means of
engineering a reconciliation.

In the meantime I worked hard among the fowls, drove furiously on the
links, and swam about the harbour when the affairs of the farm did not
require my attention.

Things were not going well on our model chicken farm. Little accidents
marred the harmony of life in the fowl-run. On one occasion a hen--not
Aunt Elizabeth, I am sorry to say,--fell into a pot of tar, 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 there first. Chickens kept
straying into the wrong coops, where they got badly pecked by the
residents. Edwin slew a couple of Wyandottes, and was only saved from
execution by the tears of Mrs. Ukridge.

In spite of these occurrences, however, his buoyant optimism never
deserted Ukridge.

"After all," he said, "What's one bird more or less? Yes, I know I made
a fuss when that beast of a cat lunched off those two, but that was
simply the principle of the thing. I'm not going to pay large sums for
chickens purely in order that a cat which I've never liked can lunch
well. Still, we've plenty left, and the eggs are coming 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 Whiteley's. I shall cut them out of my list
and send my eggs to their trade rivals. They shall have a sharp lesson.
It's a little hard. Here am I, worked to death looking after things
down here, and these men have the impertinence to bother me about their
wretched business. Come in and have a drink, laddie, and let's talk it
over."

It was on the morning after this that I heard him calling me in a voice
in which I detected agitation. I was strolling about the paddock, as
was my habit after breakfast, thinking about Phyllis and trying to get
my novel into shape. I had just framed a more than usually murky scene
for use in the earlier part of the book, when Ukridge shouted to me
from the fowl-run.

"Garny, come here. I want you to see the most astounding thing."

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Blast if I know. Look at those chickens. They've been doing that for
the last half-hour."

I inspec