LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS
BY
P. G. WODEHOUSE
DEDICATION
TO W. TOWNEND DEAR BILL,--
I have never been much of a lad for the
TO-----
But For Whose Sympathy and Encouragement
This Book
Would Never Have Been Written
type of dedication. It sounds so weak-minded. But in the case of Love Among the Chickens it is unavoidable. It was not so much that you sympathised and encouraged--where you really came out strong was that you gave me the stuff. I like people who sympathise with me. I am grateful to those who encourage me. But the man to whom I raise the Wodehouse hat--owing to the increased cost of living, the same old brown one I had last year--it is being complained of on all sides, but the public must bear it like men till the straw hat season comes round--I say, the man to whom I raise this venerable relic is the man who gives me the material.
Sixteen years ago, my William, when we were young and spritely lads; when you were a tricky centre-forward and I a fast bowler; when your head was covered with hair and my list of "Hobbies" in Who's Who included Boxing; I received from you one morning about thirty closely-written foolscap pages, giving me the details of your friend -----'s adventures on his Devonshire chicken farm. Round these I wove as funny a plot as I could, but the book stands or falls by the stuff you gave me about "Ukridge"--the things that actually happened.
You will notice that I have practically re-written the book. There was some pretty bad work in it, and it had "dated." As an instance
of the way in which the march of modern civilisation has left the 1906 edition behind, I may mention that on page twenty-one I was
able to make Ukridge speak of selling eggs at six for fivepence!
Yours ever,
P. G. WODEHOUSE London, 1920.
CONTENTS
I A LETTER WITH A POSTSCRIPT II MR. AND MRS. S. F. UKRIDGE
III WATERLOO STATION, SOME FELLOW-TRAVELLERS, AND A GIRL WITH BROWN HAIR IV THE ARRIVAL
V BUCKLING TO
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VI MR. GARNET'S NARRATIVE--HAS TO DO WITH A REUNION VII THE ENTENTE CORDIALE IS SEALED
VIII A LITTLE DINNER AT UKRIDGE'S IX DIES IRAE
X I ENLIST THE SERVICES OF A MINION XI THE BRAVE PRESERVER
XII SOME EMOTIONS AND YELLOW LUPIN XIII TEA AND TENNIS
XIV A COUNCIL OF WAR
XV THE ARRIVAL OF NEMESIS XVI A CHANCE MEETING
XVII OF A SENTIMENTAL NATURE XVIII UKRIDGE GIVES ME ADVICE XIX ASKING PAPA
XX SCIENTIFIC GOLF
XXI THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM XXII THE STORM BREAKS
XXIII AFTER THE STORM
LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS CHAPTER I
A LETTER WITH A POSTSCRIPT
"A gentleman called to see you when you were out last night, sir," said Mrs. Medley, my landlady, removing the last of the breakfast things.
"Yes?" I said, in my affable way.
"A gentleman," said Mrs. Medley meditatively, "with a very powerful voice." "Caruso?"
"Sir?"
"I said, did he leave a name?" "Yes, sir. Mr. Ukridge."
"Oh, my sainted aunt!" "Sir!"
"Nothing, nothing."
"Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Medley, withdrawing from the presence.
Ukridge! Oh, hang it! I had not met him for years, and, glad as I am, as a general thing, to see the friends of my youth when they drop in for a chat, I doubted whether I was quite equal to Ukridge at the moment. A stout fellow in both the physical and moral sense of the words, he was a trifle too jumpy for a man of my cloistered and intellectual life, especially as just now I was trying to plan out a new novel, a tricky job demanding complete quiet and seclusion. It had always been my experience that, when Ukridge was around, things began to happen swiftly and violently, rendering meditation impossible. Ukridge was the sort of man who asks
you out to dinner, borrows the money from you to pay the bill, and winds up the evening by embroiling you in a fight with a cabman.
I have gone to Covent Garden balls with Ukridge, and found myself legging it down Henrietta Street in the grey dawn, pursued by
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infuriated costermongers.
I wondered how he had got my address, and on that problem light was immediately cast by Mrs. Medley, who returned, bearing an envelope.
"It came by the morning post, sir, but it was left at Number Twenty by mistake." "Oh, thank you."
"Thank you, sir," said Mrs. Medley.
I recognised the handwriting. The letter, which bore a Devonshire postmark, was from an artist friend of mine, one Lickford, who was at present on a sketching tour in the west. I had seen him off at Waterloo a week before, and I remember that I had walked away from the station wishing that I could summon up the energy to pack and get off to the country somewhere. I hate London in July.
The letter was a long one, but it was the postscript which interested me most.
"... By the way, at Yeovil I ran into an old friend of ours, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, of all people. As large as life--quite six
foot two, and tremendously filled out. I thought he was abroad. The last I heard of him was that he had started for Buenos Ayres in
a cattle ship, with a borrowed pipe by way of luggage. It seems he has been in England for some time. I met him in the refreshment-room at Yeovil Station. I was waiting for a down train; he had changed on his way to town. As I opened the door, I heard a huge voice entreating the lady behind the bar to 'put it in a pewter'; and there was S. F. U. in a villainous old suit of grey flannels (I'll swear it was the one he had on last time I saw him) with pince-nez tacked on to his ears with gingerbeer wire as usual, and a couple of inches of bare neck showing between the bottom of his collar and the top of his coat--you remember how he could never get a
stud to do its work. He also wore a mackintosh, though it was a blazing day.
"He greeted me with effusive shouts. Wouldn't hear of my standing the racket. Insisted on being host. When we had finished, he fumbled in his pockets, looked pained and surprised, and drew me aside. 'Look here, Licky, old horse,' he said, 'you know I never borrow money. It's against my principles. But I must have a couple of bob. Can you, my dear good fellow, oblige me with a couple of bob till next Tuesday? I'll tell you what I'll do. (In a voice full of emotion). I'll let you have this (producing a beastly little three-penny bit with a hole in it which he had probably
