"The fact is," said Ukridge, "if things go on as they are now, my lad,we shall be in the cart. This business wants bucking up. We don't seemto be making headway. Why it is, I don't know, but we are /not/ makingheadway. Of course, what we want is time. If only these scoundrels oftradesmen would leave us alone for a spell we could get things goingproperly. But we're hampered and rattled and worried all the time.
Aren't we, Millie?""Yes, dear.""You don't let me see the financial side of the thing enough," Icomplained. "Why don't you keep me thoroughly posted? I didn't know wewere in such a bad way. The fowls look fit enough, and Edwin hasn'thad 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 othertwo.""Yes," said Ukridge, "I saw to that.""As far as I can see," I continued, "we're going strong. Chicken forbreakfast, lunch, and dinner is a shade monotonous, perhaps, but lookat the business we're doing. We sold a whole heap of eggs last week.""But not enough, Garny old man. We aren't making our presence felt.
England isn't ringing with our name. We sell a dozen eggs where we oughtto be selling them by the hundred, carting them off in trucks for theLondon market and congesting the traffic. Harrod's and Whiteley's andthe rest of them are beginning to get on their hind legs and talk.
That's what they're doing. Devilish unpleasant they're makingthemselves. You see, laddie, there's no denying it--we /did/ touchthem for the deuce of a lot of things on account, and they agreed totake it out in eggs. All they've done so far is to take it out inapologetic letters from Millie. Now, I don't suppose there's a womanalive who can write a better apologetic letter than her nibs, but, ifyou're broad-minded and can face facts, you can't help seeing that thejuiciest apologetic letter is not an egg. I meant to say, look at itfrom their point of view. Harrod--or Whiteley--comes into his store inthe morning, rubbing his hands expectantly. 'Well,' he says, 'how manyeggs from Combe Regis to-day?' And instead of leading him off to acorner piled up with bursting crates, they show him a four-page lettertelling him it'll all come right in the future. I've never run a storemyself, but I should think that would jar a chap. Anyhow, theblighters seem to be getting tired of waiting.""The last letter from Harrod's was quite pathetic," said Mrs. Ukridgesadly.
I had a vision of an eggless London. I seemed to see homes rendereddesolate and lives embittered by the slump, and millionaires biddingagainst one another for the few rare specimens which Ukridge hadactually managed to despatch to Brompton and Bayswater.
Ukridge, having induced himself to be broad-minded for five minutes,now began to slip back to his own personal point of view and becameonce more the man with a grievance. His fleeting sympathy with thewrongs of Mr. Harrod and Mr. Whiteley disappeared.
"What it all amounts to," he said complainingly, "is that they'reinfernally unreasonable. I've done everything possible to meet them.
Nothing could have been more manly and straightforward than myattitude. I told them in my last letter but three that I proposed tolet them have the eggs on the /Times/ instalment system, and they saidI was frivolous. They said that to send thirteen eggs as payment forgoods supplied to the value of 25 pounds 1s. 8 1/2 d. was mere trifling.
Trifling, I'll trouble you! That's the spirit in which they meet mysuggestions. It was Harrod who did that. I've never met Harrodpersonally, but I'd like to, just to ask him if that's his idea ofcementing amiable business relations. He knows just as well as anyoneelse that without credit commerce has no elasticity. It's anelementary rule. I'll bet he'd have been sick if chappies had refusedto let him have tick when he was starting his store. Do you supposeHarrod, when he started in business, paid cash down on the nail foreverything? Not a bit of it. He went about taking people by the coat-button and asking them to be good chaps and wait till Wednesday week.
Trifling! Why, those thirteen eggs were absolutely all we had overafter Mrs. Beale had taken what she wanted for the kitchen. As amatter of fact, if it's anybody's fault, it's Mrs. Beale's. That womanliterally eats eggs.""The habit is not confined to her," I said.
"Well, what I mean to say is, she seems to bathe in them.""She says she needs so many for puddings, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge. "Ispoke to her about it yesterday. And of course, we often haveomelettes.""She can't make omelettes without breaking eggs," I urged.
"She can't make them without breaking us, dammit," said Ukridge. "Oneor two more omelettes, and we're done for. No fortune on earth couldstand it. We mustn't have any more omelettes, Millie. We musteconomise. Millions of people get on all right without omelettes. Isuppose there are families where, if you suddenly produced anomelette, the whole strength of the company would get up and cheer,led by father. Cancel the omelettes, old girl, from now onward.""Yes, dear. But--""Well?""I don't /think/ Mrs. Beale would like that very much, dear. She hasbeen complaining a good deal about chicken at every meal. She saysthat the omelettes are the only things that give her a chance. Shesays there are always possibilities in an omelette.""In short," I said, "what you propose to do is deliberately to removefrom this excellent lady's life the one remaining element of poetry.
You mustn't do it. Give Mrs. Beale her omelettes, and let's hope for alarger supply of eggs.""Another thing," said Ukridge. "It isn't only that there's a shortageof eggs. That wouldn't matter so much if only we kept hatching outfresh squads of chickens. I'm not saying the hens aren't doing theirbest. I take off my hat to the hens. As nice a hard-working lot as Iever want to meet, full of vigour and earnestness. It's that damnedincubator that's letting us down all the time. The rotten thing won'twork. /I/ don't know what's the matter with it. The long and the shortof it is that it simply declines to incubate.""Perhaps it's your dodge of letting down the temperature. Youremember, you were telling me? I forget the details.""My dear old boy," he said earnestly, "there's nothing wrong with myfigures. It's a mathematical certainty. What's the good of mathematicsif not to help you work out that sort of thing? No, there's somethingdeuced wrong with the machine itself, and I shall probably make acomplaint to the people I got it from. Where did we get the incubator,old girl?""Harrod's, I think, dear,--yes, it was Harrod's. It came down with thefirst lot of things.""Then," said Ukridge, banging the table with his fist, while hisglasses flashed triumph, "we've got 'em. The Lord has deliveredHarrod's into our hand. Write and answer that letter of theirs to-night, Millie. Sit on them.""Yes, dear.""Tell 'em that we'd have sent them their confounded eggs long ago, ifonly their rotten, twopenny-ha'penny incubator had worked with anyapproach to decency." He paused. "Or would you be sarcastic, Garny,old horse? No, better put it so that they'll understand. Say that Iconsider that the manufacturer of the thing ought to be in ColneyHatch--if he isn't there already--and that they are scoundrels forpalming off a groggy machine of that sort on me.""The ceremony of opening the morning's letters at Harrod's ought to befull of interest and excitement to-morrow," I said.
