In the meantime I worked hard among the fowls, 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 fowl-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. Ukridge 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 Wyandottes, and was only saved from execution by the tears of Mrs. Ukridge.
In spite of these occurrences, however, his buoyant optimism never deserted Ukridge.
“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 Whiteley’s 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, Garny, my boy, I shall drop Whiteley’s. 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, worked 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 Ukridge shouted to me from the fowl-run.
“Garny, come here. I want you to see the most astounding thing.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Blast if I know. Look at those chickens. They’ve been doing that for the last half-hour.”
I inspected the chickens. There was certainly something the matter 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 never saw a more bored-looking lot of birds.”
“Oh, do look at that poor little brown one by the coop,” said Mrs. Ukridge sympathetically; “I’m sure it’s not well. See, it’s lying down. What /can/ be the matter with it?”
“I tell you what we’ll do,” said Ukridge. “We’ll ask Beale. He once lived with an aunt 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 blase birds with a wooden expression on his face.
“Well?” said Ukridge.
“The ‘ole thing ‘ere,” said the Hired Retainer, “is these ‘ere fowls have been and got the roop.”
I had never heard of the disease before, but it sounded bad.
“Is that what makes them yawn like that?” said Mrs. Ukridge.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Poor things!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And have they all got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What ought we to do?” asked Ukridge.
“Well, my aunt, sir, when ‘er fowls ‘ad the roop, she gave them snuff.”