Love Among the Chickens

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"What a pity Norah isn't here," said Phyllis. "We could have had a
four."

"But she is at present wasting her sweetness on the desert air of
Yeovil. You had better sit out and watch us, Phyllis. Tennis in this
sort of weather is no job for the delicately nurtured feminine. I will
explain the finer points of my play as we go on. Look out particularly
for the Doherty Back-handed Slosh. A winning stroke every time."

We proceeded to the tennis court. I played with the sun in my eyes. I
might, if I chose, emphasize that fact, and attribute my subsequent
rout to it, adding, by way of solidifying the excuse, that I was
playing in a strange court with a borrowed racket, and that my mind
was preoccupied--firstly, with _l'affaire_ Hawk; secondly, and
chiefly, with the gloomy thought that Phyllis and my opponent seemed
to be on fiendishly good terms with each other. Their manner at tea
had been almost that of an engaged couple. There was a thorough
understanding between them. I will not, however, take refuge behind
excuses. I admit, without qualifying the statement, that Mr. Chase was
too good for me. I had always been under the impression that
lieutenants in the royal navy were not brilliant at tennis. I had met
them at various houses, but they had never shone conspicuously. They
had played an earnest, unobtrusive game, and generally seemed glad
when it was over. Mr. Chase was not of this sort. His service was
bottled lightning. His returns behaved like jumping crackers. He won
the first game in precisely four strokes. He served. I know now how
soldiers feel under fire. The balls whistled at me like live things.
Only once did I take the service with the full face of the racket, and
then I seemed to be stopping a bullet. I returned it into the net.

"Game," said Mr. Chase.

I felt a worm, and no man. Phyllis, I thought, would probably judge my
entire character from this exhibition. A man, she would reflect, who
could be so feeble and miserable a failure at tennis, could not be
good for much in any department of life. She would compare me
instructively with my opponent, and contrast his dash and brilliance
with my own inefficiency. Somehow, the massacre was beginning to have
a bad effect on my character. My self-respect was ebbing. A little
more of this, and I should become crushed--a mere human jelly. It was
my turn to serve. Service is my strong point at tennis. I am
inaccurate but vigorous, and occasionally send in a quite unplayable
shot. One or two of these, even at the expense of a fault or so, and I
might be permitted to retain at least a portion of my self-respect.

I opened with two faults. The sight of Phyllis, sitting calm and cool
in her chair under the cedar, unnerved me. I served another fault. And
yet another.

"Here, I say, Garnet," observed Mr. Chase plaintively, "do put me out
of this hideous suspense. I'm becoming a mere bundle of quivering
ganglions."

I loath facetiousness in moments of stress. I frowned austerely, made
no reply, and served another fault, my fifth.

Matters had reached a crisis. Even if I had to lob it under hand, I
must send the ball over the net with this next stroke.

I restrained myself this time, eschewing the careless vigor which had
marked my previous efforts. The ball flew in a slow semicircle, and
pitched inside the correct court. At least, I told myself, I had not
served a fault.

What happened then I cannot exactly say. I saw my opponent spring
forward like a panther and whirl his racket. The next moment the back
net was shaking violently and the ball was rolling swiftly along the
ground on a return journey to the other court.

"Love--forty," said Mr. Chase. "Phyllis!"

"Yes?"

"That was the Doherty Slosh."

"I thought it must be," said Phyllis.

The game ended with another brace of faults.

In the third game I managed to score fifteen. By the merest chance I
returned one of his red-hot serves, and--probably through
surprise--he failed to send it back again.

In the fourth and fifth games I omitted to score.

We began the sixth game. And now for some reason I played really well.
I struck a little vein of brilliance. I was serving, and this time a
proportion of my serves went over the net instead of trying to get
through. The score went from fifteen all to forty-fifteen. Hope began
to surge through my veins. If I could keep this up, I might win yet.

The Doherty Slosh diminished my lead by fifteen. The Renshaw Slam
brought the score to Deuce. Then I got in a really fine serve, which
beat him. 'Vantage in. Another Slosh. Deuce. Another Slam. 'Vantage
out. It was an awesome moment. There is a tide in the affairs of men
which taken at the flood--I served. Fault. I served again--a beauty.
He returned it like a flash into the corner of the court. With a
supreme effort I got to it. We rallied. I was playing like a
professor. Then whizz!

The Doherty Slosh had beaten me on the post.

