, consisting of a roast chicken
and sweets. Chicken had figured somewhat frequently of late on our
daily bill of fare.
We saw the professor off the premises in his dried clothes, and I
turned back to put the fowls to bed in a happier frame of mind than I
had known for a long time. I whistled rag-time airs as I worked.
"Rum old buffer," said Ukridge meditatively. "My goodness, I should
have liked to see him in the water. Why do I miss these good things?"
SOME EMOTIONS
XII
The fame which came to me through that gallant rescue was a little
embarrassing. I was a marked man. Did I walk through the village,
heads emerged from windows, and eyes followed me out of sight. Did I
sit on the beach, groups formed behind me and watched in silent
admiration. I was the man of the moment.
"If we'd wanted an advertisement for the farm," said Ukridge on one of
these occasions, "we couldn't have had a better one than you, Garny,
my boy. You have brought us three distinct orders for eggs during the
last week. And I'll tell you what it is, we need all the orders we
can get that'll bring us in ready money. The farm is in a critical
condition, Marmaduke. The coffers are low, decidedly low. And I'll
tell you another thing. I'm getting precious tired of living on
nothing but chicken and eggs. So's Millie, though she doesn't say so."
"So am I," I said, "and I don't feel like imitating your wife's proud
reserve. I never want to see a chicken again except alive."
For the last week monotony had been the keynote of our commissariat.
We had cold chicken and eggs for breakfast, boiled chicken and eggs
for lunch, and roast chicken and eggs for dinner. Meals became a
nuisance, and Mrs. Beale complained bitterly that we did not give her
a chance. She was a cook who would have graced an alderman's house,
and served up noble dinners for gourmets, and here she was in this
remote corner of the world ringing the changes on boiled chicken and
roast chicken and boiled eggs and poached eggs. Mr. Whistler, set to
paint signboards for public houses, might have felt the same restless
discontent. 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. When a man has supported life for a number of
years on incessant army beef, the monotony of daily chicken and eggs
scarcely strikes him.
"The fact is," said Ukridge, "these tradesmen round here seem to be a
sordid, suspicious lot. They clamor for money."
He mentioned a few examples. Vickers, the butcher, had been the first
to strike, with the remark that he would like to see the color of Mr.
Ukridge's money before supplying further joints. Dawlish, the grocer,
had expressed almost exactly similar sentiments two days later, and
the ranks of these passive resisters had been receiving fresh recruits
ever since. To a man the tradesmen of Lyme Regis seemed as deficient
in simple faith as they were in Norman blood.
"Can't you pay some of them a little on account?" I suggested. "It
would set them going again."
"My dear old man," said Ukridge impressively, "we need every penny of
ready money we can raise for the farm. The place simply eats money.
That infernal roop let us in for I don't know what."
That insidious epidemic had indeed proved costly. We had painted the
throats of the chickens with the best turpentine--at least, Ukridge
and Beale had--but in spite of their efforts dozens had died, and we
had been obliged to sink much more money than was pleasant in
restocking the run.
"No," said Ukridge, summing up, "these men must wait. We can't help
their troubles. Why, good gracious, it isn't as if they'd been waiting
for the money long. We've not been down here much over a month. I
never heard such a scandalous thing. 'Pon my word, I've a good mind to
go round and have a straight talk with one or two of them. I come and
settle down here, and stimulate trade, and give them large orders, and
they worry me with bills when they know I'm up to my eyes in work,
looking after the fowls. One can't attend to everything. This business
is just now at its most crucial point. It would be fatal to pay any
attention to anything else with things as they are. These scoundrels
will get paid all in good time."
It is a peculiarity of situations of this kind that the ideas of
debtor and creditor as to what constitutes good time never coincide.
