 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson. Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Woodhouse. Chapter 9. Dias E. Ray Why is it, I wonder, that stories of retribution calling at the wrong address strike us as funny instead of pathetic? I myself had been amused by them many a time. In a book which I had read only a few days before our cold dinner party, a shopwoman, annoyed with an omnibus conductor, had thrown a superannuated orange at him. It had found its billet not on him but on a perfectly inoffensive spectator. The missile, said the writer, hid a young copper full in the eyeball. I had enjoyed this when I read it, but now that fate had arranged a precisely similar situation with myself and the role of the young copper, the fun of the thing appealed to me not at all. It was Eugridge who was to blame for the professor's regrettable explosion and departure, and he ought by all laws of justice to have suffered for it. As it was, I was the only person materially affected. It did not matter to Eugridge. He did not care two pence one way or the other. If the professor were friendly, he was willing to talk to him by the hour on any subject, pleasant or unpleasant. If, on the other hand, he wished to have nothing more to do with us, it did not worry him. He was content to let it go. Eugridge was a self-sufficing person. But to me it was a serious matter. More than serious. If I had done my work as historian with an adequate degree of skill, the reader should have gathered by this time the state of my feelings. I did not love as others do. None ever did that I've heard tell of. My passion was a byword through the town she was, of course, the bellow. At least it was, fortunately, not quite that. But it was certainly genuine and most disturbing, and it grew with the days. Somebody with a taste for juggling with figures might write a very readable page or so of statistics in connection with the growth of love. In some cases it is, I believe, slow. In my own I can only say that Jack's Beanstalk was a backward plant in comparison. It is true that we had not seen a great deal of one another, and that when we had met our interview had been brief and our conversation conventional, but it is the intervals between the meeting that do the real damage. Absence, I do not claim the thought as my own, makes the heart grow fonder. And now, thanks to Eukridge's amazing idiocy, a barrier had been thrust between us. Lord knows the business of fishing for a girl's heart is sufficiently difficult and delicate without the addition of needless obstacles. To cut out the naval miscreant under equal conditions would have been a task ample enough for my modest needs. It was terrible to have to reestablish myself in the good graces of the professor before I could do so much as begin to dream of Phyllis. Eukridge gave me no balm. Well, after all, he said, when I pointed out to him quietly, but plainly my opinion of his tactlessness. What does it matter? Old Derrick isn't the only person in the world. If he doesn't want to know us laddie, we just jolly well pull ourselves together and stagger on without him. It's quite possible to be happy without knowing Old Derrick. Millions of people are going about the world at this moment, singing like larks out of pure light-heartedness who don't even know of his existence. And as a matter of fact, old horse, we haven't time to waste making friends and being the social pets. Too much to do on the farm. Strict business is the watchword, my boy. We must be the keen, tense men of affairs, or before we know where we are we shall find ourselves right in the gumbo. I've noticed, garney old horse, that you haven't been the whale for work lately that you might be. You must buckle too, laddie. There must be no slackness. We are at a critical stage. On our work now depends the success of the speculation. Look at those damned cocks. They're always fighting. He was stoned at them, laddie, while you're up. What's the matter with you? You seem pipped. Can't get the novel off your chest, or what? You take my tip and give your brain a rest. Nothing like manual labor for clearing the brain. All the doctors say so. Those coops ought to be painted today or tomorrow. Mind you, I think old Derrick would be all right if one persevered. And didn't call him a fat little buffer and contradict everything he said and spoil all his stories by breaking in with chestnuts of your own in the middle, I interrupted with bitterness. My dear old son, he didn't mind being called a fat little buffer. You keep harping on that. It's no discredit to a man to be a fat little buffer. Some of the noblest men I have met have been fat little buffers. What was the matter with old Derrick was a touch of liver. I said to myself, when I saw him eating cheese, that fellow is going to have a nasty shooting pain sooner or later. I say, laddie, just heave another rock or two at those cocks, will you? They'll slay each other. I had hoped, fearing the while that there was not much chance of such a thing happening, that the professor might get over his feeling of injury during the night and be as friendly as ever next day. But he was evidently a man who had no objection whatever to letting the sun go down upon his wrath, for when I met him on the following morning on the beach, he cut me in the most uncompromising manner. This was with him at the time, and also another girl, who was, I suppose, from the strong likeness between them, her sister. She had the same mass of soft brown hair, but to me she appeared almost commonplace in comparison. It is never pleasant to be cut dead, even when you have done something to deserve it. It is like treading on nothing where one imagined a stare to be. In the present instance the pain was mitigated to a certain extent, not largely, by the fact that Phyllis looked at me. She did not move her head, and I could not have declared positively that she moved her eyes, but nevertheless she certainly looked at me. It was something. She seemed to say that duty compelled her to follow her father's lead, and that the act must not be taken as evidence of any personal animus. That, at least, was how I read off the message. Two days later I met Mr. Chase in the village. Hello, so you're back, I said. You've discovered my secret, he admitted. Will you have a cigar or a coconut? There was a pause. Trouble I hear while I was away, he said. I nodded. The man I lived with, Eukridge, did what you warned me against, touched on the Irish question. Home rule? He mentioned it, among other things. And the professor went off? Like a bomb. He would. So now you have parted brass rags. It's a pity. I agreed. I am glad to say that I suppressed the desire to ask him to use his influence, if any, with Mr. Derrick to affect a reconciliation. I felt that I must play the game. To request one's rival to give one assistance in the struggle, to the end that he may be the more readily cut out, can hardly be considered cricket. I ought not to be speaking to you, you know, said Mr. Chase. You're under arrest. Be still, I stopped for a word. Very much so. I'll do what I can. It's very good of you. But the time is not yet ripe. He may be said at present to be simmering down. I see. Thanks, good-bye. So long! And Mr. Chase walked on with long strides to the cob. The days passed slowly. I saw nothing more of Phyllis or her sister. The professor I met once or twice on the links. I had taken earnestly to golf in this time of stress. Golf is the game of disappointed lovers. On the other hand, it does not follow that because a man is a failure as a lover he will be any good at all on the links. My game was distinctly poor at first. But a round or two put me