them, with a large chicken farm with all the modern improvements. You
want eggs, old horses, I said: I supply them. I will let you have so
many hundred eggs a week, I said; what will you give for them? Well,
I'll admit their terms did not come up to my expectations altogether,
but we must not sneer at small prices at first.

"When we get a connection, we shall be able to name our terms. It
stands to reason, laddie. Have you ever seen a man, woman, or child
who wasn't eating an egg or just going to eat an egg or just coming
away from eating an egg? I tell you, the good old egg is the
foundation of daily life. Stop the first man you meet in the street
and ask him which he'd sooner lose, his egg or his wife, and see what
he says! We're on to a good thing, Garny, my boy. Pass the whisky!"

The upshot of it was that the firms mentioned supplied us with a
quantity of goods, agreeing to receive phantom eggs in exchange. This
satisfied Ukridge. He had a faith in the laying power of his hens
which would have flattered them if they could have known it. It might
also have stimulated their efforts in that direction, which up to date
were feeble.

It was now, as I have said, Thursday, the twenty-second of July,--a
glorious, sunny morning, of the kind which Providence sends
occasionally, simply in order to allow the honest smoker to take his
after-breakfast pipe under ideal conditions. These are the pipes to
which a man looks back in after years with a feeling of wistful
reverence, pipes smoked in perfect tranquillity, mind and body alike
at rest. It is over pipes like these that we dream our dreams, and
fashion our masterpieces.