continued to talk easily on all subjects, unconscious of the fact that
the party was depressed and at least one of his guests rapidly
becoming irritable. I watched the professor furtively as Ukridge
talked on, and that ominous phrase of Mr. Chase's concerning four-
point-seven guns kept coming into my mind. If Ukridge were to tread on
any of his pet corns, as he might at any minute, there would be an
explosion. The snatching of the dinner from his very mouth, as it
were, and the substitution of a bread-and-cheese and sardines menu had
brought him to the frame of mind when men turn and rend their nearest
and dearest.

The sight of the table, when at length we filed into the dining room,
sent a chill through me. It was a meal for the very young or the very
hungry. The uncompromising coldness and solidity of the viands was
enough to appall a man conscious that his digestion needed humouring.
A huge cheese faced us in almost a swashbuckling way. I do not know
how else to describe it. It wore a blatant, rakish, /nemo-me-impune-
lacessit/ air, and I noticed that the professor shivered slightly as
he saw it. Sardines, looking more oily and uninviting than anything I
had ever seen, appeared in their native tin beyond the loaf of bread.
There was a ham, in its third quarter, and a chicken which had
suffered heavily during a previous visit to the table. Finally, a
black bottle of whisky stood grimly beside Ukridge's plate. The
professor looked the sort of man who drank claret of a special year,
or nothing.

We got through the meal somehow, and did our best to delude ourselves
into the idea that it was all great fun; but it was a shallow
pretence. The professor was very silent by the time we had finished.
Ukridge had been terrible. The professor had forced himself to be