so much of my time in town. I
should find it difficult."

Mrs. Ukridge 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 such a good
thing, don't you?"

"It is," said Garnet, mystified. "But--"

"I have bought a shilling book called 'Fowls and All About Them,' but
it is very hard to understand. You see, we--but here is Stanley. He
will explain it all."

"Well, Garnet, old horse," said Ukridge, reentering the room after
another energetic passage of the stairs, "settle down and let's talk
business. Found cabby gibbering on doorstep. Wouldn't believe I didn't
want to bilk him. Had to give him an extra shilling. But now, about
business. Lucky to find you in, because I've got a scheme for you,
Garny, old boy. Yes, sir, the idea of a thousand years. Now listen to
me for a moment."

He sat down on the table and dragged a chair up as a leg rest. Then he
took off his pince-nez, wiped them, readjusted the wire behind his
ears, and, having hit a brown patch on the knee of his gray flannel
trousers several times in the apparent hope of removing it, began to
speak.

"About fowls," he said.

"What about them?" asked Garnet. The subject was beginning to interest
him. It showed a curious tendency to creep into the conversation.

"I want you to give me your undivided attention for a moment," said
Ukridge. "I was saying to my wife only the other day: 'Garnet's the
man. Clever man, Garnet. Full of ideas.' Didn't I, Millie?"

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge, smiling.

"Well?" said Garnet.

"The fact is," said Ukridge, with a Micawber-like burst of candor, "we
are going to keep fowls."

He stopped and looked at Garnet in order to see the effect of the
information. Garnet bore it with fortitude.

"Yes?" he said.

Ukridge shifted himself farther on to the table and upset the inkpot.

"Never mind," he said, "it'll soak in. Don't you worry about that, you
keep listening to me. When I said we meant to keep fowls, I didn't
mean in a small sort of way--two cocks and a couple of hens and a
ping-pong ball for a nest egg. We are going to do it on a large scale.
We are going to keep," he concluded impressively, "a chicken farm!"

"A chicken farm," echoed Mrs. Ukridge with an affectionate and
admiring glance at her husband.

"Ah," said Garnet, who felt his responsibilities as chorus.

"I've thought it all out," continued Ukridge,