Love Among the Chickens

e is flowing smoothly, are the novels they write in that period of content coloured with optimism? And if things

n which I now found myself had a disastrous effect on my novel that was to be. I had designed it as a light comedy effort. Here and there a page or two to steady the reader and show him what I could do in the way of pathos if I cared to try; but in the main a thing of sunshine and laughter. But now great slabs of gloom began to work th

uriously on the links, and swam about the harbour when

, and came out an unspeakable object. Ukridge put his spare pair of tennis shoes in the incubator to dry them, and permanently spoiled the future of half-a-dozen eggs which happened to have got ther

s, however, his buoyant opti

oming in better now, though we've still a deal of leeway to make up yet in that line. I got a letter from Whiteley's this morning asking when my first consignment was going to arrive. You know, these people make a mistake in hurrying a man. It annoys him. It irritates him. When we really get going, Garny, my boy, I shall drop Wh

t the paddock, as was my habit after breakfast, thinking about Phyllis and trying to get my novel into shape. I had just fr

want you to see the m

he matter

e chickens. They've been doing

m. They were yawning-broadly, as if we bored them. They stood about singly

e matter w

ed. "Because if so, that's what they've got.

said Mrs. Ukridge sympathetically; "I'm sure it's not wel

'll ask Beale. He once lived with an aunt who

ans

ale

gh the bushes, carrying a boot. We seemed to

ut fowls. What's the mat

the blase birds with a woo

said U

Hired Retainer, "is these 'ere f

the disease before,

them yawn like that?

, ma

r th

, ma

they all

, ma

we to do?" a

en 'er fowls 'ad the ro

id," he repeated, with

said Mrs.

ve 'em snuff till t

aint squeak at this vivi

cure them?"

ponded the exp

ould know about this infernal roop thing? One of those farmer chaps would, I suppose. Beale, go off to

s,

dge," I said. "I w

n of the village of Up Lyme to consult Farmer Leigh on the matter. He had sold us some fowls sho

t intervals it passes over a stream by means of a footb

of these bridge

ebody coming through the grass, but not till I was on the bridge did I see who it was. We reached the

ne on the footbridge, and

rst sign of recognition, I said nothing. I mer

aid to myself. She answered the unspoken

, stopping at the end

before, but I am so so

e given a month's income to have said something neat, epigrammatic, suggestive, yet withal courteous and respectful, I could only f

and my friends-must be

gloomily, "I

not think me

I, with mascu

with feminine delicacy, "when I am

l under

ed-"you are under a

o

e," I

od-

od-

sight, and went on to

s verbose and reminiscent. He took me over his farm, pointing out as we went Dorkings with pasts, and Cochin C

at, and one which I proposed to leave exclusively to Ukridge and the Hired Retainer-and also a slight headache. A vis

here was deep water on

ompanion was a gigantic boatman, by name Harry Hawk, possibly a descendant of the gentleman of that name who went to Widdicombe Fair with

n object-lesson to those who hold that optimism has died out of the race. I had never seen him ca

g with a straw, my mind ranged idly over large subjects and small. I thought of love and chicken-farming. I mused on the immortality of the soul and the deplorable speed at which two

f he were very hot. I tried to picture his boyhood. I specu

n a movement on the part of that oarsman set the boat rocking, t

pened in fiction. It was a shame that it should not happen in real life. In my hot youth I once had seven stories in seven weekly penny papers in the same month, all dealing with a situation of the kind. Only the details differed. In "Not really a Coward" Vincent Devereux had rescued the earl's daught

surged into my brain. At four minutes to twelve I had been grumbling impotently at Providen

herefore, cease any connection with it, and start a rival business on my ow

f its own accord, I would arrange one for myself. Hawk looked to me the

e. I quote the brief report which subseq

CIENCE (Celestial B.C.) v

ge to get wet. Garnet countered heavily, alluding to the warmth of the weather and the fact that the professor habitually enjoyed a bathe every day.

s say if she knew?" Garnet, however, side-stepped cleverly with "But she won't know," and followed up the advantage with a damaging, "Besides, it's all for th

the round would be a brief one. This proved to be the case. Early in the second minute Garnet cross-coun

eling much

d Mr. Hawk in the bar-parlo

ale, "I want you, next time you take Professor Derrick out fishing"-here

e slowly from the pot o

do that for?

e," said I, "but I am

gur

d his po

t on g

d with

ncise. My choice of words was superb. I crystallised my ide

tical joke. He gave me to understand that this was the type of humour which was to be expected from a gentleman from London. I am afraid he must at

d not give my true reason, an

too, would get wet when the accident took p

is dying out of our rural districts. Twenty years ago a fisherman woul