Aren't we, Millie?"

"Yes, dear."

"You don't let me see the financial side of the thing," I said,
"except at intervals. I didn't know we were in such a bad way. The
fowls look fit enough, and Edwin hasn't had one for a week."

"Edwin knows as well as possible when he's done wrong, Mr. Garnet,"
said Mrs. Ukridge. "He was so sorry after he had killed those other
two."

"Yes," said Ukridge. "I saw to that."

"As far as I can see," I continued, "we're going strong. Chicken for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner is a shade monotonous, but look at the
business we're doing. We sold a whole heap of eggs last week."

"It's not enough, Garny, my boy. We sell a dozen eggs where we ought
to be selling a hundred, carting them off in trucks for the London
market. Harrod's and Whiteley's and the rest of them are beginning to
get on their hind legs, and talk. That's what they're doing. You see,
Marmaduke, there's no denying it--we _did_ touch them for a lot of
things on account, and they agreed to take it out in eggs. They seem
to be getting tired of waiting."

"Their last letter was quite pathetic," said Mrs. Ukridge.

I had a vision of an eggless London. I seemed to see homes rendered
desolate and lives embittered by the slump, and millionaires bidding
against one another for the few specimens Ukridge had actually managed
to dispatch to Brompton and Bayswater.

"I told them in my last letter but three," continued Ukridge
complainingly, "that I proposed to let them have the eggs on the
_Times_ installment system, and they said I was frivolous. They said
that to send thirteen eggs as payment for goods supplied to the value
of twenty-five pounds one shilling and sixpence was mere trifling.
Trifling! when those thirteen eggs were absolutely all we had over
that week after Mrs. Beale had taken what she wanted for the kitchen.
I tell you what it is, old boy, that woman literally eats eggs."

"The habit is not confined to her," I said.

"What I mean to say is, she seems to bathe in them."

An impressive picture to one who knew Mrs. Beale.

"She says she needs so many for puddings, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge. "I
spoke to her about it yesterday. And, of course, we often have
omelets."

"She can't make omelets without breakings eggs," I urged.

"She can't make them without breaking us," said Ukridge. "One or two
more omelets and we're done for. Another thing," he continued, "that
incubator thing won't work. _I_ don't know what's w