ubject you like. Chatty remarks on Bimetallism would
meet with his earnest attention. A lecture on What to do with the Cold
Mutton would be welcomed. But not Ireland. Shall we do down?"

We got to know each other at lunch.

"Do you hunt hens," asked Tom Chase, who was mixing the salad--he was
one of those men who seemed to do everything a shade better than anyone
else--"for amusement or by your doctor's orders? Many doctors, I
believe, insist on it."

"Neither," I said, "and especially not for amusement. The fact is, I've
been lured down here by a friend of mine who has started a chicken
farm--"

I was interrupted. All three of them burst out laughing. Tom Chase
allowed the vinegar to trickle on to the cloth, missing the salad-bowl
by a clear two inches.

"You don't mean to tell us," he said, "that you really come from the
one and only chicken farm? Why, you're the man we've all been praying
to meet for days past. You're the talk of the town. If you can call
Combe Regis a town. Everybody is discussing you. Your methods are new
and original, aren't they?"

"Probably. Ukridge knows nothing about fowls. I know less. He considers
it an advantage. He says our minds ought to be unbiassed."

"Ukridge!" said the professor. "That was the name old Dawlish, the
grocer, said. I never forget a name. He is the gentleman who lectures
on the management of poultry? You do not?"

I hastened to disclaim any such feat. I had never really approved of
these infernal talks on the art of chicken-farming which Ukridge had
dropped into the habit of delivering when anybody visited our farm. I
admit that it was a pleasing spectacle to see my managing director in a
pink shirt without a collar and very dirty flannel trousers lecturing
the intelligent native; but I had a feeling that the thing tended to
expose our ignorance to men who had probably had to do with fowls from
their cradle up.

"His lectures are very popular," said Phyllis Derrick with a little
splutter of mirth.

"He enjoys them," I said.

"Look here, Garnet," said Tom Chase, "I hope you won't consider all
these questions impertinent, but you've no notion of the thrilling
interest we all take--at a distance--in your farm. We have been talking
of nothing else for a week. I have dreamed of it three nights running.
Is Mr. Ukridge doing this as a commercial speculation, or is he an
eccentric millionaire?"

"He's not a millionaire yet, but I believe he intends to be one
shor