[57] [57] "I wonder when those fowls are going to arrive. They should have been here to-day. If they don't come to-morrow, I shall lodge a complaint. There must be no slackness. They must bustle about. After tea I'll show you the garden, and we will choose a place for a fowl run. To-morrow we must buckle to. Serious work will begin immediately after breakfast." "Suppose," said Garnet, "the fowls arrive before we are ready for them?" "Why, then, they must wait." "But you can't keep fowls cooped up indefinitely in a crate. I suppose they will come in a crate. I don't know much about these things." "Oh, that'll be all right. There's a basement to this house. We'll let 'em run about there till we're ready for them. There's always a way of doing things if you look for it." "I hope you are going to let the hens[58] hatch some of the eggs, Stanley, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge. "I should so love to have some dear little chickens." [58] "Of course," said Ukridge. "My idea was this: These people will send us fifty fowls of sorts. That means—call it forty eggs a day. Let 'em hatch out thirty a day, and we will use the other ten for the table. We shall want at least ten. Well, I'm hanged, that dog again! Where's that jug?" But this time an unforeseen interruption prevented the maneuver from being the success it had been before. Garnet had turned the handle, and was just about to pull the door open, while Ukridge, looking like some modern and dilapidated version of Discobolus, stood beside him with his jug poised, when a hoarse voice spoke from the window. "Stand still!" said the voice, "or I'll corpse you."[59] [59] Garnet dropped the handle, Ukridge dropped the jug, Mrs. Ukridge screamed. At the window, with a double-barreled gun in his hands, stood a short, square, red-headed man. The muzzle of his gun, which rested on the sill, was pointing in a straight line at the third button of Garnet's waistcoat. With a distant recollection of the Deadwood Dick literature of his childhood, Garnet flung both hands above his head. Ukridge emitted a roar like that of a
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