MR. AND MRS. S. F. UKRIDGE
I have often thought that Whos Who, though a bulky and well-meaning volume,
omits too many of Englands greatest men. It is not comprehensive enough.
I am in it, nestling among the Gs:
“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 dignitary, 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.”
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
“One hen?”
“Call it one for the sake of
argument. It makes my calculations clearer.
Very well, then. Harriet the hen you
get her. Do you follow me so far?”
“Yes. You get a hen.”
“I told you Garnet was a dashed
bright fellow,” said Ukridge approvingly to
his attentive wife. “Notice the way he keeps
right after one’s ideas? Like a bloodhound.
Well, where was I?”
“You’d just got a hen.”
“Exactly. The hen.
Pricilla the pullet. Well, it lays an egg every
day of the week. You sell the eggs, six for half
a crown. Keep of hen costs nothing. Profit at
least a couple of bob on every dozen eggs. What
do you think of that?”
“I think I’d like to overhaul
the figures in case of error.”
“Error!” shouted Ukridge,
pounding the table till it groaned. “Error?
Not a bit of it. Can’t you follow a simple
calculation like that? Oh, I forgot to say that
you get and here is the nub of the thing you
get your first hen on tick. Anybody will be glad
to let you have the hen on tick. Well, then,
you let this hen this first, original hen,
this on-tick-hen you let it set and hatch
chickens. Now follow me closely. Suppose
you have a dozen hens. Very well, then. When
each of the dozen has a dozen chickens, you send the
old hens back to the chappies you borrowed them from,
with thanks for kind loan; and there you are, starting
business with a hundred and forty-four free chickens
to your name. And after a bit, when the chickens
grow up and begin to lay, all you have to do is to
sit back in your chair and endorse the big cheques.
Isn’t that so, Millie?”
“Yes, dear.”
“We’ve fixed it all up.
Do you know Combe Regis, in Dorsetshire? On the
borders of Devon. Bathing. Sea-air.
Splendid scenery. Just the place for a chicken
farm. A friend of Millie’s girl
she knew at school has lent us a topping
old house, with large grounds. All we’ve
got to do is to get in the fowls. I’ve
ordered the first lot. We shall find them waiting
for us when we arrive.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m
sure I wish you luck. Mind you let me know how
you get on.”
“Let you know!” roared
Ukridge. “Why, my dear old horse, you’re
coming with us.”
“Am I?” I said blankly.
“Certainly you are. We shall take no refusal.
Will we, Millie?”
“No, dear.”
“Of course not. No refusal
of any sort. Pack up to-night and meet us at
Waterloo to-morrow.”
“It’s awfully good of you ...”
“Not a bit of it not
a bit of it. This is pure business. I was
saying to Millie as we came along that you were the
very man for us. A man with your flow of ideas
will be invaluable on a chicken farm. Absolutely
invaluable. You see,” proceeded Ukridge,
“I’m one of those practical fellows.
The hard-headed type. I go straight ahead, following
my nose. What you want in a business of this sort
is a touch of the dreamer to help out the practical
mind. We look to you for suggestions, laddie.
Flashes of inspiration and all that sort of thing.
Of course, you take your share of the profits.
That’s understood. Yes, yes, I must insist.
Strict business between friends. Now, taking it
that, at a conservative estimate, the net profits
for the first fiscal year amount to five
thousand, no, better be on the safe side say,
four thousand five hundred pounds ... But we’ll
arrange all that end of it when we get down there.
Millie will look after that. She’s the secretary
of the concern. She’s been writing letters
to people asking for hens. So you see it’s
a thoroughly organised business. How many hen-letters
did you write last week, old girl?”
“Ten, dear.”
Ukridge turned triumphantly to me.
“You hear? Ten. Ten
letters asking for hens. That’s the way
to succeed. Push and enterprise.”
“Six of them haven’t answered, Stanley,
dear, and the rest refused.”
“Immaterial,” said Ukridge
with a grand gesture. “That doesn’t
matter. The point is that the letters were written.
It shows we are solid and practical. Well now,
can you get your things ready by to-morrow, Garny
old horse?”
Strange how one reaches an epoch-making
moment in one’s life without recognising it.
If I had refused that invitation, I would not have at
any rate, I would have missed a remarkable experience.
It is not given to everyone to see Stanley Featherstonehaugh
Ukridge manage a chicken farm.
“I was thinking of going somewhere
where I could get some golf,” I said undecidedly.
“Combe Regis is just the place
for you, then. Perfect hot-bed of golf.
Full of the finest players. Can’t throw
a brick without hitting an amateur champion.
Grand links at the top of the hill not half a mile
from the farm. Bring your clubs. You’ll
be able to play in the afternoons. Get through
serious work by lunch time.”
“You know,” I said, “I
am absolutely inexperienced as regards fowls.
I just know enough to help myself to bread sauce when
I see one, but no more.”
“Excellent! You’re
just the man. You will bring to the work a mind
unclouded by theories. You will act solely by
the light of your intelligence. And you’ve
got lots of that. That novel of yours showed
the most extraordinary intelligence at least
as far as that blighter at the bookstall would let
me read. I wouldn’t have a professional
chicken farmer about the place if he paid to come.
If he applied to me, I should simply send him away.
Natural intelligence is what we want. Then we
can rely on you?”
“Very well,” I said slowly.
“It’s very kind of you to ask me.”
“Business, laddie, pure business.
Very well, then. We shall catch the eleven-twenty
at Waterloo. Don’t miss it. Look out
for me on the platform. If I see you first, I’ll
shout.”