back into my proper form, which is fair. The professor's demeanor at these accidental meetings on the links was a faithful reproduction of his attitude on the beach. Only by a studied imitation of the absolute stranger did he show that he had observed my presence. Once or twice, after dinner, when Eukridge was smoking one of his special cigars, while Mrs. Eukridge nursed Edwin, now moving in society once more and in his right mind, I lit my pipe and walked out across the fields through the cool summer night till I came to the hedge that shut off the Derrick's grounds. Not the hedge through which I had made my first entrance, but another, lower and nearer the house. Standing there, under the shade of a tree, I could see lighted windows of the drawing-room. Generally there was music inside, and the windows, being opened on account of the warmth of the night, I was able to make myself a little more miserable by hearing Phyllis sing. It deepened the feeling of banishment. I shall never forget those furtive visits. The intense stillness of the night, broken by the occasional rustling in the grass or the hedge, the smell of the flowers in the garden beyond, the distant drone of the sea. God makes such nights all white and still, for as used to look and listen. Another day had generally begun before I moved from my hiding-place and started for home, surprised to find my limbs stiff and my clothes bathed with dew. CHAPTER X I ENLIST THE SERVICES OF A MINION It would be interesting to know to what extent the work of authors is influenced by their private affairs. If life is flowing smoothly, are the novels they write in that period of content colored with optimism? And if things are running crosswise, do they work off the resultant gloom on their faithful public? If, for instance, Mr. W. W. Jacobs had a toothache, would he write like Hugh Walpole? If Maxim Gorky were invited to lunch by Trotsky to meet Lennon, would he sit down and dash off a trifle in the vein of Stephen Leacock? Probably the eminent have the power of detaching their writing-self from their living work-a-day self. But, for my own part, the frame of mind in which I now found myself had a disastrous effect on my novel that was to be. I had designed it as a light comedy effort. Here and there a page or two to steady the reader and show him what I could do in the way of pathos if I cared to try, but in the main a thing of sunshine and laughter. But now great slabs of gloom began to work themselves into the scheme of it. A magnificent despondency became its keynote. It would not do. I felt that I must make a resolute effort to shake off my depression. More than ever the need of conciliating the professor was born in upon me. Day and night I spurred my brain to think of some suitable means of engineering a reconciliation. In the meantime I worked hard among the fouls, drove furiously on the links, and swam about the harbour when the affairs of the farm did not require my attention. Things were not going well on our model chicken farm. Little accidents marred the harmony of life in the foul run. On one occasion a hen, not Aunt Elizabeth I am sorry to say, fell into a pot of tar and came out an unspeakable object. Eugridge put his spare pair of tennis shoes in the incubator to dry them and permanently spoiled the future of half a dozen eggs which happened to have got there first. Chickens kept straying into the wrong coops where they got badly pecked by the residents. Edwin slew a couple of Wyandots and was only saved from execution by the tears of Mrs. Eugridge. In spite of these occurrences, however, his buoyant optimism never deserted Eugridge. After all, he said, what's one bird more or less? Yes, I know I made a fuss when that beast of a cat lunched off those two, but that was simply the principle of the thing. I'm not going to pay large sums for chickens purely in order that a cat, which I've never liked, can lunch well. Still, we've plenty left, and the eggs are coming in better now, though we've still a deal of leeway to make up yet in that line. I got a letter from Whiteleys this morning asking when my first consignment was going to arrive. You know, these people make a mistake in hurrying a man. It annoys him. It irritates him. When we really get going, Garney, my boy, I shall drop Whiteleys. I shall cut them out of my list and send my eggs to their trade rivals. They shall have a sharp lesson. It's a little hard. Here am I, work to death looking after things down here, and these men have the impertinence to bother me about their wretched business. Come in and have a drink, laddie, and let's talk it over. It was on the morning after this that I heard him calling me in a voice in which I detected agitation. I was strolling about the paddock, as was my habit after breakfast, thinking about Phyllis and trying to get my novel into shape. I had just framed a more than usually murky scene for use in the earlier part of the book when Eukeridge shouted to me from the fowl run. Garney, come here. I want you to see the most astounding thing. What's the matter? I asked. Last if I know. Look at these chickens. They've been doing that for the last half hour. I inspected the chickens. There was certainly something that mattered with them. They were yawning, broadly, as if we bored them. They stood about singly and in groups, opening and shutting their beaks. It was an uncanny spectacle. What's the matter with them? Can a chicken get a fit of the blues, I asked? Because if so, that's what they've got. I've never seen a more bored-looking lot of birds. Oh! Do look at that poor little brown one by the coop, said Mrs. Eukeridge sympathetically. I'm sure it's not well. See, it's lying down. What can be the matter with it? I'll tell you what we'll do, said Eukeridge. We'll ask Beale. He once lived with an ant who kept fowls. He'll know all about it. Beale? No answer. Beale? A sturdy form in shirt sleeves appeared through the bushes, carrying a boot. We seemed to have interrupted him in the act of cleaning it. Beale, you know all about fowls. What's the matter with these chickens? The hired retainer examined the blasé birds with a wooden expression on his face. Well, said Eukeridge. The old thing here, said the hired retainer, is these ear fowls have been and got the roof? I had never heard of the disease before, but it sounded bad. Is that what makes them yawn like that, said Mrs. Eukeridge? Yes, ma'am. Poor things. Yes, ma'am. And have they all got it? Yes, ma'am. What ought we to do, asked Eukeridge? Well, my aunt, sir, when her fowls added the roof, she gave them snuff. Snuff, said Mrs. Eukeridge? Yes, ma'am. She gave them snuff till their eyes bubbled. Mrs. Eukeridge uttered a faint squeak at this vivid piece of word-painting. And did it cure them? asked Eukeridge. No, sir, responded the expert soothingly. Oh, go away, Beale, and clean your beastly boots, said Eukeridge. You're no use. Wait a minute. Who would know about this infernal roof thing? One of those farmer chaps, would I suppose? Beale, go off to the nearest farmer and give him my compliments, and ask him what he does when his fowls get the roof. Yes, sir. No, I'll go, Eukeridge, I said. I want some exercise. I whistled to Bob, who was investigating a mole-heap in the paddock, and set off in the direction of the village of Uplime to consult farmer Lee on the matter. He had sold us some fowls shortly after our arrival, so might be expected to feel a kindly interest in their ailing families. The path to Uplime lies across deep-grast meadows. At intervals it passes over a stream by means of a footbridge. The stream curls through the meadows like a snake. And at the first of these bridges I met Phyllis. I came upon her