It seemed to me that the advice was good and should be followed. I needed a change of air. London may have suited Doctor Johnson, but in the summer time it is not for the ordinary man. What I wanted, to enable me to give the public of my best (as the reviewer of a weekly paper, dealing with my last work, had expressed a polite hope that I would continue to do) was a little haven in the country somewhere.
I rang the bell.
“Sir?” said Mrs. Medley.
“I’m going away for a bit,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know where. I’ll send you the address, so that you can forward letters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, if Mr. Ukridge calls again…”
At this point a thunderous knocking on the front door interrupted me. Something seemed to tell me who was at the end of that knocker. I heard Mrs. Medley’s footsteps pass along the hall. There was the click of the latch. A volume of sound rushed up the stairs.
“Is Mr. Garnet in? Where is he? Show me the old horse. Where is the man of wrath? Exhibit the son of Belial.”
There followed a violent crashing on the stairs, shaking the house.
“Garnet! Where are you, laddie? Garnet!! GARNET!!!!!”
Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge was in my midst.
CHAPTER II
MR. AND MRS. S. F. UKRIDGE
I have often thought that Who’s Who, though a bulky and well-meaning volume, omits too many of England’s greatest men. It is not comprehensive enough. I am in it, nestling among the G’s:–
“Garnet, Jeremy, o.s. of late Henry Garnet, vicar of Much Middlefold, Salop; author. Publications: ‘The Outsider,’ ‘The Manoeuvres of Arthur.’ Hobbies: Cricket, football, swimming, golf. Clubs: Arts.”
But if you search among the U’s for UKRIDGE, Stanley Featherstonehaugh, details of whose tempestuous career would make really interesting reading, you find no mention of him. It seems unfair, though I imagine Ukridge bears it with fortitude. That much- enduring man has had a lifetime’s training in bearing things with fortitude.
He seemed in his customary jovial spirits, now as he dashed into the room, clinging on to the pince-nez which even ginger-beer wire rarely kept stable for two minutes together.
“My dear old man,” he shouted, springing at me and seizing my hand in the grip like the bite of a horse. “How /are/ you, old buck? This is good. By Jove, this is fine, what?”
He dashed to the door and looked out.
“Come on Millie! Pick up the waukeesis. Here’s old Garnet, looking just the same as ever. Devilish handsome fellow! You’ll be glad you came when you see him. Beats the Zoo hollow!”
There appeared round the corner of Ukridge a young woman. She paused in the doorway and smiled pleasantly.
“Garny, old horse,” said Ukridge with some pride, “this is /her/! The pride of the home. Companion of joys and sorrows and all the rest of it. In fact,” in a burst of confidence, “my wife.”
I bowed awkwardly. The idea of Ukridge married was something too overpowering to be readily assimilated.
“Buck up, old horse,” said Ukridge encouragingly. He had a painful habit of addressing all and sundry by that title. In his school-master days–at one period of his vivid career he and I had been colleagues on the staff of a private school–he had made use of it interviewing the parents of new pupils, and the latter had gone away, as a rule, with a feeling that this must be either the easy manner of Genius or due to alcohol, and hoping for the best. He also used it to perfect strangers in the streets, and on one occasion had been heard to address a bishop by that title, rendering that dignity, as Mr. Baboo Jaberjee would put it, /sotto voce/ with gratification. “Surprised to find me married, what? Garny, old boy,”–sinking his voice to a whisper almost inaudible on the other side of the street–“take my tip. Go and jump off the dock yourself. You’ll feel another man. Give up this bachelor business. It’s a mug’s game. I look on you bachelors as excrescences on the social system. I regard you, old man, purely and simply as a wart. Go and get married, laddie, go and get married. By gad, I’ve forgotten to pay the cabby. Lend me a couple of bob, Garny old chap.”