Garnet, sir," he said.

"It is," I said, "but about other considerations? There's the matter
of wages. Are yours in arrears?"

"Yes, sir. A month."

"And Mrs. Beale's the same, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. A month."

"H'm. Well, it seems to me, Beale, you can't lose anything by stopping
on."

"I can't be paid any less than I have been, sir," he agreed.

"Exactly. And, as you say, it's a pretty place. You might just as well
stop on and help me in the fowl run. What do you think?"

"Very well, sir."

"And Mrs. Beale will do the same?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's excellent. You're a hero, Beale. I sha'n't forget you. There's
a check coming to me from a magazine in another week for a short
story. When it arrives I'll look into that matter of back wages. Tell
Mrs. Beale I'm much obliged to her, will you?"

"Yes, sir."

Having concluded that delicate business, I strolled out into the
garden with Bob. It was abominable of Ukridge to desert me in this
way. Even if I had not been his friend, it would have been bad. The
fact that we had known each other for years made it doubly
discreditable. He might at least have warned me and given me the
option of leaving the sinking ship with him.

But, I reflected, I ought not to be surprised. His whole career, as
long as I had known him, had been dotted with little eccentricities of
a type which an unfeeling world generally stigmatizes as shady. They
were small things, it was true; but they ought to have warned me. We
are most of us wise after the event. When the wind has blown we
generally discover a multitude of straws which should have shown us
which way it was blowing.

Once, I remembered, in our school-master days, when guineas, though
regular, were few, he had had occasion to increase his wardrobe. If I
recollect rightly, he thought he had a chance of a good position in
the tutoring line, and only needed good clothes to make it his. He
took four pounds of his salary in advance--he was in the habit of
doing this; he never had any of his salary left by the end of term, it
having vanished in advance loans beforehand. With this he was to buy
two suits, a hat, new boots, and collars. When it came to making the
purchases, he found, what he had overlooked previously in his
optimistic way, that four pounds did not go very far. At the time, I
remember, I thought his method of grappling with the situation
humorous. He bought a hat for three and sixpence, and got the suits
and the b