“Rather! And I’ll tell you another thing, old horse. I scored heavily at the end of the visit. She’d got to the quoting-proverbs stage by that time. ‘Ah, my dear,’ she said to Millie. ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure.’ Millie stood up to her like a little brick. ‘I’m afraid that proverb doesn’t apply to me, Aunt Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘because I haven’t repented!’ What do you think of that, Laddie?”
“Of course, she /hasn’t/ had much leisure lately,” I agreed.
Ukridge’s jaw dropped slightly. But he rallied swiftly.
“Idiot! That wasn’t what she meant. Millie’s an angel!”
“Of course she is,” I said cordially. “She’s a precious sight too good for you, you old rotter. You bear that fact steadily in mind, and we’ll make something of you yet.”
At this point Mrs. Ukridge joined us. She had been exploring the house, and noting the damage done. Her eyes were open to their fullest extent.
“Oh, Mr. Garnet, /couldn’t/ you have stopped them?”
I felt a worm. Had I done as much as I might have done to stem the tide?
“I’m awfully sorry, Mrs. Ukridge,” I said humbly. “I really don’t think I could have done much more. We tried every method. Beale had seven fights, and I made a speech on the lawn, but it was all no good. Directly they had finished the whisky–”
Ukridge’s cry was like that of a lost spirit.
“They didn’t get hold of the whisky!”
“They did! It seemed to me that it would smooth things down a little if I served it out. The mob had begun to get a trifle out of hand.”
“I thought those horrid men were making a lot of noise,” said Mrs. Ukridge.
Ukridge preserved a gloomy silence. Of all the disasters of that stricken field, I think the one that came home most poignantly to him was the loss of the whisky. It seemed to strike him like a blow.
“Isn’t it about time to collect these men and explain things?” I suggested. “I don’t believe any of them know you’ve come back.”
“They will!” said Ukridge grimly, coming out of his trance. “They soon will! Where’s Beale! Beale!”
The Hired Retainer came running out at the sound of the well- remembered voice.
“Lumme, Mr. Ukridge, sir!” he gasped.
It was the first time Beale had ever betrayed any real emotion in my presence. To him, I suppose, the return of Ukridge was as sensational and astonishing an event as a re-appearance from the tomb. He was not accustomed to find those who had shot the moon revisiting their ancient haunts.
“Beale, go round the place and tell those scoundrels that I’ve come back, and would like a word with them on the lawn. And, if you find any of them stealing the fowls, knock them down!”
“I ‘ave knocked down one or two,” said Beale, with approval. “That Charlie–”
“Beale,” said Ukridge, much moved, “you’re an excellent fellow! One of the very best. I will pay you your back wages before I go to bed.”
“These fellars, sir,” said Beale, having expressed his gratification, “they’ve bin and scattered most of them birds already, sir. They’ve bin chasin’ of them this half-hour back.”
Ukridge groaned.
“Scoundrels! Demons!”
Beale went off.
“Millie, old girl,” said Ukridge, adjusting the ginger-beer wire behind his ears and hoisting up his grey flannel-trousers, which showed an inclination to sag, “you’d better go indoors. I propose to speak pretty chattily to these blighters, and in the heat of the moment one or two expressions might occur to me which you would not like. It would hamper me, your being here.”
Mrs. Ukridge went into the house, and the vanguard of the audience began to come on to the lawn. Several of them looked flushed and dishevelled. I have a suspicion that Beale had shaken sobriety into them. Charlie, I noticed, had a black eye.
They assembled on the lawn in the moonlight, and Ukridge, with his cap well over his eyes and his mackintosh hanging round him like a Roman toga, surveyed them sternly, and began his speech.
“You–you–you–you scoundrels! You blighters! You worms! You weeds!”
I always like to think of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge as I saw him at that moment. There have been times during a friendship of many years when his conduct did not recommend itself to me. It has sometimes happened that I have seen flaws in him. But on this occasion he was at his best. He was eloquent. He dominated his audience. Long before he had finished I was feeling relieved that he had thought of sending Mrs. Ukridge indoors when he did, and Beale was hanging on his words with a look in his eyes which I had never seen there before,–a look of reverence, almost of awe, the look of a disciple who listens to a master.