n incubator."

"I suppose you find it very useful?"

"I'm afraid we use it chiefly for drying our boots when they get wet,"
I said.

Only that morning Ukridge's spare pair of tennis shoes had permanently
spoiled the future of half-a-dozen eggs which were being hatched on
the spot where the shoes happened to be placed. Ukridge had been quite
annoyed.

"I came down here principally," I said, "in search of golf. I was told
there were links, but up to the present my professional duties have
monopolized me."

"Golf," said Professor Derrick. "Why, yes. We must have a round or two
together. I am very fond of golf. I generally spend the summer down
here improving my game."

I said I should be delighted.

* * * * *

There was croquet after lunch--a game at which I am a poor performer.
Miss Derrick and I played the professor and Chase. Chase was a little
better than myself; the professor, by dint of extreme earnestness and
care, managed to play a fair game; and Phyllis was an expert.

"I was reading a book," said she, as we stood together watching the
professor shaping at his ball at the other end of the lawn, "by an
author of the same surname as you, Mr. Garnet. Is he a relation of
yours?"

"I am afraid I am the person, Miss Derrick," I said.

"You wrote the book?"

"A man must live," I said apologetically.

"Then you must have--oh, nothing."

"I could not help it, I'm afraid. But your criticism was very kind."

"Did you know what I was going to say?"

"I guessed."

"It was lucky I liked it," she said with a smile.

"Lucky for me," I said.

"Why?"

"It will encourage me to write another book. So you see what you have
to answer for. I hope it will not trouble your conscience."

At the other end of the lawn the professor was still patting the balls
about, Chase the while advising him to allow for windage and elevation
and other mysterious things.

"I should not have thought," she said, "that an author cared a bit for
the opinion of an amateur."

"It all depends."

"On the author?"

"On the amateur."

It was my turn to play at this point. I missed--as usual.

"I didn't like your heroine, Mr. Garnet."

"That was the one crumpled rose leaf. I have been wondering why ever
since. I tried to make her nice. Three of the critics liked her."

"Really?"

"And the modern reviewer is an intelligent young man. What is a
'creature,' Miss Derrick?"

"Pamela in your book