oots on the installment system, paying a small sum in
advance, as earnest of more to come. He then pawned one suit to pay
the first few installments, and finally departed, to be known no more.
His address he had given, with a false name, at an empty house, and
when the tailor arrived with the minions of the law, all he found was
an annoyed caretaker and a pile of letters written by himself,
containing his bill in its various stages of evolution.

Or again. There was a bicycle and photograph shop near the school. He
blew into this one day and his roving eye fell on a tandem bicycle. He
did not want a tandem bicycle, but that influenced him not at all. He
ordered it, provisionally. He also ordered an enlarging camera, a
Kodak, and a magic lantern. The order was booked and the goods were to
be delivered when he had made up his mind concerning them. After a
week the shopman sent round to ask if there were any further
particulars which Mr. Ukridge would like to learn before definitely
ordering them. Mr. Ukridge sent word back that he was considering the
matter, and that in the meantime would he be so good as to let him
have that little clockwork man in his window, which walked when wound
up? Having got this, and not paid for it, Ukridge thought that he had
done handsomely by the bicycle and photograph man, and that things
were square between them. The latter met him a few days afterwards and
expostulated plaintively. Ukridge explained. "My good man," he said,
"you know, I really think we need say no more about the matter.
Really, you've come out of it very well. Now, look here, which would
you rather be owed for? A clockwork man, which is broken, and you can
have it back, or a tandem bicycle, an enlarging camera, a Kodak, and
a magic lantern? What?" His reasoning was too subtle for the
uneducated mind. The man retired, puzzled and unpaid, and Ukridge kept
the clockwork toy.

A remarkable financier, Ukridge. I sometimes think that he would have
done well in the city.

I did not go to bed till late that night. There was something so
peaceful in the silence that brooded over everything that I stayed on,
enjoying it. Perhaps it struck me as all the more peaceful because I
could not help thinking of the troublous times that were to come.
Already I seemed to hear the horrid roar of a herd of infuriated
creditors. I seemed to see fierce brawlings and sackings in progress
in this very garden.

"It will be a coarse, brutal spect