"Game _and_--" said Mr. Chase, twirling his racket into the air and
catching it by the handle. "Good game that last one."

I turned to see what Phyllis thought of it. At the eleventh hour I had
shown her of what stuff I was made.

She had disappeared.

"Looking for Miss Derrick?" said Chase, jumping the net, and joining
me in my court; "she's gone into the house."

"When did she go?"

"At the end of the fifth game," said Chase.

"Gone to dress for dinner, I suppose," he continued. "It must be
getting late. I think I ought to be going, too, if you don't mind.
The professor gets a little restive if I keep him waiting for his
daily bread. Great Scott, that watch can't be right! What do you make
it? Yes, so do I. I really think I must run. You won't mind? Good
night, then. See you to-morrow, I hope."

I walked slowly out across the fields. That same star, in which I had
confided on a former occasion, was at its post. It looked placid and
cheerful. _It_ never got beaten by six games to love under the eyes of
its particular lady star. _It_ was never cut out ignominiously by
infernally capable lieutenants in his Majesty's navy. No wonder it was
cheerful.

It must be pleasant to be a star.

A COUNCIL OF WAR

XIV

"The fact is," said Ukridge, "if things go on as they are now, old
horse, we shall be in the cart. This business wants bucking up. We
don't seem to be making headway. What we want is time. If only these
scoundrels of tradesmen would leave us alone for a spell, we might get
things going properly. But we're hampered and worried and rattled all
the time. Aren't we, Millie?"

"Yes, dear."

"You don't let me see the financial side of the thing," I said,
"except at intervals. I didn't know we were in such a bad way. The
fowls look fit enough, and Edwin hasn't had one for a week."

"Edwin knows as well as possible when he's done wrong, Mr. Garnet,"
said Mrs. Ukridge. "He was so sorry after he had killed those other
two."

"Yes," said Ukridge. "I saw to that."

"As far as I can see," I continued, "we're going strong. Chicken for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner is a shade monotonous, but look at the
business we're doing. We sold a whole heap of eggs last week."

"It's not enough, Garny, my boy. We sell a dozen eggs where we ought
to be selling a hundred, carting them off in trucks for the London
market. Harrod's and Whiteley's and the rest of them are beginning to
get on their hind legs, and talk. That's what they're doing. You see,
Marmaduke, there's no denying it--we _did_ touch them for a lot of
things on account, and they agreed to take it out in eggs. They seem
to be getting tired of waiting."

"Their last letter was quite pathetic," said Mrs. Ukridge.

I had a vision of an eggless London. I seemed to see homes rendered
desolate and lives embittered by the slump, and millionaires bidding
against one another for the few specimens Ukridge had actually managed
to dispatch to Brompton and Bayswater.

"I told them in my last letter but three," continued Ukridge
complainingly, "that I proposed to let them have the eggs on the
_Times_ installment system, and they said I was frivolous. They said
that to send thirteen eggs as payment for goods supplied to the value
of twenty-five pounds one shilling and sixpence was mere trifling.
Trifling! when those thirteen eggs were absolutely all we had over
that week after Mrs. Beale had taken what she wanted for the kitchen.
I tell you what it is, old boy, that woman literally eats eggs."

"The habit is not confined to her," I said.

"What I mean to say is, she seems to bathe in them."

An impressive picture to one who knew Mrs. Beale.

"She says she needs so many for puddings, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge. "I
spoke to her about it yesterday. And, of course, we often have
omelets."

"She can't make omelets without breakings eggs," I urged.

"She can't make them without breaking us," said Ukridge. "One or two
more omelets and we're done for. Another thing," he continued, "that
incubator thing won't work. _I_ don't know what's wrong with it."

"Perhaps it's your dodge of letting down the temperature."

I had touched upon a tender point.

"My dear fellow," he said earnestly, "there's nothing the matter with
my figures. It's a mathematical certainty. What's the good of
mathematics if not to help you work out that sort of thing? No,
there's something wrong with the machine itself, and I shall probably
make a complaint to the people I got it from. Where did we get the
incubator, Millie?"

"Harrod's, I think, dear. Yes, it was Harrod's. It came down with the
first lot of things from there."

"Then," said Ukridge, banging the table with his fist, while his
glasses flashed triumph, "we've got 'em! Write and answer that letter
of theirs to-night, Millie. Sit on them."

"Yes, dear."

"And tell 'em that we'd have sent 'em their confounded eggs weeks ago
if only their rotten, twopenny-ha'penny incubator had worked with any
approach to decency."