quite suddenly. The other end of the bridge was hidden from my view. I could hear somebody coming through the grass, but not till I was on the bridge did I see who it was. We reached the bridge simultaneously. She was alone. She carried a sketching-block. All nice girls sketch a little. There was room for one alone on the footbridge, and I drew back to let her pass. It being the privilege of woman to make the first sign of recognition I said nothing. I merely lifted my hat in a non-comitting fashion. Are you going to cut me, I wonder, I said to myself? She answered the unspoken question as I hoped it would be answered. Mr. Garnet, she said, stopping at the end of the bridge. A pause. I couldn't tell you so before, but I am so sorry this has happened. Oh, thanks awfully, I said, realizing as I said it the miserable inadequacy of the English language. At a crisis, when I would have given a month's income to have said something neat, epigrammatic, suggestive, yet with all courteous and respectful, I could only find a hackneyed, unenthusiastic phrase which I should have used excepting an invitation from a boar to lunch with him at his club. Of course, you understand, my friends must be my father's friends. Yes, I said so gloomily. I suppose so. So you must not think me rude if I—I— Cut me, said I, with masculine coarseness. Don't seem to see you, said she, with feminine delicacy. When I am with my father. You will understand? I shall understand. You see, she smiled, you are under arrest, as Tom says. Tom! I see, I said. Goodbye, good-bye. I watched her out of sight and went on to interview Mr. Lee. We had a long and intensely uninteresting conversation about the maladies to which chickens are subject. He was verbose and reminiscent. He took me over his farm, pointing out as we went dorkings with pasts, and coach in China's, which he had cured of diseases generally fatal, on, as far as I could gather, Christian science principles. I'd left at last, with instructions to paint the throats of the stricken birds with turpentine, a task imagination boggled at, and one which I proposed to leave exclusively to Eucreage and the hired retainer, and also a slight headache. A visit to the cobb would, I thought, do me good. I had missed my bathe that morning, and was in need of a breath of sea air. It was high tide, and there was deep water on three sides of the cobb. In a small boat in the offing, Professor Derrick appeared, fishing. I had seen him engaged in this pursuit once or twice before. His only companion was a gigantic boatman, by name Harry Hawke, possibly a descendant of the gentleman of that name, who went to Widdicom Fair with Bill Brewer and old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, on a certain memorable occasion, and assisted at the fatal accident to Tom Pierce's gray mare. I sat on the seat at the end of the cobb and watched the professor. It was an instructive sight, an object lessened to those who hold that optimism has died out of the race. I had never seen him catch a fish. He never looked to me as if he were at all likely to catch a fish, yet he persevered. There are few things more restful than to watch someone else busy under a warm sun. As I sat there, my pipe drawing nicely as the result of certain explorations conducted that morning with a straw, my mind ranged idly over large subjects and small. I thought of love and chicken farming. I mused on the immortality of the sole and the deplorable speed at which two ounces of tobacco disappeared. In the end I always returned to the professor. Sitting, as I did, with my back to the beach, I could see nothing but his boat. It had the ocean to itself. I began to ponder over the professor. I wondered dreamily if he were very hot. I tried to picture his boyhood. I speculated on his future and the pleasure he extracted from life. It was only when I heard him call out to hawk to be careful when a movement on the part of that oarsman set the boat rocking that I began to weave romances round him in which I myself figured. But once started I progressed rapidly. I imagined a sudden upset. Professor struggling in water. Myself, heroically, courage, I'm coming! A few rapid strokes. Saved, sequel, a subdued professor dripping salt water and tears of gratitude, urging me to become his son-in-law. That sort of thing happened in fiction. It was a shame that it should not happen in real life. In my hot youth I once had seven stories in seven weekly penny papers in the same month, all dealing with a situation of the kind. Only the details differed. In Not Really a Coward, Vincent Devereux had rescued the Earl's daughter from a fire, whereas in Hilda's hero it was the peppery old father whom Tom Slingsby saved, singularly enough from drowning. In other words, I, a very mediocre scribbler, had affected seven times in a single month what the powers of the universe could not manage once, even on the smallest scale. It was precisely three minutes to twelve, I had just consulted my watch, that the great idea surged into my brain. At four minutes to twelve I had been grumbling impotently at Providence. By two minutes to twelve I had determined upon a manly and independent course of action. Briefly it was this. Providence had failed to give satisfaction. I would, therefore, cease any connection with it and start a rival business on my own account. After all, if you want a thing done well you must do it yourself. In other words, since a dramatic accident and rescue would not happen of own accord, I would arrange one for myself. Hawke looked to me the sort of man who would do anything in a friendly way for a few shillings. I had now to fight it out with conscience. I quote the brief report which subsequently appeared in the recording angel. Three round contest. Conscience, Celestial, B.C., V. J. Garnet, and attached. Round one. Conscience came to the scratch smiling and confident, led off lightly with a statement that it would be bad for a man of the professor's age to get wet. Garnet countered heavily, alluding to the warmth of the weather and the fact that the professor habitually enjoyed a bath every day. Much sparring. Conscience not quite so confident and apparently afraid to come to close quarters with this man. Time called with little damage done. Round two. Conscience, much freshened by the half-minute's rest, fainted with the charge of deceitfulness and nearly got home heavily with what would Phyllis say if she knew. Garnet, however, sidestepped cleverly with, but she won't know, and followed up the advantage with a damaging, besides, it's all for the best. The round ended with a brisk rally on general principles. Garnet crowding in a lot of work. Conscience downed twice and only saved by the call of time. Round three and last. Conscience came up very weak and with Garnet as strong as ever it was plain that the round would be a brief one. This proved to be the case. Early in the second minute Garnet cross-countered with, all's fair in love and war. Conscience down and out, the winner left the ring without a mark. I rose, feeling much refreshed. That afternoon I interviewed Mr. Hawke in the bar-parlor of the net and mackerel. Hawke, I said to him darkly, over a mystic and conspirator-like pot of ale. I want you, next time you take Professor Derrick out fishing. Here I glanced round to make sure that we were not overheard. To upset him. His astonished face rose slowly from the pot of ale like a full moon. What I'd do that for, he gasped. Five shillings, I hope, said I, but I am prepared to go ten. He gurgled. I encored his pot of ale. He kept gurgling. I argued with the man. I spoke splendidly. I was eloquent, but at the same time concise. My choice of words was superb. I