one of those men who seemed to do everything a shade better than
anyone else--"for amusement or by your doctor's orders? Many doctors,
I believe, insist on it."

"Neither," I said, "and especially not for amusement. The fact is,
I've been lured down here by a friend of mine who has started a
chicken farm--"

I was interrupted. All three of them burst out laughing. Tom Chase
allowed the vinegar to trickle on to the cloth, missing the salad-bowl
by a clear two inches.

"You don't mean to tell us," he said, "that you really come from the
one and only chicken farm? Why, you're the man we've all been praying
to meet for days past. You're the talk of the town. If you can call
Combe Regis a town. Everybody is discussing you. Your methods are new
and original, aren't they?"

"Probably. Ukridge knows nothing about fowls. I know less. He
considers it an advantage. He says our minds ought to be unbiassed."

"Ukridge!" said the professor. "That was the name old Dawlish, the
grocer, said. I never forget a name. He is the gentleman who lectures
on the management of poultry? You do not?"

I hastened to disclaim any such feat. I had never really approved of
these infernal talks on the art of chicken-farming which Ukridge had
dropped into the habit of delivering when anybody visited our farm. I
admit that it was a pleasing spectacle to see my managing director in
a pink shirt without a collar and very dirty flannel trousers