fectly inoffensive spectator. The missile, we are told, "'it a
young copper full in the hyeball." I had enjoyed this when I read it,
but now that fate had arranged a precisely similar situation, with
myself in the role of the young copper, the fun of the thing appealed
to me not at all.

It was Ukridge who was to blame for the professor's regrettable
explosion and departure, and he ought by all laws of justice to have
suffered for it. As it was, I was the only person materially affected.
It did not matter to Ukridge. He did not care twopence one way or the
other. If the professor were friendly, he was willing to talk to him
by the hour on any subject, pleasant or unpleasant. If, on the other
hand, he wished to have nothing more to do with us, it did not worry
him. He was content to let him go. Ukridge was a self-sufficing
person.

But to me it was a serious matter. More than serious. If I have done
my work as historian with any adequate degree of skill, the reader
should have gathered by this time the state of my feelings.

My love had grown with the days. Mr. J. Holt Schooling, or somebody
else with a taste for juggling with figures, might write a very
readable page or so of statistics in connection with the growth of
love in the heart of a man. In some cases it is, I believe, slow. In
my own I can only say that Jack's beanstalk was a backward plant in
comparison. It is true that we had not seen a great deal of one
another, and that, when we had met, our interviews had been brief and
our conversation conventional; but it is the intervals between the
meetings that do the real damage. Absence, as the poet neatly remarks,
makes the heart grow fonder. And now, thanks to Ukridge's amazing
idiocy, a barrier had been thrust between us. As if the business of
fishing for a girl's heart were not sufficiently difficult and
delicate without the addition of needless obstacles! It was terrible
to have to reestablish myself in the good graces of the professor
before I could so much as begin to dream of Phyllis.

Ukridge gave me no balm.

"Well, after all," he said, when I pointed out to him quietly but
plainly my opinion of his tactlessness, "what does it matter? There
are other people in the world besides the old buffer. And we haven't
time to waste making friends, as a matter of fact. The farm ought to
keep us busy. I've noticed, Garny, old boy, that you haven't seemed
such a whale for work lately as you might be. You must bu