crystallized my ideas into pithy sentences which a child could have understood. And at the end of half an hour he had grasped the salient points of the scheme. Also he imagined that I wished the Professor upset by way of a practical joke. He gave me to understand that this was the type of humour which was to be expected from a gentleman from London. I am afraid he must at one period in his career have lived at one of those watering places at which trippers congregate. He did not seem to think highly of the Londoner. I'd let it rest at that. I could not give my true reason and this served as well as any. At the last moment he recollected that he too would get wet when the accident took place, and he raised the price to a sovereign. A mercenary man. It is painful to see how rapidly the old simple spirit is dying out of our rural districts. Twenty years ago a fisherman would have been charmed to do a little job like that for a screw of tobacco. CHAPTER 11 THE BRAVE PRESERVER I could have wished, during the next few days, that Mr. Harry Hawks's attitude towards myself had not been so anxiously confidential and mysterious. It was unnecessary, in my opinion, for him to grin meaningly when we met in the street. His sly wink when we passed each other on the cob struck me as an indifferent taste. The thing had been definitely arranged, ten shillings down and ten was over, and there was no need for any cloak and dark lantern effects. I objected strongly to being treated as the villain of a melodrama. I was merely an ordinary well-meaning man, forced by circumstances into doing the work of Providence. Mr. Hawks's demeanour seemed to say, we are two reckless scoundrels, but bless you, I won't give away your guilty secret. The climax came one morning as I was going along the street towards the beach. I was passing a dark doorway, when out shimmered Mr. Hawks as if he had been a specter instead of the most substantial man within a radius of ten miles. St! he whispered. Now look here, Hawks, I said wrathfully, for the start he had given me had made me bite my tongue. This has got to stop. I refuse to be haunted in this way. What is it now? Mr. Derek goes out this morning, sir. Thank goodness for that, I said. Get it over this morning then without fail. I couldn't stand another day of it. I went on to the cob, where I sat down. I was excited. Deeds of great import must shortly be done. I felt a little nervous. It would never do to bungle the thing. Suppose by some accident I were to drown the professor. Or suppose that, after all, he contended himself with a mere formal expression of thanks and refused to let bygones be bygones. These things did not bear thinking of. I got up and began to pace restlessly to and fro. Presently, from the farther end of the harbour, there put off Mr. Hawks's boat, bearing its precious cargo. My mouth became dry with excitement. Very slowly Mr. Hawks pulled round the end of the cob, coming to a standstill some dozen yards from where I was performing my beat. It was evidently here that the scene of the gallant rescue had been fixed. My eyes were glued upon Mr. Hawks's broad back. Only when going into bat at cricket have I experienced a similar feeling of suspense. The boat lay almost motionless on the water. I had never seen the sea smoother. Little ripples plashed against the side of the cob. It seemed as if this perfect calm might continue forever. Mr. Hawks made no movement. Then suddenly the whole scene changed to one of vast activity. I heard Mr. Hawks utter a hoarse cry and saw him plunge violently in his seat. The professor turned half-round and I caught sight of his indignant face, pink with emotion. Then the scene changed again with the rapidity of a dissolving view. I saw Mr. Hawks give another plunge and the next moment the boat was upside down in the water and I was shooting head foremost to the bottom, oppressed with the indescribable clammy sensation which comes when one's clothes are thoroughly wet. I rose to the surface close to the upturned boat. The first sight I saw was the sputtering face of Mr. Hawks. I ignored him and swam to where the professors had bobbed on the waters. Keep cool, I said. A silly remark in the circumstances. He was swimming energetically but unskillfully. He appeared to be one of those men who can look after themselves in the water only when they are in a bathing costume. In his shore clothes it would have taken him a week to struggle to land if he got there at all, which was unlikely. 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 with much acclay 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 again such a course as needlessly realistic. As it was I fancy he had swallowed of sea water two or three hardy drafts. The crowd was enthusiastic. Brave young feller said somebody. I blushed. This was fame. Jumped in he did sure enough and saved the gentleman. Be the old soul-grounded? That girt fool, Harry Hawke. I was sorry for Mr. Hawke. Popular opinion was against him. What the professor said of him when he recovered his breath I cannot repeat. Not because I do not remember it, but because there is a line and one must draw it. Let it be sufficient to say that on the subject of Mr. Hawke he saw eye to eye with the citizen who described him as a girt fool. 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, bailing pensively with an old tin can. To satire from the shore he paid no attention. The professor stood up and stretched out his hand. 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 would be bygones. I came out strong. I continued to hold his hand. The crowd raised a sympathetic cheer. I said, Professor, the fault was mine. Showed 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. A little, I agreed. We walked briskly up the hill to the farm. Eukridge 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. Achoo! You're catching cold, old horse, said Eukridge. 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 tauggery 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, Garnet, my boy, out with the duds. What do you think of this now, professor? A sweet, pretty thing in grey flannel? Here's a shirt. Get out of that wet tauggery, and Mrs. Beale shall dry it. Don't attempt to tell me about it till you're 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. Hawke. I was fishing, Mr. Eukryge, 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 men's a fool, sir. I could not see what had happened, my back being turned as I say. Garnet must have seen. What happened, old horse? 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 Eukryge. 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. A great cursed drink, said the professor. Why, yes, Mr. Eukryge. I think I will. Thank you, thank you. That would be enough. Not all the soda, if you please. Ah, this tastes pleasanter than saltwater, Mr. Garnet, eh? Eh? Ah-ha! He 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 wooden 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 cordial 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've been down here, considerably. My only feat worthy of mention since I started the game, I said, has been to have a round with Angus McLurken at St. Andrews. The McLurken? 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 Eukridge, who was in one of his less tactless moods, he became very friendly. Eukridge'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. Eukridge was all sympathy. The man is an unprincipled scoundrel, he said, and should be torn limb from limb. Take my advice, and don't go out with him again. Show him that you are not a man to be trifled with. The spilt 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 defence. 