He put his mouth to the keyhole and roared “Goo’ dog!” through it. Instantly the door shook as some heavy object hurled itself against it. The barking rang through the house.
“Come round to the back,” said Ukridge, giving up the idea of conciliation, “we’ll get in through the kitchen window.”
The kitchen window proved to be insecurely latched. Ukridge threw it open and we climbed in. The dog, hearing the noise, raced back along the passage and flung himself at the door, scratching at the panels. Ukridge listened with growing indignation.
“Millie, you know how to light a fire. Garnet and I will be collecting cups and things. When that scoundrel Beale arrives I shall tear him limb from limb. Deserting us like this! The man must be a thorough fraud. He told me he was an old soldier. If that’s the sort of discipline they used to keep in his regiment, thank God, we’ve got a Navy! Damn, I’ve broken a plate. How’s the fire getting on, Millie? I’ll chop Beale into little bits. What’s that you’ve got there, Garny old horse? Tea? Good. Where’s the bread? There goes another plate. Where’s Mrs. Beale, too? By Jove, that woman wants killing as much as her blackguard of a husband. Whoever heard of a cook deliberately leaving her post on the day when her master and mistress were expected back? The abandoned woman. Look here, I’ll give that dog three minutes, and if it doesn’t stop scratching that door by then, I’ll take a rolling pin and go out and have a heart-to-heart talk with it. It’s a little hard. My own house, and the first thing I find when I arrive is somebody else’s beastly dog scratching holes in the doors and ruining the expensive paint. Stop it, you brute!”
The dog’s reply was to continue his operations with immense vigour.
Ukridge’s eyes gleamed behind their glasses.
“Give me a good large jug, laddie,” he said with ominous calm.
He took the largest of the jugs from the dresser and strode with it into the scullery, whence came a sound of running water. He returned carrying the jug with both hands, his mien that of a general who sees his way to a masterstroke of strategy.
“Garny, old horse,” he said, “freeze onto the handle of the door, and, when I give the word, fling wide the gates. Then watch that animal get the surprise of a lifetime.”
I attached myself to the handle as directed. Ukridge gave the word. We had a momentary vision of an excited dog of the mongrel class framed in the open doorway, all eyes and teeth; then the passage was occupied by a spreading pool, and indignant barks from the distance told that the enemy was thinking the thing over in some safe retreat.
“Settled /his/ hash,” said Ukridge complacently. “Nothing like resource, Garny my boy. Some men would have gone on letting a good door be ruined.”
“And spoiled the dog for a ha’porth of water,” I said.
At this moment Mrs. Ukridge announced that the kettle was boiling. Over a cup of tea Ukridge became the man of business.
“I wonder when those fowls are going to arrive. They should have been here to-day. It’s a little hard. Here am I, all eagerness and anxiety, waiting to start an up-to-date chicken farm, and no fowls! I can’t run a chicken farm without fowls. If they don’t come to-morrow, I shall get after those people with a hatchet. There must be no slackness. They must bustle about. After tea I’ll show you the garden, and we’ll choose a place for a fowl-run. To-morrow we must buckle to. Serious work will begin immediately after breakfast.”
“Suppose,” I said, “the fowls arrive before we’re ready for them?”
“Why, then they must wait.”
“But you can’t keep fowls cooped up indefinitely in a crate.”
“Oh, that’ll be all right. There’s a basement to this house. We’ll let ’em run about there till we’re ready for them. There’s always a way of doing things if you look for it. Organisation, my boy. That’s the watchword. Quiet efficiency.”
“I hope you are going to let the hens hatch some of the eggs, dear,” said Mrs. Ukridge. “I should love to have some little chickens.”