I am afraid that, despite the urgent need for strict attention to
business, I was inclined to neglect my duties about this time. I had
got into the habit of wandering off, either to the links, where I
generally found the professor and sometimes Phyllis, or on long walks
by myself. There was one particular walk, along the Ware cliff,
through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever set eyes on,
which more than any other suited my mood. I would work my way through
the woods till I came to a small clearing on the very edge of the
cliff. There I would sit by the hour. Somehow I found that my ideas
flowed more readily in that spot than in any other. My novel was
taking shape. It was to be called, by the way, if it ever won through
to the goal of a title, "The Brown-haired Girl."
I had not been inside the professor's grounds since the occasion when
I had gone in through the boxwood hedge. But on the afternoon
following my financial conversation with Ukridge I made my way thither
after a toilet which, from its length, should have produced better
results than it did.
Not for four whole days had I caught so much as a glimpse of Phyllis.
I had been to the links three times, and had met the professor twice,
but on both occasions she had been absent. I had not had the courage
to ask after her. I had an absurd idea that my voice or my manner
would betray me in some way.
The professor was not at home. Nor was Mr. Chase. Nor was Miss Norah
Derrick, the lady I had met on the beach with the professor. Miss
Phyllis, said the maid, was in the garden.
I went into the garden. She was sitting under the cedar by the tennis
lawn, reading. She looked up as I approached.
To walk any distance under observation is one of the most trying
things I know. I advanced in bad order, hoping that my hands did not
really look as big as they felt. The same remark applied to my feet.
In emergencies of this kind a diffident man could very well dispense
with extremities. I should have liked to be wheeled up in a bath
chair.
I said it was a lovely afternoon; after which there was a lull in the
conversation. I was filled with a horrid fear that I was boring her. I
had probably arrived at the very moment when she was most interested
in her book. She must, I thought, even now be regarding me as a
nuisance, and was probably rehearsing bitter things to say to the
servant for not having had the sense to explain that she was out.
"I--er--called in the hope of seeing Professor Derrick," I said.
"You would find him on the links," she replied. It seemed to me that
she spoke wistfully.
"Oh, it--it doesn't matter," I said. "It wasn't anything important."
This was true. If the professor had appeared then and there, I should
have found it difficult to think of anything to say to him which would
have accounted for my anxiety to see him.
We paused again.
"How are the chickens, Mr. Garnet?" said she.
The situation was saved. Conversationally, I am like a clockwork toy.
I have to be set going. On the affairs of the farm I could speak
fluently. I sketched for her the progress we had made since her visit.
I was humorous concerning roop, epigrammatic on the subject of the
hired retainer and Edwin.
"Then the cat did come down from the chimney?" said Phyllis.
We both laughed, and--I can answer for myself--felt the better for it.
"He came down next day," I said, "and made an excellent lunch off one
of our best fowls. He also killed another, and only just escaped death
himself at the hands of Ukridge."
"Mr. Ukridge doesn't like him, does he?"
"If he does, he dissembles his love. Edwin is Mrs. Ukridge's pet. He
is the only subject on which they disagree. Edwin is certainly in the
way on a chicken farm. He has got over his fear of Bob, and is now
perfectly lawless. We have to keep a constant eye on him."
"And have you had any success with the incubator? I love incubators. I
have always wanted to have one of my own, but we have never kept
fowls."
"The incubator has not done all that it should have done," I said.
"Ukridge looks after it, and I fancy his methods are not the right
methods. I don't know if I have got the figures absolutely correct,
but Ukridge reasons on these lines. He says you are supposed to keep
the temperature up to a hundred and five degrees. I think he said a
hundred and five. Then the eggs are supposed to hatch out in a week or
so. He argues that you may just as well keep the temperature at
seventy-two, and wait a fortnight for your chickens. I am certain
there's a fallacy in the system somewhere, because we never seem to
get as far as the chickens. But Ukridge says his theory is
mathematically sound and he sticks to it."
"Are you quite sure that the way you are doing it is the best way to
manage a chicken farm?"
"I should very much doubt it. I am a child in these matters. I had
only seen a chicken in its wild state once or twice before we came
down here. I had never dreamed of being an active assistant on a real
farm. The whole thing began like Mr. George Ade's fable of the author.