"Or words to that effect," I suggested.

"Add in a postscript that I consider that the manufacturer of the
thing ought to rent a padded cell at Earlswood, and that they are
scoundrels for palming off a groggy machine of that sort on me. I'll
teach them!"

"Yes, dear."

"The ceremony of opening the morning's letters at Harrod's ought to be
full of interest and excitement to-morrow," I said.

This dashing counter stroke served to relieve Ukridge's pessimistic
mood. He seldom looked on the dark side of things for long at a time.
He began now to speak hopefully of the future. He planned out
ingenious, if somewhat impracticable, improvements in the farm. Our
fowls were to multiply so rapidly and consistently that within a short
space of time Dorsetshire would be paved with them. Our eggs were to
increase in size till they broke records, and got three-line notices
in the "Items of Interest" column of the _Daily Mail_. Briefly, each
hen was to become a happy combination of rabbit and ostrich.

"There is certainly a good time coming," I said. "May it be soon.
Meanwhile, there remain the local tradesmen. What of them?"

Ukridge relapsed once more into pessimism.

"They are the worst of the lot," he said. "I don't mind about the
London men so much. They only write. And a letter or two hurts nobody.
But when it comes to butchers and bakers and grocers and fishmongers
and fruiterers, and what not, coming up to one's house and dunning one
in one's own garden--well, it's a little hard, what?"

It may be wondered why, before things came to such a crisis, I had not
placed my balance at the bank at the disposal of the senior partner
for use on behalf of the firm. The fact was that my balance was at
the moment small. I have not yet in the course of this narrative gone
into my pecuniary position, but I may state here that it was an
inconvenient one. It was big with possibilities, but of ready cash
there was but a meager supply. My parents had been poor, but I had a
wealthy uncle. Uncles are notoriously careless of the comfort of their
nephews. Mine was no exception. He had views. He was a great believer
in matrimony, as, having married three wives--not, I should add,
simultaneously--he had every right to be. He was also of opinion that
the less money the young bachelor possessed, the better. The
consequence was that he announced his intention of giving me a
handsome allowance from the day that I married, but not an instant
before. Till that glad day I would have to shift for myself. And I am
bound to admit that--for an uncle--it was a remarkably sensible idea.
I am also of opinion that it is greatly to my credit, and a proof of
my pure and unmercenary nature, that I did not instantly put myself up
to be raffled for, or rush out into the streets and propose marriage
to the first lady I met. I was making enough with my pen to support
myself, and, be it ever so humble, there is something pleasant in a
bachelor existence, or so I had thought until very recently.

I had thus no great stake in Ukridge's chicken farm. I had contributed
a modest five pounds to the preliminary expenses, and another five
pounds after the roop incident. But further I could not go with
safety. When his income is dependent on the whims of editors and
publishers, the prudent man keeps something up his sleeve against a
sudden slump in his particular wares. I did not wish to have to make a
hurried choice between matrimony and the workhouse.

Having exhausted the subject of finance--or, rather, when I began to
feel that it was exhausting me--I took my clubs and strolled up the
hill to the links to play off a match with a sportsman from the
village. I had entered some days previously a competition for a trophy
(I quote the printed notice) presented by a local supporter of the
game, in which up to the present I was getting on nicely. I had
survived two rounds, and expected to beat my present opponent, which
would bring me into the semi-final. Unless I had bad luck, I felt that
I ought to get into the final, and win it. As far as I could gather
from watching the play of my rivals, the professor was the best of
them, and I was convinced that I should have no difficulty with him.
But he had the most extraordinary luck at golf, though he never
admitted it. He also exercised quite an uncanny influence on his
opponent. I have seen men put completely off their stroke by his good
fortune.

I disposed of my man without difficulty. We parted a little coldly. He
decapitated his brassy on the occasion of his striking Dorsetshire
instead of his ball, and he was slow in recovering from the complex
emotions which such an episode induces.

In the clubhouse I met the professor, whose demeanor was a welcome
contrast to that of my late antagonist. The professor had just routed
his opponent, and so won through to the semi-final. He was warm but
jubilant.

I congratulated him, and left the place.

Phyllis was waiting outside. She often went round the course with him.

"Good afternoon," I said. "Have you been round with the professor?"

"Yes. We must have been in front of you. Father won his match."

"So he was telling me. I was very glad to hear it."

"Did you win, Mr. Garnet?"