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 the professor would listen to no defence. My attempts at excusing him were ill-received. Indeed, the professor should have such 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. As 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 ragtime airs as I worked. "'Rome, old buffer,' said Ugridge meditatively, pouring himself out another whisky and soda. "'My goodness! I should have liked to have seen him in the water. Why do I miss these good things?' CHAPTER XII. SOME EMOTIONS AND YELLOW LUPIN. 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 wanted an advertisement for the farm,' said Ugridge on these occasions, we could have had a better one than you, Garni, 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. The coffers are low. Deucid low. 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. As for eggs, they are far too much for us.' For the last week monotony had been the keynote of our commissariat. We had 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. Biel 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 gourmetes. 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 Eukryge 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 Eukryge, these tradesmen round here seem to be a sordid suspicious lot. They clamour 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 colour of Mr. Eukryge's money before supplying further joints. Dallish, the grocer, had expressed almost exactly similar sentiments two days later, and the ranks of these passive resistors had been receiving fresh recruits ever since. To a man, the tradesmen of Comrigus 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 Eukryge impressively, we need every penny of ready money we can raise for the farm. The place simply eats money. That infernal rup 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 Eukryge 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. The battle which took place on the first day after the election of the new members was a sight to remember. The results of it were still noticeable in the depressed aspect of certain of the recently enrolled. No, said Eukryge 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 of such a scandalous thing. Upon my word I have 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. The 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 a 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 lynx, where I generally found the professor, sometimes Phyllis, or on long walks by myself. There was one particular walk along the cliffs, 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 and smoke by the hour. If ever I was stricken with smoker's heart, or staggers, or tobacco embliopia, or any other of the cheery things which doctors predict for the devotee of the weed, I shall feel that I sow the seeds of it that summer and that little clearing overlooking the sea. A man in love needs much tobacco. A man thinking out a novel needs much tobacco. I was in the grip of both maladies. Somehow I found that my ideas flowed more readily in that spot than in any other. I had not been inside the professor's ground since the occasion when I had gone in through the boxwood hedge. But on the afternoon following my financial conversation with Eukridge 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 the courage to ask after her. I had an absurd idea that my voice or my manner would betray me in some way. I felt that I should have put the question with such an exaggerated show of indifference that all would have been discovered. The professor was not at home. Nor was Mr. Chase. Nor was Miss Nora Derrick, the lady I'd 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. 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 maid 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 will 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 to any extent for my anxiety to see him. 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 Roup, epigrammatic on the subject of hired retainer and Edwin. Then the cat did come down from the chimney, said Phyllis. We both laughed. And, I can answer for myself, I felt the better for it. He came down the next day, I said, and made an excellent lunch of one of our best fowls. He also killed another, and only just escaped death himself at the hands of Eukridge. Mr. Eukridge doesn't like him, does he? If he does, he dissembles his love. Edwin is Mrs. Eukridge'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 steady 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. Eukridge looks after it, and I fancy his methods are not the right methods. I don't know if I've got the figures absolutely correct, but Eukridge reasons on these lines. He says you are supposed to keep the temperature up to 105 degrees. I think he said 105. Then the eggs are supposed to hatch in a week or so. He argues that you may just as well keep the temperature at 72 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 Eukridge 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 Aides' fable of the author, and author, myself, was sitting at his desk trying to turn out any old thing 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. Eukridge 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 the Coen Regis with him and help him farm chickens. I have not regretted it. It's 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 faced downwards on the grass beside her. It was the same much-enduring copy of the manoeuvres 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 from the garden path, she gave me her opinion of the book. In the main it was appreciative. I shall always associate the scent of yellow lupin with the higher criticism. Of course I don't know anything about writing books, she said. Yes, my tone implied, or I hope 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 just got the outsider. My other novel, Bastable and 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 London Mail and Winning Post. And, continued Phyllis, Lady Maude is exactly the same as Pamela in the Maneuvers of Arthur. I thought you must have drawn both characters from someone you knew. No, I said, no, purely imaginary. 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 know that the time was not yet ripe, but the magic scent of the yellow lupin 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 bee hummed in the lupin. Miss Derrick, I said, and stopped again. I say, you people, said a cheerful voice. Tea is ready. Hello, Garnet, how are you? That metal arrived yet from the Humane Society? I spun around. Mr. Tom Chase was standing at the end of the path. The only word that could deal adequately with the situation slapped against my front teeth. I grinned a sickly grin. Well, Tom, said Phyllis. And there was, I thought, just the faintest tinkle of annoyance in her voice. I've been bathing, said Mr. Chase, apropos debote. Oh! I replied. And I wish I added that you drowned yourself. But I added it silently to myself. 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. Tom, how absurd. Rather rough on the man, aren't you, I said. Merely a suggestion, continued Mr. Chase, eerily. I've been reading sensational novels lately, and it seems to me that Mr. 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 he knew? The professor may be a member of an anarchist league or something, and this is punishment for refusing to assassinate some sportsman. 