Chapter 8 A Little Dinner At Ukridge's

"Edwin comes to-day," said Mrs. Ukridge.

　　"And the Derricks," said Ukridge, sawing at the bread in his energeticway. "Don't forget the Derricks, Millie.""No, dear. Mrs. Beale is going to give us a very nice dinner. Wetalked it over yesterday.""Who is Edwin?" I asked.

　　We were finishing breakfast on the second morning after my visit tothe Derricks. I had related my adventures to the staff of the farm onmy return, laying stress on the merits of our neighbours and theirinterest in our doings, and the Hired Retainer had been sent off nextmorning with a note from Mrs. Ukridge inviting them to look over thefarm and stay to dinner.

　　"Edwin?" said Ukridge. "Oh, beast of a cat.""Oh, Stanley!" said Mrs. Ukridge plaintively. "He's not. He's such adear, Mr. Garnet. A beautiful, pure-bred Persian. He has takenprizes.""He's always taking something. That's why he didn't come down withus.""A great, horrid, /beast/ of a dog bit him, Mr. Garnet. And poorEdwin had to go to a cats' hospital.""And I hope," said Ukridge, "the experience will do him good. Sneakeda dog's dinner, Garnet, under his very nose, if you please. Naturallythe dog lodged a protest.""I'm so afraid that he will be frightened of Bob. He will be verytimid, and Bob's so boisterous. Isn't he, Mr. Garnet?""That's all right," said Ukridge. "Bob won't hurt him, unless he triesto steal his dinner. In that case we will have Edwin made into a rug.""Stanley doesn't like Edwin," said Mrs. Ukridge, sadly.

　　Edwin arrived early in the afternoon, and was shut into the kitchen.

　　He struck me as a handsome cat, but nervous.

　　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 havebeen delighted to come. It was a disappointment to the boy, for hewanted 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 atBristol?""Never, sir," said the professor.

　　"Because I knew just such another fat little buffer there a few yearsago. Gay old bird, he was. He--""This is the fowl-run, professor," I broke in, with a moist, tinglingfeeling across my forehead and up my spine. I saw the professorstiffen as he walked, while his face deepened in colour. Ukridge'sbreezy way of expressing himself is apt to electrify the stranger.

　　"You will notice the able way--ha! ha!--in which the wire-netting isarranged," I continued feverishly. "Took some doing, that. By Jove,yes. It was hot work. Nice lot of fowls, aren't they? Rather a mixedlot, of course. Ha! ha! That's the dealer's fault though. We aregetting 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 fromthe professor's face and his back gradually relax its poker-likeattitude. The situation was saved for the moment but there was noknowing what further excesses Ukridge might indulge in. I managed todraw him aside as we went through the fowl-run, and expostulated.

　　"For goodness sake, be careful," I whispered. "You've no notion howtouchy he is.""But /I/ said nothing," he replied, amazed.

　　"Hang it, you know, nobody likes to be called a fat little buffer tohis face.""What! My dear old man, nobody minds a little thing like that. Wecan't be stilted and formal. It's ever so much more friendly to relaxand be chummy."Here we rejoined the others, and I was left with a leaden forebodingof gruesome things in store. I knew what manner of man Ukridge waswhen he relaxed and became chummy. Friendships of years' standing hadfailed to survive the test.

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

　　"Ah," the professor would say, "now is that really so? Veryinteresting indeed."Only once, when Ukridge was describing some more than usually originaldevice for the furthering of the interests of his fowls, did a slightspasm 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 Ican turn my hand to anything, you know. Things seem to come naturallyto me somehow.""I see," said Phyllis.

　　It was while matters were progressing with this beautiful smoothnessthat 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 asominous.

　　"Beg pardon, Mr. Ukridge, sir."Ukridge was in the middle of a very eloquent excursus on the feedingof fowls, a subject on which he held views of his own as ingenious asthey were novel. The interruption annoyed him.

　　"Well, Beale," he said, "what is it?""That there cat, sir, what came to-day.""Oh, Beale," cried Mrs. Ukridge in agitation, "/what/ has happened?""Having something to say to the missis--""What has happened? Oh, Beale, don't say that Edwin has been hurt?

　　Where is he? Oh, /poor/ Edwin!""Having something to say to the missis--""If Bob has bitten him I hope he had his nose /well/ scratched," saidMrs. Ukridge vindictively.

　　"Having something to say to the missis," resumed the Hired Retainertranquilly, "I went into the kitchen ten minutes back. The cat wassitting on the mat."Beale's narrative style closely resembled that of a certain book I hadread 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."" 'Hullo, puss,' I says to him, 'and 'ow are /you/, sir?' 'Becareful,' says the missis. ' 'E's that timid,' she says, 'you wouldn'tbelieve,' 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 meunderstands each other. 'Im and me,' I says, 'is old friends. 'E's mydear old pal, Corporal Banks.' She grinned at that, ma'am, CorporalBanks being a man we'd 'ad many a 'earty laugh at in the old days. 'Ewas, 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, what had followed me unknown,trotted in. When the cat ketched sight of 'im sniffing about, therewas such a spitting and swearing as you never 'eard; and blowed," saidMr. Beale amusedly, "blowed if the old cat didn't give one jump, andmove in quick time up the chimney, where 'e now remains, paying no'eed to the missis' attempts to get him down again."Sensation, as they say in the reports.

