"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 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."