Love Among the Chickens, P. G. Wodehouse [top non fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

“My dear old man,” said Ukridge impressively, “we need every penny of ready money we can raise for the farm. The place simply eats money. That infernal roop let us in for I don’t know what.”

That insidious epidemic had indeed proved costly. We had painted the throats of the chickens with the best turpentine⁠—at least Ukridge and Beale had⁠—but in spite of their efforts dozens had died, and we had been obliged to sink much more money than was pleasant in restocking the run. The battle which took place on the first day after the election of the new members was a sight to remember. The results of it were still noticeable in the depressed aspect of certain of the recently enrolled.

“No,” said Ukridge, summing up, “these men must wait. We can’t help their troubles. Why, good gracious, it isn’t as if they’d been waiting for the money long. We’ve not been down here much over a month. I never heard of such a scandalous thing. ’Pon my word, I’ve a good mind to go round, and have a straight talk with one or two of them. I come and settle down here, and stimulate trade, and give them large orders, and they worry me with bills when they know I’m up to my eyes in work, looking after the fowls. One can’t attend to everything. The business is just now at its most crucial point. It would be fatal to pay any attention to anything else with things as they are. These scoundrels will get paid all in good time.”

It is a peculiarity of situations of this kind that the ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.

I am afraid that, despite the urgent need for strict attention to business, I was inclined to neglect my duties about this time. I had got into the habit of wandering off, either to the links, where I generally found the professor, sometimes Phyllis, or on long walks by myself. There was one particular walk along the cliffs, through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever set eyes on, which more than any other suited my mood. I would work my way through the woods till I came to a small clearing on the very edge of the cliff. There I would sit and smoke by the hour. If ever I am stricken with smoker’s heart, or staggers, or tobacco amblyopia, or any other of the cheery things which doctors predict for the devotee of the weed, I shall feel that I sowed the seeds of it that summer in that little clearing overlooking the sea. A man in love needs much tobacco. A man thinking out a novel needs much tobacco. I was in the grip of both maladies. Somehow I found that my ideas flowed more readily in that spot than in any other.

I had not been inside the professor’s grounds since the occasion when I had gone in through the boxwood hedge. But on the afternoon following my financial conversation with Ukridge I made my way thither, after a toilet which, from its length, should have produced better results than it did. Not for four whole days had I caught so much as a glimpse of Phyllis. I had been to the links three times, and had met the professor twice, but on both occasions she had been absent. I had not had the courage to ask after her. I had an absurd idea that my voice or my manner would betray me in some way. I felt that I should have put the question with such an exaggerated show of indifference that all would have been discovered.

The professor was not at home. Nor was Mr. Chase. Nor was Miss Norah Derrick, the lady I had met on the beach with the professor. Miss Phyllis, said the maid, was in the garden.

I went into the garden. She was sitting under the cedar by the tennis-lawn, reading. She looked up as I approached.

I said it was a lovely afternoon. After which there was a lull in the conversation. I was filled with a horrid fear that I was boring her. I had probably arrived at the very moment when she was most interested in her book. She must, I thought, even now be regarding me as a nuisance, and was probably rehearsing bitter things to say to the maid for not having had the sense to explain that she was out.

“I⁠—er⁠—called in the hope of seeing Professor Derrick,” I said.

“You would find him on the links,” she replied. It seemed to me that she spoke wistfully.

“Oh, it⁠—it doesn’t matter,” I said. “It wasn’t anything important.”

This was true. If the professor had appeared then and there, I should have found it difficult to think of anything to say to him which would have accounted to any extent for my anxiety to see him.

“How are the chickens, Mr. Garnet?” said she.

The situation was saved. Conversationally, I am like a clockwork toy. I have to be set going. On the affairs of the farm I could speak fluently. I sketched for her the progress we had made since her visit. I was humorous concerning roop, epigrammatic on the subject of the Hired Retainer and Edwin.

“Then the cat did come down from the chimney?” said Phyllis.

We both laughed, and⁠—I can answer for myself⁠—felt the better for it.

“He came down next day,” I said, “and made an excellent lunch of one of our best fowls. He also killed another, and only just escaped death himself at the hands of Ukridge.”

“Mr. Ukridge doesn’t like him, does he?”

“If he does, he dissembles his love. Edwin is Mrs. Ukridge’s pet. He is the only subject on which they disagree. Edwin is certainly in the way on a chicken farm. He has got over his fear of Bob, and is now perfectly lawless. We have to keep a steady eye on him.”

“And have you had any success with the