There appeared round the corner of Ukridge a young woman. She paused
in the doorway and smiled pleasantly.

"Garny, old horse," said Ukridge with some pride, "this is /her/! The
pride of the home. Companion of joys and sorrows and all the rest of
it. In fact," in a burst of confidence, "my wife."

I bowed awkwardly. The idea of Ukridge married was something too
overpowering to be readily assimilated.

"Buck up, old horse," said Ukridge encouragingly. He had a painful
habit of addressing all and sundry by that title. In his school-master
days--at one period of his vivid career he and I had been colleagues
on the staff of a private school--he had made use of it interviewing
the parents of new pupils, and the latter had gone away, as a rule,
with a feeling that this must be either the easy manner of Genius or
due to alcohol, and hoping for the best. He also used it to perfect
strangers in the streets, and on one occasion had been heard to
address a bishop by that title, rendering that dignitary, as Mr. Baboo
Jaberjee would put it, /sotto voce/ with gratification. "Surprised to
find me married, what? Garny, old boy,"--sinking his voice to a
whisper almost inaudible on the other side of the street--"take my
tip. Go and jump off the dock yourself. You'll feel another man. Give
up this bachelor business. It's a mug's game. I look on you bachelors
as excrescences on the social system. I regard you, old man, purely
and simply as a wart. Go and get married, laddie, go and get married.
By gad, I've forgotten to pay the cabby. Lend me a couple of bob,
Garny old chap."

He was out of the door and on his way downstairs before the echoes of