This dashing counter-stroke seemed to relieve Ukridge. His pessimismvanished. He seldom looked on the dark side of things for long at atime. He began now to speak hopefully of the future. He planned outingenious improvements. Our fowls were to multiply so rapidly andconsistently that within a short space of time Dorsetshire would bepaved with them. Our eggs were to increase in size till they brokerecords and got three-line notices in the "Items of Interest" columnin the /Daily Mail/. Briefly, each hen was to become a happycombination of rabbit and ostrich.
"There is certainly a good time coming," I said. "May it be soon.
Meanwhile, what of the local tradesmen?"Ukridge relapsed once more into gloom.
"They are the worst of the lot. I don't mind the London people somuch. They only write, and a letter or two hurts nobody. But when itcomes to butchers and bakers and grocers and fishmongers andfruiterers and what not coming up to one's house and dunning one inone's own garden,--well it's a little hard, what?""Oh, then those fellows I found you talking to yesterday were duns? Ithought they were farmers, come to hear your views on the rearing ofpoultry.""Which were they? Little chap with black whiskers and long, thin manwith beard? That was Dawlish, the grocer, and Curtis, the fishmonger.
The others had gone before you came."It may be wondered why, before things came to such a crisis, I had notplaced my balance at the bank at the disposal of the senior partnerfor use on behalf of the farm. The fact was that my balance was at themoment small. I have not yet in the course of this narrative gone intomy pecuniary position, but I may state here that it was aninconvenient one. It was big with possibilities, but of ready cashthere was but a meagre supply. My parents had been poor. But I had awealthy uncle. Uncles are notoriously careless of the comfort of theirnephews. Mine was no exception. He had views. He was a great believerin matrimony, as, having married three wives--not simultaneously--hehad every right to be. He was also of opinion that the less money theyoung bachelor possessed, the better. The consequence was that heannounced his intention of giving me a handsome allowance from the daythat I married, but not an instant before. Till that glad day I wouldhave to shift for myself. And I am bound to admit that--for an uncle--it was a remarkably sensible idea. I am also of the opinion that it isgreatly 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 outinto the streets and propose marriage to the first lady I met. But Iwas making quite enough with my pen to support myself, and, be itnever 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 contributeda modest five pounds to the preliminary expenses, and another fiveafter the roop incident. But further I could not go with safety. Whenhis income is dependent on the whims of editors and publishers, theprudent man keeps something up his sleeve against a sudden slump inhis particular wares. I did not wish to have to make a hurried choicebetween matrimony and the workhouse.
Having exhausted the subject of finance--or, rather, when I began tofeel that it was exhausting me--I took my clubs, and strolled up thehill to the links to play off a match with a sportsman from thevillage. I had entered some days previously for a competition for atrophy (I quote the printed notice) presented by a local supporter ofthe game, in which up to the present I was getting on nicely. I hadsurvived two rounds, and expected to beat my present opponent, whichwould bring me into the semi-final. Unless I had bad luck, I felt thatI ought to get into the final, and win it. As far as I could gatherfrom watching the play of my rivals, the professor was the best ofthem, and I was convinced that I should have no difficulty with him.
But he had the most extraordinary luck at golf, though he neveradmitted it. He also exercised quite an uncanny influence on hisopponent. I have seen men put completely off their stroke by his goodfortune.
I disposed of my man without difficulty. We parted a little coldly. Hehad decapitated his brassy on the occasion of his striking Dorsetshireinstead of his ball, and he was slow in recovering from the complexemotions which such an episode induces.
In the club-house I met the professor, whose demeanour was a welcomecontrast to that of my late opponent. The professor had just routedhis opponent, and so won through to the semi-final. He was warm, butjubilant.
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. Bunkersseemed to have a magnetic attraction for him.""So you and father are both in the semi-final? I hope you will playvery badly.""Thank you," I said.
"Yes, it does sound rude, doesn't it? But father has set his heart onwinning this year. Do you know that he has played in the final roundtwo 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 Ihave seen on these links.""It was nobody who is here now. It was a Colonel Jervis. He has notcome to Combe Regis this year. That's 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; butmy average round is somewhere in the late eighties.""The best father has ever done is ninety, and that was only once. Soyou 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 mustremember, that I shall fail miserably if I ever do play your father inthe final. There are days when I play golf as badly as I play tennis.
You'll hardly believe me."She smiled reminiscently.
"Tom is much too good at tennis. His service is perfectly dreadful.""It's a little terrifying on first acquaintance.""But you're better at golf than at tennis, Mr. Garnet. I wish you werenot.""This is special pleading," I said. "It isn't fair to appeal to mybetter feelings, Miss Derrick.""I didn't know golfers had any where golf was concerned. Do you reallyhave your off-days?""Nearly always. There are days when I slice with my driver as if itwere 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.""Really, how very unselfish of you, Mr. Garnet," she replied, with alaugh. "I had no idea that such chivalry existed. I thought a golferwould 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.
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