"Yes. Pretty easily. My opponent had bad luck all through. Bunkers
seemed to have a magnetic attraction for him."

"So you and father are both in the semi-final? I hope you will play
very badly."

"Thank you, Miss Derrick," I said.

"Yes, it does sound rude, doesn't it? But father has set his heart on
winning this year. Do you know that he has played in the final round
two years running now?"

"Really?"

"Both times he was beaten by the same man."

"Who was that? Mr. Derrick plays a much better game than anybody I
have seen on these links."

"It was nobody who is here now. It was a Colonel Jervis. He has not
come to Lyme Regis this year. That is why father is hopeful."

"Logically," I said, "he ought to be certain to win."

"Yes; but, you see, you were not playing last year, Mr. Garnet."

"Oh, the professor can make rings round me," I said.

"What did you go round in to-day?"

"We were playing match play, and only did the first dozen holes; but
my average round is somewhere in the late eighties."

"The best father has ever done is ninety, and that was only once. So
you see, Mr. Garnet, there's going to be another tragedy this year."

"You make me feel a perfect brute. But it's more than likely, you must
remember, that I shall fail miserably if I ever do play your father in
the final. There are days when I play golf very badly."

Phyllis smiled. "Do you really have your off days?"

"Nearly always. There are days when I slice with my driver as if it
were a bread knife."

"Really?"

"And when I couldn't putt to hit a haystack."

"Then I hope it will be on one of those days that you play father."

"I hope so, too," I said.

"You hope so?"

"Yes."

"But don't you want to win?"

"I should prefer to please you."

Mr. Lewis Waller could not have said it better.

"Really, how very unselfish of you, Mr. Garnet," she replied with a
laugh. "I had no idea that such chivalry existed. I thought a golfer
would sacrifice anything to win a game."

"Most things."

"And trample on the feelings of anybody."

"Not everybody," I said.

At this point the professor joined us.

XV

THE ARRIVAL OF NEMESIS

Some people do not believe in presentiments. They attribute that
curious feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen to such
mundane causes as liver or a chill or the weather. For my own part, I
think there is more in the matter than the casual observer might
imagine.

I awoke three days after my meeting with the professor at the
clubhouse filled with a dull foreboding. Somehow I seemed to know that
that day was going to turn out badly for me. It may have been liver or
a chill, but it was certainly not the weather. The morning was
perfect, the most glorious of a glorious summer. There was a haze over
the valley and out to sea which suggested a warm noon, when the sun
should have begun the serious duties of the day. The birds were
singing in the trees and breakfasting on the lawn, while Edwin, seated
on one of the flower beds, watched them with the eye of a connoisseur.
Occasionally, when a sparrow hopped in his direction, he would make a
sudden spring, and the bird would fly away to the other side of the
lawn. I had never seen Edwin catch a sparrow. I believe they looked on
him as a bit of a crank, and humored him by coming within springing
distance, just to keep him amused. Dashing young cock sparrows would
show off before their particular hen sparrows, and earn a cheap
reputation for dare-deviltry by going within so many yards of Edwin's
lair and then darting away.

Bob was in his favorite place on the gravel. I took him with me down
to the Cob to watch me bathe.

"What's the matter with me to-day, Robert, old man?" I asked him as I
dried myself.

He blinked lazily, but contributed no suggestion.

"It's no good looking bored," I went on, "because I'm going to talk
about myself, however much it bores you. Here am I, as fit as a prize
fighter; living in the open air for I don't know how long; eating
good, plain food; bathing every morning--sea bathing, mind you; and
yet what's the result? I feel beastly."

Bob yawned and gave a little whine.

"Yes," I said, "I know I'm in love. But that can't be it, because I
was in love just as much a week ago, and I felt all right then. But
isn't she an angel, Bob? Eh? Isn't she? But how about Tom Chase? Don't
you think he's a dangerous man? He calls her by her Christian name,
you know, and behaves generally as if she belonged to him. And then
he sees her every day, while I have to trust to meeting her at odd
times, and then I generally feel like such a fool I can't think of
anything to talk about except golf and the weather. He probably sings
duets with her after dinner. And you know what comes of duets after
dinner."

Here Bob, who had been trying for some time to find a decent excuse
for getting away, pretended to see something of importance at the
other end of the Cob, and trotted off to investigate it, leaving me to
finish dressing by myself.