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

　　"No, he won't. Nor will our dinner. Mrs. Beale always lets the kitchenfire out during the afternoon. And how she's going to light it withthat----"There was a pause while one might count three. It was plain that thespeaker was struggling with himself.

　　"--that cat," he concluded safely, "up the chimney? It's a cold dinnerwe'll get to-night, if that cat doesn't come down."The professor's face fell. I had remarked on the occasion when I hadlunched 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 ofthe 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'mto cook dinner for five with him up the chimney I don't see, sir.""Prod at him with a broom handle, Mrs. Beale," said Ukridge.

　　"Oh, don't hurt poor Edwin," said Mrs. Ukridge.

　　"I 'ave tried that, sir, but I can't reach him, and I'm only bin anddrove '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 meat 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. Icould read what was passing in his mind,--remorse for having come atall, and a faint hope that it might not be too late to back out of it.

　　"That will be splendid," said Phyllis.

　　"Er, I think, my dear sir," said her father, "it would be hardly fairfor us to give any further trouble to Mrs. Ukridge and yourself. Ifyou will allow me, therefore, I will----"Ukridge became gushingly hospitable. He refused to think of allowinghis 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. Heappealed to me to endorse his view that there was a tin of sardinesand part of a cold fowl and plenty of bread and cheese.

　　"And after all," he said, speaking for the whole company in thegenerous, comprehensive way enthusiasts have, "what more do we want inweather like this? A nice, light, cold, dinner is ever so much betterfor us than a lot of hot things."We strolled out again into the garden, but somehow things seemed todrag. Conversation was fitful, except on the part of Ukridge, whocontinued to talk easily on all subjects, unconscious of the fact thatthe party was depressed and at least one of his guests rapidlybecoming irritable. I watched the professor furtively as Ukridgetalked on, and that ominous phrase of Mr. Chase's concerning four-point-seven guns kept coming into my mind. If Ukridge were to tread onany of his pet corns, as he might at any minute, there would be anexplosion. The snatching of the dinner from his very mouth, as itwere, and the substitution of a bread-and-cheese and sardines menu hadbrought him to the frame of mind when men turn and rend their nearestand 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 veryhungry. The uncompromising coldness and solidity of the viands wasenough to appall a man conscious that his digestion needed humouring.

　　A huge cheese faced us in almost a swashbuckling way. I do not knowhow else to describe it. It wore a blatant, rakish, /nemo-me-impune-lacessit/ air, and I noticed that the professor shivered slightly ashe saw it. Sardines, looking more oily and uninviting than anything Ihad ever seen, appeared in their native tin beyond the loaf of bread.

　　There was a ham, in its third quarter, and a chicken which hadsuffered heavily during a previous visit to the table. Finally, ablack bottle of whisky stood grimly beside Ukridge's plate. Theprofessor looked the sort of man who drank claret of a special year,or nothing.

　　We got through the meal somehow, and did our best to delude ourselvesinto the idea that it was all great fun; but it was a shallowpretence. The professor was very silent by the time we had finished.

　　Ukridge had been terrible. The professor had forced himself to begenial. He had tried to talk. He had told stories. And when he beganone--his stories would have been the better for a little morebriskness and condensation--Ukridge almost invariably interrupted him,before he had got half way through, without a word of apology, andstarted on some anecdote of his own. He furthermore disagreed withnearly every opinion the professor expressed. It is true that he didit all in such a perfectly friendly way, and was obviously so innocentof any intention of giving offence, that another man--or the same manat a better meal--might have overlooked the matter. But the professor,robbed of his good dinner, was at the stage when he had to attacksomebody. 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 Irishquestion. I had been expecting it momentarily, but my heart seemed tostand still when it actually arrived.

　　Ukridge probably knew less about the Irish question than any maleadult in the kingdom, but he had boomed forth some very positiveopinions of his own on the subject before I could get near enough tohim to whisper a warning. When I did, I suppose I must have whisperedlouder than I had intended, for the professor heard me, and my wordsacted as the match to the powder.

　　"He's touchy about Ireland, is he?" he thundered. "Drop it, is it? Andwhy? Why, sir? I'm one of the best tempered men that ever came fromDublin, let me tell you, and I will not stay here to be insulted bythe insinuation that I cannot discuss Ireland as calmly as any one inthis company or out of it. Touchy about Ireland, is it? Touchy--?""But, professor--""Take your hand off my arm, Mr. Garnet. I will not be treated like achild. I am as competent to discuss the affairs of Ireland withoutheat as any man, let me tell you.""Father--""And let me tell you, Mr. Ukridge, that I consider your opinionspoisonous. Poisonous, sir. And you know nothing whatever about thesubject, sir. Every word you say betrays your profound ignorance. Idon't wish to see you or to speak to you again. Understand that, sir.

　　Our acquaintance began to-day, and it will cease to-day. Good-night toyou, sir. Come, Phyllis, me dear. Mrs. Ukridge, good-night."