the voice, "or I'll corpse you."

Garnet dropped the handle, Ukridge dropped the jug, Mrs. Ukridge
screamed.

At the window, with a double-barreled gun in his hands, stood a short,
square, red-headed man. The muzzle of his gun, which rested on the
sill, was pointing in a straight line at the third button of Garnet's
waistcoat. With a distant recollection of the Deadwood Dick literature
of his childhood, Garnet flung both hands above his head.

Ukridge emitted a roar like that of a hungry lion.

"Beale!" he shouted. "You scoundrelly, unprincipled blackguard! What
are you doing with that gun? Why were you out? What have you been
doing? Why did you shout like that? Look what you've made me do."

He pointed to the floor. Broken crockery, spreading water, his own
shoes--exceedingly old tennis shoes--well soaked, attested the fact
that damage had been done.

"Lor'! Mr. Ukridge, sir, is that you?" said the red-headed man calmly.
"I thought you was burglars."

A sharp bark from the other side of the kitchen door, followed by a
renewal of the scratching, drew Mr. Beale's attention to his faithful
hound.

"That's Bob," he said.

"I don't know what you call the brute," said Ukridge. "Come in and tie
him up."

"'Ow am I to get in, Mr. Ukridge, sir?"

"Come in through the window, and mind what you're doing with that gun.
After you've finished with the dog, I should like a brief chat with
you, if you can spare the time and have no other engagements."

Mr. Beale, having carefully deposited his gun against the wall of the
kitchen, and dropped a pair of very limp rabbits with a thud to the
floor, proceeded to climb through the window. This operation
performed, he stood on one side while the besieged garrison passed out
by the same road.

"You will find me in the garden, Beale," said Ukridge. "I have one or
two little things to say to you."

Mr. Beale grinned affably.

The cool air of the garden was grateful after the warmth of the
kitchen. It was a pretty garden, or would have been, if it had not
been so neglected. Garnet seemed to see himself sitting in a deck
chair on the lawn, looking through the leaves of the trees at the
harbor below. It was a spot, he felt, in which it would be an easy and
pleasant task to shape the plot of his novel. He was glad he had come.
About now, outside his lodgings in town, a particularly lethal barrel
organ would be striking up the latest revolting air with which the
halls had inflic