the bills which poured in by every post. It was
as if the tradesmen of the neighbourhood had formed a league, and were
working in concert. Or it may have been due to thought-waves. Little
accounts came not in single spies but in battalions. The popular demand
for the sight of the colour of his money grew daily. Every morning at
breakfast he would give us fresh bulletins of the state of mind of each
of our creditors, and thrill us with the announcement that Whiteley's
were getting cross, and Harrod's jumpy or that the bearings of Dawlish,
the grocer, were becoming overheated. We lived in a continual
atmosphere of worry. Chicken and nothing but chicken at meals, and
chicken and nothing but chicken between meals had frayed our nerves. An
air of defeat hung over the place. We were a beaten side, and we
realised it. We had been playing an uphill game for nearly two months,
and the strain was beginning to tell. Ukridge became uncannily silent.
Mrs. Ukridge, though she did not understand, I fancy, the details of
the matter, was worried because Ukridge was. Mrs. Beale had long since
been turned into a soured cynic by the lack of chances vouchsafed her
for the exercise of her art. And as for me, I have never since spent so
profoundly miserably a week. I was not even permitted the anodyne of
work. There seemed to be nothing to do on the farm. The chickens were
quite happy, and only asked to be let alone and allowed to have their
meals at regular intervals. And every day one or more of their number
would vanish into the kitchen, Mrs. Beale would serve up the corpse in
some cunning disguise, and we would try to delude ourselves into the
idea that it was something altogether different.

There was one solitary gleam of variety in our menu. An editor sent me
a cheque for a set of verses. We cashed that cheque and trooped round
the town in a body, laying out the money. We bought a leg of mutton,
and a tongue and sardines, and pine-apple chunks, and potted meat, and
many other noble things, and had a perfect banquet. Mrs. Beale, with
the scenario of a smile on her face, the first that she had worn in
these days of stress, brought in the joint, and uncovered it with an
air.

"Thank God!" said Ukridge, as he began to carve.

It was the first time I had ever heard him say a grace, and if ever an
occasion merited such a deviation from habit, this occasion did.

After that we relapsed into routine again.

Deprived of physical labour, wi