g with the machine itself, and I shall probably make a
complaint to the people I got it from. Where did we get the incubator,
old girl?"

"Harrod's, I think, dear,--yes, it was Harrod's. It came down with the
first lot of things."

"Then," said Ukridge, banging the table with his fist, while his
glasses flashed triumph, "we've got 'em. The Lord has delivered
Harrod's into our hand. Write and answer that letter of theirs
to-night, Millie. Sit on them."

"Yes, dear."

"Tell 'em that we'd have sent them their confounded eggs long ago, if
only their rotten, twopenny-ha'penny incubator had worked with any
approach to decency." He paused. "Or would you be sarcastic, Garny, old
horse? No, better put it so that they'll understand. Say that I
consider that the manufacturer of the thing ought to be in Colney
Hatch--if he isn't there already--and that they are scoundrels for
palming off a groggy machine of that sort on me."

"The ceremony of opening the morning's letters at Harrod's ought to be
full of interest and excitement to-morrow," I said.

This dashing counter-stroke seemed to relieve Ukridge. His pessimism
vanished. He seldom looked on the dark side of things for long at a
time. He began now to speak hopefully of the future. He planned out
ingenious improvements. Our fowls were to multiply so rapidly and
consistently that within a short space of time Dorsetshire would be
paved with them. Our eggs were to increase in size till they broke
records and got three-line notices in the "Items of Interest" column in
the _Daily Mail_. Briefly, each hen was to become a happy combination
of rabbit and ostrich.

"There is certainly a good time coming," I said. "May it be soon.
Meanwhile, what of the local tradesmen?"

Ukridge relapsed once more into gloom.

"They are the worst of the lot. I don't mind the London people so much.
They only write, and a letter or two hurts nobody. But when it comes to
butchers and bakers and grocers and fishmongers and fruiterers and what
not coming up to one's house and dunning one in one's own garden,--well
it's a little hard, what?"

"Oh, then those fellows I found you talking to yesterday were duns? I
thought they were farmers, come to hear your views on the rearing of
poultry."

"Which were they? Little chap with black whiskers and long, thin man
with beard? That was Dawlish, the grocer, and Curtis, the fishmonger.
The others had gone before you came."

It may be wondered why, before