rk are preserved in a letter which Garnet wrote that
night to his friend Lickford.

* * * * *

"... Have you ever played a game called 'Pigs in Clover'? We have just
finished a bout of it (with hens instead of marbles) which has lasted
for an hour and a half. We are all dead tired except the hired man,
who seems to be made of India rubber. He has just gone for a stroll to
the beach. Wants some exercise, I suppose. Personally, I feel as if I
should never move again. I have run faster and farther than I have
done since I was at school. You have no conception of the difficulty
of rounding up fowls and getting them safely to bed. Having no proper
place to put them, we were obliged to stow some of them inside soap
boxes and the rest in the basement. It has only just occurred to me
that they ought to have had perches to roost on. It didn't strike me
before. I shall not mention it to Ukridge, or that indomitable man
will start making some, and drag me into it, too. After all, a hen can
rough it for one night, and if I did a stroke more work I should
collapse. My idea was to do the thing on the slow but sure principle.
That is to say, take each bird singly and carry it to bed. It would
have taken some time, but there would have been no confusion. But you
can imagine that that sort of thing would not appeal to Ukridge. There
is a touch of the Napoleon about him. He likes his maneuvers to be
daring and on a large scale. He said: 'Open the yard gate and let the
fowls come out into the open, then sail in and drive them in a mass
through the back door into the basement.' It was a great idea, but
there was one fatal flaw in it. It didn't allow for the hens
scattering. We opened the gate, and out they all came like an audience
coming out of a theater. Then we closed in on them to bring off the
big drive. For about three seconds it looked as if we might do it.
Then Bob, the hired man's dog, an animal who likes to be in whatever's
going on, rushed out of the house into the middle of them, barking.
There was a perfect stampede, and Heaven only knows where some of
those fowls are now. There was one in particular, a large yellow bird,
which, I should imagine, is nearing London by this time. The last I
saw of it, it was navigating at the rate of knots, so to speak, in
that direction, with Bob after it barking his hardest. Presently Bob
came back, panting, having evidently given up the job. We, in the
meantim