"Of course," I said to myself, "it may be merely hunger. I may be all
right after breakfast, but at present I seem to be working up for a
really fine fit of the blues."

I whistled for Bob and started for home. On the beach I saw the
professor some little distance away and waved my towel in a friendly
manner. He made no reply.

Of course it was possible that he had not seen me, but for some reason
his attitude struck me as ominous. As far as I could see, he was
looking straight at me, and he was not a shortsighted man. I could
think of no reason why he should cut me. We had met on the links on
the previous morning, and he had been friendliness itself. He had
called me "me dear boy," supplied me with ginger beer at the
clubhouse, and generally behaved as if he had been David and I
Jonathan. Yet in certain moods we are inclined to make mountains out
of mole-hills, and I went on my way, puzzled and uneasy, with a
distinct impression that I had received the cut direct.

I felt hurt. What had I done that Providence should make things so
unpleasant for me? It would be a little hard, as Ukridge would have
said, if, after all my trouble, the professor had discovered some
fresh crow to pluck with me. Perhaps Ukridge had been irritating him
again. I wished he would not identify me so completely with Ukridge. I
could not be expected to control the man. Then I reflected that they
could hardly have met in the few hours between my parting from the
professor at the clubhouse and my meeting with him on the beach.
Ukridge rarely left the farm. When he was not working among the fowls,
he was lying on his back in the paddock, resting his massive mind.

I came to the conclusion that, after all, the professor had not seen
me.

"I'm an idiot, Bob," I said, as we turned in at the farm gate, "and I
let my imagination run away with me."

Bob wagged his tail in approval of the sentiment.

Breakfast was ready when I got in. There was a cold chicken on the
sideboard, deviled chicken on the table, and a trio of boiled eggs,
and a dish of scrambled eggs. I helped myself to the latter and sat
down.

Ukridge was sorting the letters.

"Morning, Garny," he said. "One for you, Millie."

"It's from Aunt Elizabeth," said Mrs. Ukridge, looking at the
envelope.

"Wish she'd inclose a check. She could spare it."

"I think she would, dear, if she knew how much it was needed. But I
don't like to ask her. She's so curious and says such horrid things."

"She does," said Ukridge gloomily. He probably spoke from experience.
"Two for you, Sebastian. All the rest for me. Eighteen of them, and
all bills."

He spread them out on the table like a pack of cards, and drew one at
a venture.

"Whiteley's," he said. "Getting jumpy. Are in receipt of my favor of
the 7th inst, and are at a loss to understand--all sorts of things.
Would like something on account."

"Grasping of them," I said.

"They seem to think I'm doing it for fun. How can I let them have
their money when there isn't any?"

"Sounds difficult."

"Here's one from Dorchester--Smith, the man I got the gramophone from.
Wants to know when I'm going to settle up for sixteen records."

"Sordid man!"

I wanted to get on with my own correspondence, but Ukridge was one of
those men who compel one's attention when they are talking.

"The chicken men, the dealer people, you know, want me to pay up for
the first lot of hens. Considering that they all died of roop, and
that I was going to send them back, anyhow, after I'd got them to
hatch out a few chickens, I call that cool. I can't afford to pay
heavy sums for birds which die off quicker than I can get them in. It
isn't business."

It was not my business, at any rate, so I switched off my attention
from Ukridge's troubles and was opening the first of my two letters
when an exclamation from Mrs. Ukridge made me look up.

She had dropped the letter she had been reading and was staring
indignantly in front of her. There were two little red spots on her
cheeks.

"I shall never speak to Aunt Elizabeth again," she said.

"What's the matter, old chap?" inquired Ukridge affectionately,
glancing up from his pile of bills. "Aunt Elizabeth been getting on
your nerves again? What's she been saying this time?"

Mrs. Ukridge left the room with a sob.

Ukridge sprang at the letter.

"If that demon doesn't stop writing letters and upsetting Millie I
shall lynch her," he said. I had never seen him so genuinely angry. He
turned over the pages till he came to the passage which had caused the
trouble. "Listen to this, Garnet. 'I'm sorry, but not surprised, to
hear that the chicken farm is not proving a great success. I think you
know my opinion of your husband. He is perfectly helpless in any
matter requiring the exercise of a little common sense and business
capability.' I like that! 'Pon my soul, I like that! You've known me
longer than she has, Garny, and you know that it's just in matters
requiring common sense that I come out strong. What?"

"Of course, old man," I replied dutifully. "The woman must be a fool."

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