An author--myself--was sitting at his desk trying to turn out
something that could be converted into breakfast food, when a friend
came in and sat down on the table and told him to go right on and not
mind him."
"Did Mr. Ukridge do that?"
"Very nearly that. He called at my rooms one beautiful morning when I
was feeling desperately tired of London and overworked and dying for a
holiday, and suggested that I should come to Lyme Regis with him and
help him farm chickens. I have not regretted it."
"It is a lovely place, isn't it?"
"The loveliest I have ever seen. How charming your garden is."
"Shall we go and look at it? You have not seen the whole of it."
As she rose I saw her book, which she had laid face downward on the
grass beside her. It was that same much-enduring copy of "The
Maneuvers of Arthur." I was thrilled. This patient perseverance must
surely mean something.
She saw me looking at it.
"Did you draw Pamela from anybody?" she asked suddenly.
I was glad now that I had not done so. The wretched Pamela, once my
pride, was for some reason unpopular with the only critic about whose
opinion I cared, and had fallen accordingly from her pedestal.
As we wandered down the gravel paths she gave me her opinion of the
book. In the main it was appreciative. I shall always associate the
scent of yellow lubin with the higher criticism.
"Of course I don't know anything about writing books," she said.
"Yes?" My tone implied, or I hoped it did, that she was an expert on
books, and that if she was not it didn't matter.
"But I don't think you do your heroines well. I have got 'The
Outsider'--"
(My other novel. Bastable & Kirby, six shillings. Satirical. All about
society, of which I know less than I know about chicken farming.
Slated by _Times_ and _Spectator_. Well received by the _Pelican_.)
"--and," continued Phyllis, "Lady Maud is exactly the same as Pamela
in 'The Maneuvers of Arthur.' I thought you must have drawn both
characters from some one you knew."
"No," I said; "no."
"I am so glad," said Phyllis.
And then neither of us seemed to have anything to say.
My knees began to tremble. I realized that the moment had arrived when
my fate must be put to the touch, and I feared that the moment was
premature. We cannot arrange these things to suit ourselves. I knew
that the time was not yet ripe, but the magic scent of the yellow
lubin was too much for me.
"Miss Derrick--" I said hoarsely.
Phyllis was looking with more intentness than the attractions of the
flower justified at a rose she held in her hand. The bees hummed in
the lubin.
"Miss Derrick--" I said, and stopped again.
"I say, you people," said a cheerful voice, "tea is ready. Halloo,
Garnet, how are you? That medal arrived yet from the humane society?"
I spun round. Mr. Tom Chase was standing at the end of the path. I
grinned a sickly grin.
"Well, Tom," said Phyllis.
And there was, I thought, just the faintest trace of annoyance in her
voice.
"I've been bathing," said Mr. Chase.
"Oh," I replied. "And I wish," I added, "that you'd drowned yourself."
But I added it silently to myself.
TEA AND TENNIS
XIII
"Met the professor's late boatman on the Cob," said Mr. Chase,
dissecting a chocolate cake.
"Clumsy man," said Phyllis, "I hope he was ashamed of himself. I shall
never forgive him for trying to drown papa."
My heart bled for Mr. Henry Hawk, that modern martyr.
"When I met him," said Tom Chase, "he looked as if he had been trying
to drown his sorrow as well."
"I knew he drank," said Phyllis severely, "the very first time I saw
him."
"You might have warned the professor," murmured Mr. Chase.
"He couldn't have upset the boat if he had been sober."
"You never know. He may have done it on purpose."
"How absurd!"
"Rather rough on the man, aren't you?" I said.
"Merely a suggestion," continued Mr. Chase airily. "I've been reading
sensational novels lately, and it seems to me that Hawk's cut out to
be a minion. Probably some secret foe of the professor's bribed him."
My heart stood still. Did he know, I wondered, and was this all a
roundabout way of telling me that he knew?
"The professor may be a member of an anarchist league, or something,
and this is his punishment for refusing to assassinate the Kaiser."
"Have another cup of tea, Tom, and stop talking nonsense."
