"A gentleman called to see you when you were out last night, sir,"said Mrs. Medley, my landlady, removing the last of the breakfastthings.

"Yes?" I said, in my affable way.

"A gentleman," said Mrs. Medley meditatively, "with a very powerfulvoice.""Caruso?""Sir?""I said, did he leave a name?""Yes, sir. Mr. Ukridge.""Oh, my sainted aunt!""Sir!""Nothing, nothing.""Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Medley, withdrawing from the presence.

Ukridge! Oh, hang it! I had not met him for years, and, glad as I am,as a general thing, to see the friends of my youth when they drop infor a chat, I doubted whether I was quite equal to Ukridge at themoment. A stout fellow in both the physical and moral sense of thewords, he was a trifle too jumpy for a man of my cloistered andintellectual life, especially as just now I was trying to plan out anew novel, a tricky job demanding complete quiet and seclusion. It hadalways been my experience that, when Ukridge was around, things beganto happen swiftly and violently, rendering meditation impossible.

Ukridge was the sort of man who asks you out to dinner, borrows themoney from you to pay the bill, and winds up the evening by embroilingyou in a fight with a cabman. I have gone to Covent Garden balls withUkridge, and found myself legging it down Henrietta Street in the greydawn, pursued by infuriated costermongers.

I wondered how he had got my address, and on that problem light wasimmediately cast by Mrs. Medley, who returned, bearing an envelope.

"It came by the morning post, sir, but it was left at Number Twenty bymistake.""Oh, thank you.""Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Medley.

I recognised the handwriting. The letter, which bore a Devonshirepostmark, was from an artist friend of mine, one Lickford, who was atpresent on a sketching tour in the west. I had seen him off atWaterloo a week before, and I remember that I had walked away from thestation wishing that I could summon up the energy to pack and get offto the country somewhere. I hate London in July.

The letter was a long one, but it was the postscript which interestedme most.

" . . . By the way, at Yeovil I ran into an old friend of ours,Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, of all people. As large as life--quite six foot two, and tremendously filled out. I thought he wasabroad. The last I heard of him was that he had started for BuenosAyres in a cattle ship, with a borrowed pipe by way of luggage. Itseems he has been in England for some time. I met him in therefreshment-room at Yeovil Station. I was waiting for a down train; hehad changed on his way to town. As I opened the door, I heard a hugevoice entreating the lady behind the bar to 'put it in a pewter'; andthere was S. F. U. in a villainous old suit of grey flannels (I'llswear it was the one he had on last time I saw him) with pince-neztacked on to his ears with ginger-beer wire as usual, and a couple ofinches of bare neck showing between the bottom of his collar and thetop of his coat--you remember how he could never get a stud to do itswork. He also wore a mackintosh, though it was a blazing day.