He was out of the door and on his way downstairs before the echoes of his last remark had ceased to shake the window. I was left to entertain Mrs. Ukridge.
So far her share in the conversation had been confined to the pleasant smile which was apparently her chief form of expression. Nobody talked very much when Ukridge was present. She sat on the edge of the armchair, looking very small and quiet. I was conscious of feeling a benevolent pity for her. If I had been a girl, I would have preferred to marry a volcano. A little of Ukridge, as his former head master had once said in a moody, reflective voice, went a very long way. “You and Stanley have known each other a long time, haven’t you?” said the object of my commiseration, breaking the silence.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Several years. We were masters at the same school.”
Mrs. Ukridge leaned forward with round, shining eyes.
“Really? Oh, how nice!” she said ecstatically.
Not yet, to judge from her expression and the tone of her voice, had she found any disadvantages attached to the arduous position of being Mrs. Stanley Ukridge.
“He’s a wonderfully versatile man,” I said.
“I believe he could do anything.”
“He’d have a jolly good try!”
“Have you ever kept fowls?” asked Mrs. Ukridge, with apparent irrelevance.
I had not. She looked disappointed.
“I was hoping you might have had some experience. Stanley, of course, can turn his hand to anything; but I think experience is rather a good thing, don’t you?”
“Yes. But…”
“I have bought a shilling book called ‘Fowls and All About Them,’ and this week’s copy of C.A.C.”
“C.A.C.?”
“/Chiefly About Chickens/. It’s a paper, you know. But it’s all rather hard to understand. You see, we… but here is Stanley. He will explain the whole thing.”
“Well, Garny, old horse,” said Ukridge, re-entering the room after another energetic passage of the stairs. “Years since I saw you. Still buzzing along?”
“Still, so to speak, buzzing,” I assented.
“I was reading your last book the other day.”
“Yes?” I said, gratified. “How did you like it?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, laddie, I didn’t get beyond the third page, because the scurvy knave at the bookstall said he wasn’t running a free library, and in one way and another there was a certain amount of unpleasantness. Still, it seemed bright and interesting up to page three. But let’s settle down and talk business. I’ve got a scheme for you, Garny old man. Yessir, the idea of a thousand years. Now listen to me for a moment. Let me get a word in edgeways.”
He sat down on the table, and dragged up a chair as a leg-rest. Then he took off his pince-nez, wiped them, re-adjusted the ginger-beer wire behind his ears, and, having hit a brown patch on the knee of his grey flannel trousers several times, in the apparent hope of removing it, resumed:
“About fowls.”
The subject was beginning to interest me. It showed a curious tendency to creep into the conversation of the Ukridge family.
“I want you to give me your undivided attention for a moment. I was saying to my wife, as we came here, ‘Garnet’s the man! Clever devil, Garnet. Full of ideas.’ Didn’t I, Millie?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Laddie,” said Ukridge impressively, “we are going to keep fowls.”
He shifted himself farther on to the table and upset the ink-pot.
“Never mind,” he said, “it’ll soak in. It’s good for the texture. Or am I thinking of tobacco-ash on the carpet? Well, never mind. Listen to me! When I said that we were going to keep fowls, I didn’t mean in a small, piffling sort of way–two cocks and a couple of hens and a golf-ball for a nest-egg. We are going to do it on a large scale. We are going to run a chicken farm!”
“A chicken farm,” echoed Mrs. Ukridge with an affectionate and admiring glance at her husband.
“Ah,” I said, feeling my responsibilities as chorus. “A chicken farm.”
“I’ve thought it all over, laddie, and it’s as clear as mud. No expenses, large profits, quick returns. Chickens, eggs, and the money streaming in faster than you can bank it. Winter and summer underclothing, my bonny boy, lined with crackling Bradbury’s. It’s the idea of a lifetime. Now listen to me for a moment. You get your hen–“