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 where-cliff. The spill looked to me just like dozens I had seen at Malta. Why do the 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 coast 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 for the gangway. The policeman, if they aren't drowned, they sometimes are, race him, and whichever gets their 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, respecting the length of time between drinks. Just one more cup, please, Phyllis. But how does all that apply, I asked, dry-mouthed. Mr. Hawke upset the professor, just as those Maltese were upset. There's a patent way of doing it. Furthermore, by judicious questioning, I found that Hawke 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 Hawke has been re-enacting the joys of his vanished youth, so to speak. He ought to be prosecuted, said Phyllis, blazing with indignation. Alas, poor Hawke. Nobody's safe with a man of that sort, hiring out a boat. Oh, miserable Hawke. But why on earth 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 Hawke. He helped himself to another section of the chocolate cake. Did you finish yet, Tom, inquired Phyllis? I'm sure Mr. Garnet's getting tired of sitting talking here, she said. I shot out a polite negative. Mr. Chase explained with his mouthful 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 a night's 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. Hawke 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. 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 the cake. Say that I shall be glad to hear from her again. Care for a game of tennis, garnet? What a pity Nora isn't here, said Phyllis. We could have had a four. But she is at present wasting her sweetness on the desert air of Yoville. You would better sit down 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 game as we go on. Look out particularly for the tilled and backhanded slosh, a winner 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 route to it, adding, by way of solidifying the excuse that I was playing on a strange court with a borrowed racket, and that my mind was preoccupied. Firstly, with La Faire hawk, secondly, and chiefly, with the gloomily thought that Phyllis and my opponent seemed to be on friendly 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, and they had never shown 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 six strokes. He served. 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. The last of the series struck the wooden edge of my racket and soared over the back net into the shrubbery after the manner of a snick to long slip off a fast bowler. Game, said Mr. Chase. We'll look for that afterwards. 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 instinctively 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. All 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 a couple of 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 loathe 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 underhand, I must send the ball over the net with the next stroke. I restrained myself this time, eschewing the careless vigor which had marked my previous efforts. The ball flew in a slow semi-circle 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 for thee, said Mr. Chase. Phyllis, yes. That was the Tilden Slosh. I thought it must be, said Phyllis. In the third game I managed to score fifteen. By the nearest 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. Phyllis had left the cedar now and was picking flowers from the beds behind the court. 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 Tilden Slosh diminished my lead by fifteen. 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 was a tide in the affairs of men which, taken by 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 slosh had beaten me on the post. Game and, said Mr. Chase, tossing 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 of it? Yes, so do I. I really think I must run. You won't mind. All right, then. See you tomorrow, 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 very eyes of a lady star. It was never cut out ignominiously by infernally capable lieutenants in his Majesty's navy. No wonder it was cheerful. End of Chapter 13 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson Love Among the Chickens by PG Woodhouse Chapter 14 A Council of War The fact is, said Eugrich, if things go on as they are now, my lad, we shall be in the cart. This business wants bucking up. We don't seem to be making any headway. Why it is, I don't know, but we are not making headway. Of course, what we want is time. If only these scoundrels of tradesmen would leave us alone for a spell, we could get things going properly. 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, I complained. Why don't you keep me thoroughly posted? 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. Eugrich. He was so sorry after he had killed those other two. Yes, said Eugrich, I saw to that. As far as I can see, I continued, we are going strong. Chicken for breakfast, lunch and dinner is a shade when notness perhaps, but look at 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 ought to be selling them by the hundred, carting them off in trucks for the London market and congesting the traffic. Herods and whitelies and the rest of them are beginning to get on their hind legs and talk. That's what they're doing. Devilish unpleasant they're making themselves. You see, Larry, there's no denying it. He did touch them for the deuce of a lot of things on account and they agreed to take it out in eggs. All they've done so far is to take it out in apologetic letters from Millie. Now I don't suppose there's a woman alive who can write a better apologetic letter than her nibs, but if you're broad-minded and can face facts, you can't help seeing that the juiciest apologetic letter is not an egg. I meant to say, look at it from their point of view. Herod, or whitely, comes into his store in the morning rubbing his hands expectantly. Well, he says, how many eggs from Comrieges today? And instead of leading him off to a corner piled up with bursting crates, they show him a four-page letter telling him it'll all come right in the future. I've never run a store myself, but I should think that would jar a chap. Anyhow, the blighter seemed to be getting tired of waiting. The last letter from Herod's was quite pathetic, said Mrs. Eukridge, sadly. 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 rare specimens which Eukridge had actually managed to dispatch to Brompton and Bayswater. Eukridge, having induced himself to be broad-minded for five minutes, now began to slip back to his own personal point of view and became once more the man with a grievance. His fleeting sympathy with the wrongs of Mr. Herod and Mr. Whitely disappeared. What it all amounts to, he said, complainingly, is that they're infernally unreasonable. I've done everything possible to meet them. Nothing could have been more manly and straightforward than my attitude. I told them, in my last letter, but three, 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 13 eggs as payment for goods supplied to the value of 25 pounds one shilling 8.5D was mere trifling. Trifling, I'll trouble you. That's the spirit in which they meet my suggestions. It was Herod who did that. I've never met Herod personally, but I'd like to just to ask him if that's his idea of cementing amiable business relations. He knows just as well as anyone else that without credit commerce has no elasticity. It's an elementary rule. I'll bet he'd have been sick if Chappies had refused to let him have tick when he was starting his store. Do you suppose Herod, when he started in business, paid cash down on the nail for everything? 