Mr. Chase handed in his cup.
"What gave me the idea that the upset was done on purpose was this. I
saw the whole thing from the Ware cliff. The spill looked to me just
like dozens I had seen at Malta."
"Why do they upset themselves on purpose at Malta particularly?"
inquired Phyllis.
"Listen carefully, my dear, and you'll know more about the ways of the
navy that guards your coasts than you did before. When men are allowed
on shore at Malta, the owner has a fancy to see them snugly on board
again at a certain reasonable hour. After that hour any Maltese
policeman who brings them aboard gets one sovereign, cash. But he has
to do all the bringing part of it on his own. Consequence is, you see
boats rowing out to the ship, carrying men who have overstayed their
leave; and, when they get near enough, the able-bodied gentleman in
custody jumps to his feet, upsets the boat, and swims to the gangway.
The policemen, if they aren't drowned--they sometimes are--race him,
and whichever gets there first wins. If it's the policeman, he gets
his sovereign. If it's the sailor, he is considered to have arrived
not in a state of custody, and gets off easier. What a judicious
remark that was of the Governor of North Carolina to the Governor of
South Carolina! Just one more cup, please, Phyllis."
"But how does all that apply?" I asked, dry-mouthed.
"Why, Hawk upset the professor just as those Maltese were upset.
There's a patent way of doing it. Furthermore, by judicious
questioning, I found that Hawk was once in the navy, and stationed at
Malta. _Now_, who's going to drag in Sherlock Holmes?"
"You don't really think--" I said, feeling like a criminal in the
dock when the case is going against him.
"I think friend Hawk has been reenacting the joys of his vanished
youth, so to speak."
"He ought to be prosecuted," said Phyllis, blazing with indignation.
Alas, poor Hawk!
"Nobody's safe with a man of that sort hiring out a boat."
Oh, miserable Hawk!
"But why on earth," I asked, as calmly as possible, "should he play a
trick like that on Professor Derrick, Chase?"
"Pure animal spirits, probably. Or he may, as I say, be a minion."
I was hot all over.
"I shall tell father that," said Phyllis in her most decided voice,
"and see what he says. I don't wonder at the man taking to drink after
doing such a thing."
"I--I think you're making a mistake," I said.
"I never make mistakes," Mr. Chase replied. "I am called Archibald the
All Right, for I am infallible. I propose to keep a reflective eye
upon the jovial Hawk."
He helped himself to another section of the chocolate cake.
"Haven't you finished yet, Tom?" inquired Phyllis. "I'm sure Mr.
Garnet's getting tired of sitting talking here."
I shot out a polite negative. Mr. Chase explained with his mouth full
that he had by no means finished. Chocolate cake, it appeared, was the
dream of his life. When at sea he was accustomed to lie awake o'
nights thinking of it.
"You don't seem to realize," he said, "that I have just come from a
cruise on a torpedo boat. There was such a sea on, as a rule, that
cooking operations were entirely suspended, and we lived on ham and
sardines--without bread."
"How horrible!"
"On the other hand," added Mr. Chase philosophically, "it didn't
matter much, because we were all ill most of the time."
"Don't be nasty, Tom."
"I was merely defending myself. I hope Mr. Hawk will be able to do as
well when his turn comes. My aim, my dear Phyllis, is to show you in a
series of impressionist pictures the sort of thing I have to go
through when I'm not here. Then perhaps you won't rend me so savagely
over a matter of five minutes' lateness for breakfast."
"Five minutes! It was three quarters of an hour, and everything was
simply frozen."
"Quite right, too, in weather like this. You're a slave to convention,
Phyllis. You think breakfast ought to be hot, so you always have it
hot. On occasion I prefer mine cold. Mine is the truer wisdom. I have
scoffed the better part, as the good Kipling has it. You can give the
cook my compliments, Phyllis, and tell her--gently, for I don't wish
the glad news to overwhelm her--that I enjoyed that cake. Say that I
shall be glad to hear from her again. Care for a game of tennis,
Garnet?"
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