e, were chasing the rest of the birds all over the garden. The
thing had now resolved itself into the course of action I had
suggested originally, except that instead of collecting them quietly
and at our leisure, we had to run miles for each one we captured.
After a time we introduced some sort of system into it. Mrs. Ukridge
(fancy him married; did you know?) stood at the door. We chased the
hens and brought them in. Then as we put each through into the
basement, she shut the door on it. We also arranged Ukridge's soap-box
coops in a row, and when we caught a fowl we put it into the coop and
stuck a board in front of it. By these strenuous means we gathered in
about two thirds of the lot. The rest are all over England. A few may
be in Dorsetshire, but I should not like to bet on it.

"So you see things are being managed on the up-to-date chicken farm on
good, sound, Ukridge principles. This is only the beginning. I look
with confidence for further exciting events. I believe, if Ukridge
kept white mice, he would manage to knock some feverish excitement out
of it. He is at present lying on the sofa, smoking one of his infernal
brand of cigars. From the basement I can hear faintly the murmur of
innumerable fowls. We are a happy family; we are, we _are_, we ARE!

"P. S. Have you ever caught a fowl and carried it to roost? You take
it under the wings, and the feel of it sets one's teeth on edge. It is
a grisly experience. All the time you are carrying it, it makes faint
protesting noises and struggles feebly to escape.

"P. P. S. You know the opinion of Pythagoras respecting fowls. That
'the soul of our granddam might haply inhabit a bird.' I hope that
yellow hen which Bob chased into the purple night is not the
grandmamma of any friend of mine."

A REUNION

VI

The day was Thursday, the date July the twenty-second. We had been
chicken farmers for a whole week, and things were beginning to settle
down to a certain extent. The coops were finished. They were not
masterpieces, and I have seen chickens pause before them in deep
thought, as who should say: "Now what in the world have we struck
here?" But they were coops, within the meaning of the act, and we
induced the hens to become tenants. The hardest work had been the
fixing of the wire netting. This was the department of the hired man
and myself. Beale and I worked ourselves into a fever in the sun,
while the senior partner of the firm sat in the house, wri