r.

Jerry Garnet stood and listened, transfixed. Something seemed to tell
him who was at the business end of that knocker.

He heard Mrs. Medley's footsteps pass along the hall and pause at the
door. Then there was the click of the latch. Then a volume of sound
rushed up to him where he stood over his empty portmanteau.

"Is Mr. Garnet in?"

Mrs. Medley's reply was inaudible, but apparently in the affirmative.

"Where is he?" boomed the voice. "Show me the old horse. First floor.
Thank you. Where is the man of wrath?"

There followed a crashing on the stairs such as even the young
gentleman of the top floor had been unable to produce in his nocturnal
rovings. The house shook.

And with the tramping came the thunderous voice, as the visitor once
more gave tongue.

"Garnet! GARNET!! GARNET!!!"

UKRIDGE'S SCHEME

II

Mr. Stanley Featherstonhaugh Ukridge dashed into the room, uttering a
roar of welcome as he caught sight of Garnet, still standing petrified
athwart his portmanteau.

"My dear old man," he shouted, springing at him and seizing his hand
in a clutch that effectually woke Garnet from his stupor. "How _are_
you, old chap? This is good. By Jove, this is good! This is fine,
what?"

He dashed back to the door and looked out.

"Come on, Millie," he shouted.

Garnet was wondering who in the name of fortune Millie could possibly
be, when there appeared on the further side of Mr. Ukridge the figure
of a young woman. She paused in the doorway, and smiled pleasantly.

"Garnet, old horse," said Ukridge with some pride, "let me introduce
you to my wife. Millie, this is old Garnet. You've heard me talk about
him."

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Ukridge.

Garnet bowed awkwardly. The idea of Ukridge married was something too
overpowering to be assimilated on the instant. If ever there was a man
designed by nature to be a bachelor, Stanley Ukridge was that man.
Garnet could feel that he himself was not looking his best. He knew in
a vague, impersonal way that his eyebrows were still somewhere in the
middle of his forehead, whither they had sprung in the first moment of
surprise, and that his jaw, which had dropped, had not yet resumed
its normal posture. Before committing himself to speech he made a
determined effort to revise his facial expression.

"Buck up, old horse," said Ukridge. He had a painful habit of
addressing all and sundry by that title. In his school-master days he
had made use of it whil