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 13 eggs were absolutely all we had over after Mrs. Beale had taken what she wanted for the kitchen. As a matter of fact, if it's anybody's fault, it's Mrs. Beale's. That woman literally 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. Eugridge. I spoke to her about it yesterday and, of course, we often have omelets. She can't make omelets without breaking eggs, I urged. She can't make them without breaking us, dammit, said Eugridge. One or two more omelets and we're done for. No fortune on earth could stand it. We mustn't have any more omelets, Millie. We must economize. Millions of people get on all right without omelets. I suppose there are families where, if you suddenly produce an omelet, the whole strength of the company would get up in cheer, led by father. Cancel the omelets, old girl, from now onward. Yes, dear, but well... I don't think Mrs. Beale would like that very much, dear. She has been complaining a good deal about chicken at every meal. She says that the omelets are the only things that give her a chance. She says there are always possibilities in an omelet. In short, I said, what you propose to do is deliberately to remove from this excellent lady's life the one remaining element of poetry. You mustn't do it. Give Mrs. Beale her omelets and let's hope for a larger supply of eggs. Another thing, said Eugridge. It isn't only that there's a shortage of eggs. That wouldn't matter so much if only we kept hatching our fresh squads of chickens. I'm not saying the hens aren't doing their best. I take off my hat to the hens. As nice a hard-working lot as I ever want to meet. Full of vigor and earnestness. It's that damned incubator that's letting us down all the time. The rotten thing won't work. I don't know what's the matter with it. The long and the short of it is it simply declines to incubate. Perhaps it's your dodge of letting down the temperature. You remember you were telling me? I forget the details. My dear old boy, he said earnestly, there's nothing wrong 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 deucid 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, old girl? Harrods, I think, dear. Yes, it was Harrods. I came down with the first lot of things. Then, said Eugridge, banging the table with his fist while his glasses flashed triumph, we've got him. The Lord has delivered Harrods into our hand. Write and answer that letter of theirs tonight, Millie. Sit on them. Yes, dear. Tell them that we'd have sent them their confounded eggs long ago if only their rotten, too-penny-ha-penny incubator to work with any approach to decency. He paused. Or would you be sarcastic, garny old horse? No. Better put it so that they'll understand. Say that I consider that the manufacturer of the thing ought to be in Colney Hatch, if he isn't there already, and that they are scoundrels for palming off a groggy machine of that sort on me. The ceremony of opening the morning's letters at Harrods ought to be full of interest and excitement to-morrow, I said. This dashing counter-stroke seemed to relieve Eukridge. His pessimism vanished. 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 improvements. Our fowls were to multiply so rapidly and consistently that within a short space of time dorseture 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 in 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, what of the local tradesmen? Eukridge relapsed once more into gloom. They are the worst of a lot. I don't mind the London people 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? Oh, then those fellows I found you talking to yesterday were duns. I thought they were farmers. I wanted to hear your views on the rearing of poultry. Which were they? Little chap with black whiskers and long thin men with beard? That was Dallish 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 not placed my balance at the bank at the disposal of the senior partner for use on behalf of the farm. The fact 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 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 the 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, but I was making quite enough with my pen to support myself, and, be it never 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 Eukridge's chicken farm. I had contributed a modest five pounds to the preliminary expenses and another five after the ROOP incident, but further I could not go with safety. When his income is depended 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 with my things to play off a match with a sportsman from the village. I had entered some days previously for 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 to 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 had decapitated his brassie on the occasion of his striking dorseture 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 opponent. 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, 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 Comrieges 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 today? We were playing match-play and only did the first dozen holes. But my average round is somewhere in the late eighties. The best my 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. It will 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 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 were not. This is a special pleading, I said. It isn't fair to appeal to my better feelings, Miss Derrick. I didn't know golfers had anywhere golf was concerned. 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 put 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 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. End of Chapter 14 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org Reading by Mark Nelson Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Woodhouse Chapter 15 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 the 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 cox sparrows would show off before their particular hen sparrows and earn a cheap reputation for daredevilry by going within so many years 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 today, Robert Olde's son? 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 wine. 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? And didn't you feel bucked when she patted you? Of course you did, anybody would. 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 he sees her every day, while I have to trust to meeting her at odd times. And then I generally feel 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 tried it 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 feel bad. I whistled to 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 short-sighted 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 a gin and 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 molehills, 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 Eukridge would have said, if, after all my trouble, the Professor had discovered some fresh grievance against me. Perhaps Eukridge had been irritating him again. I wished he would not identify me so completely with Eukridge. 