But this speech was the outcome of a rare moment of pessimism. In his brighter moods he continued to express unbounded faith in the hens, and was willing to leave the thing to time.
Meanwhile, we were creating quite a small sensation in the neighborhood. The interest of the natives was aroused at first by the fact that nearly all of them received informal visits from our fowls, which had strayed. Small boys would arrive in platoons, each bearing his quota of stragglers. "Be these your 'ens, zur?" was the formula. "If they be, we've got twenty-fower mower in our yard. Could 'ee coom over and fetch 'em?"
However, after the hired retainer and I had completed our work with the wire netting, desertions became less frequent. People poured in from villages for miles around to look at the up-to-date chicken farm. It was a pleasing and instructive spectacle to see Ukridge, in a pink shirt without a collar, and very dirty flannel trousers, lecturing to the intelligent natives on the breeding of fowls. They used to go away with the dazed air of men who have heard strange matters, and Ukridge, unexhausted, would turn to interview the next batch. I fancy we gave Lyme Regis something to think about. Ukridge must have been in the nature of a staggerer to the rustic mind.
It was now, as I have said, Thursday, the twenty-second of July, a memorable date to me. A glorious, sunny morning, of the kind which Nature provides occasionally, in an ebullition of benevolence. It is at times such as this that we dream our dreams and compose our masterpieces.
And a masterpiece I was, indeed, making. The new novel was growing nobly. Striking scenes and freshets of scintillating dialogue rushed through my mind. I had neglected my writing for the past week in favor of the tending of fowls, but I was making up for lost time now. Another uninterrupted quarter of an hour, and I firmly believe I should have completed the framework of a novel that would have placed me with the great, in that select band whose members have no Christian names. Another quarter of an hour and posterity would have known me as "Garnet."
But it was not to be. I had just framed the most poignant, searching conversation between my heroine and my hero, and was about to proceed, flushed with great thoughts, to further triumphs, when a distant shout brought me to earth.