ack somebody. Every
moment I had been expecting the storm to burst.

It burst after dinner.

We were strolling in the garden, when some demon urged Ukridge, apropos
of the professor's mention of Dublin, to start upon the Irish question.
I had been expecting it momentarily, but my heart seemed to stand still
when it actually arrived.

Ukridge probably knew less about the Irish question than any male adult
in the kingdom, but he had boomed forth some very positive opinions of
his own on the subject before I could get near enough to him to whisper
a warning. When I did, I suppose I must have whispered louder than I
had intended, for the professor heard me, and my words acted as the
match to the powder.

"He's touchy about Ireland, is he?" he thundered. "Drop it, is it? And
why? Why, sir? I'm one of the best tempered men that ever came from
Dublin, let me tell you, and I will not stay here to be insulted by the
insinuation that I cannot discuss Ireland as calmly as any one in this
company or out of it. Touchy about Ireland, is it? Touchy--?"

"But, professor--"

"Take your hand off my arm, Mr. Garnet. I will not be treated like a
child. I am as competent to discuss the affairs of Ireland without heat
as any man, let me tell you."

"Father--"

"And let me tell you, Mr. Ukridge, that I consider your opinions
poisonous. Poisonous, sir. And you know nothing whatever about the
subject, sir. Every word you say betrays your profound ignorance. I
don't wish to see you or to speak to you again. Understand that, sir.
Our acquaintance began to-day, and it will cease to-day. Good-night to
you, sir. Come, Phyllis, me dear. Mrs. Ukridge, good-night."

CHAPTER IX

DIES IRAE

Why is it, I wonder, that stories of Retribution calling at the wrong
address strike us as funny instead of pathetic? I myself had been
amused by them many a time. In a book which I had read only a few days
before our cold-dinner party a shop-woman, annoyed with an omnibus
conductor, had thrown a superannuated orange at him. It had found its
billet not on him but on a perfectly inoffensive spectator. The
missile, said the writer, "'it a young copper full in the hyeball." I
had enjoyed this when I read it, but now that Fate had arranged a
precisely similar situation, with myself in the role of the young
copper, the fun of the thing appealed to me not at all.

It was Ukridge who was to blame for the professor's regrettable
explosion and departure, a