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. Eukridge 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 meant 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, a trio of boiled eggs, and a dish of scrambled eggs. As regarded quantity, Mrs. Beale never failed us. Eukridge was sorting the letters. "'Morning, Garni,' he said. "'One for you, Millie.' "'It's from Aunt Elizabeth,' said Mrs. Eukridge, looking at the envelope.' I had only heard casual mention of this relative hitherto, but I had built up a mental picture of her partly from remarks which Eukridge had let fall, but principally from the fact that he had named the most malignant hen in our foul run after her. A severe lady I imagined with a cold eye. "'Wish she'd enclose a check,' said Eukridge. "'She could spare it.' "'You've no idea, Garni, old man, how disgustingly and indecently rich that woman is. She lives in Kensington on an income to her well in Park Lane. But as a touching proposition she had proved almost negligible. She steadfastly refuses to part. I think she would, dear, if she knew how much we needed it. But I don't like to ask her. She's so curious and says such horrid things.' "'She does,' agreed Eukridge gloomily. He spoke as one who had had experience. "'Two for you, Garni. All the rest for me. Ten of them, and all bills.' He spread the envelopes out on a table and drew one at a venture. "'Quitelies,' he said, getting jumpy. "'Are in receipt of my favour of the seventh instant and are at a loss to understand it. It's rummy about these blighters, but they never seem able to understand a damn thing. It's hard. You put things in words of one syllable for them and they just goggle and wonder what it all means. They want something on account.' "'Upon my Sam, I'm disappointed with Whiteleys. I'd been thinking in rather a kindly spirit of them and feeling that they were a more intelligent lot than Harrods. I'd have a mind to give Harrods the missing balk and hand my whole trade over to these fellows. But not now, dash it. Whiteleys have disappointed me. From the way they write, you'd think they thought I was doing it all for fun. How can I let them have their infernal money when there isn't any? Here's one from Dorchester. Smith, the chap we got the gramophone from, wants to know when I'm going to settle up for sixteen records.' "'Sworded brute? I wanted to get on with my own correspondence, but Eukryge held me with a glittering eye.' "'The chicken men, the dealer people, you know, want me to pay for the first lot of hens. Considering that they all died of rope 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 mean to say, business is business, but that's what these fellows don't seem to understand. I can't afford to pay enormous sums for birds which die off quicker than I can get them in. "'I shall never speak to Aunt Elizabeth again,' said Mrs. Eukryge, suddenly. 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. "'What's the matter, old chap?' inquired Eukryge affectionately, glancing up from his pile of bills and forgetting his own troubles in an instant. "'Buck up! Aunt Elizabeth been getting on your nerves again? What's she been saying this time?' Mrs. Eukryge left the room with a sob. Eukryge sprang at the letter. "'If that demon doesn't stop writing her infernal letters and upsetting Millie, I shall strangle her with my bare hands, regardless of her age and sex.' He turned over the pages of the letter till he came to the passage which had caused the trouble. "'Well, upon my Sam, listen to this, garny old horse. You tell me nothing regarding the success of this chicken farm of yours, and I confess that I find your silence ominous. 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.' He stared at me amazed. "'I like that. Pardon my soul. This is really rich. I could have believed almost anything of that blighted female, but I did think she had a reasonable amount of intelligence. Why, you know that it's just in matters requiring common sense and business capability that I come out really strong.' "'Of course, old man,' I replied dutifully. The woman's a fool. That's what she calls me two lines further on. No wonder Millie was upset. Why can't these cats leave people alone?' "'Oh, woman, woman,' I threw in helpfully. Always interfering, rotten, and backbiting. Awful. I shan't stand it. I shouldn't. Look here. On the next page she calls me a gay bee. It's time you took a strong line. And in the very next sentence refers to me as a perfect guffin.' "'What's a guffin, Garney old boy?' I considered the point. Broadly speaking, I should say one who guffs. I believe it's actionable.' "'I shouldn't wonder.' Eukridge rushed to the door. "'Milly!' He slammed the door, and I heard him dashing upstairs. I turned to my letters. One was from Lickford with a cornish postmark. I glanced through it and laid it aside for a more exhaustive perusal. The other was in a strange handwriting. I looked at the signature. Patrick Derrick. This was queer. What had the professor to say to me? The next moment my heart seemed to spring to my throat. Sir, the letter began. A pleasant cheery opening. Then it got off the mark, so to speak, like lightning. There was no sparring for an opening, no dignified parade of set phrases leading up to the main point. It was the letter of a man who was almost too furious to write. It gave me the impression that if he had not written it he would have been obliged to have taken some very violent form of exercise by way of relief to his soul. You will be good enough to look on our acquaintance as closed. I have no wish to associate with persons of your stamp. If we should happen to meet, you will be good enough to treat me as a total stranger, as I shall treat you. And, if I might be allowed to give you a word of advice, I should recommend you in future, when you wish to exercise your humour, to do so in some less practical manner than by bribing boatmen to upset your friends, crossed out thickly, and acquaintances substituted. If you require further enlightenment in this matter the enclosed letter may be of service to you. With which he remained mine faithfully, Patrick Derrick. The enclosed letter was from one Jane Musprat. It was bright and interesting. Dear sir, my Harry, Mr. Hawke, says to me how it was him upsetting the boat and you, not because he is not steady in a boat, which he is no man more so in Comorigus, but because one of the gentlemen what keeps chickens up the hill, the little one, Mr. Garnick, his name is, says to him, Hawke, I'll give you a sovereign to upset Mr. Derrick in your boat. And my Harry, being easily led, was took in and did. But he's sorry now, and wishes he hadn't, and says he'll never do a practical joke again for anyone, even for a bank note. Yours, Obeedly, Jane Musprat. Oh, woman, woman! At the bottom of everything, history is full of tragedies caused by the lethal sex. Who cost Mark Antony the world? A woman. Who let Samson in so atrociously? Woman again. Why did Bill Bailey leave home? Once more, because of a woman. And here was I, Jerry Garnet, harmless, well-meaning writer of minor novels going through the same old mill. I cursed Jane Musprat. What chance had I with Phyllis now? Could I hope to win over the professor again? I cursed Jane Musprat for the second time. My thoughts wandered to Mr. Harry Hawke, the villain, the scoundrel. What business had he to betray me? Well, I could settle with him. The man who lays a hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is justly disliked by society. So the woman Musprat, culpable as she was, was safe from me. But what of the man Hawke? There no such consideration swayed me. I would interview the man Hawke. I would give him the most hectic ten minutes of his career. I would say things to him, the recollection of which would make him start up shrieking in his bed in the small hours of the night. I would arise and be a man and slay him. Take him grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as may, at gaming, swearing, or about some act that had no relish of salvation in it. The demon! My life ruined. My future gray and black. My heart shattered. And why? Because of the scoundrel Hawke. Phyllis would meet me in the village, on the cob, on the links, and pass by as if I were the invisible man. And why? Because of the reptile Hawke, the worm Hawke, the dastard and varlet Hawke. I crammed my hat on and hurried out of the house towards the village. End of chapter 15