“Oh! I say, I think the six pounds three and a penny bird is following us.”
“Then for goodness’ sake, laddie, let’s get a move on! If that man knew we had twenty quid on us, our lives wouldn’t be safe. He’d make one spring.”
He hurried me out of the station and led the way up a shady lane that wound off through the fields, slinking furtively “like one that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread, and having once looked back walks on and turns no more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.” As a matter of fact, the frightful fiend had given up the pursuit after the first few steps, and a moment later I drew this fact to Ukridge’s attention, for it was not the sort of day on which to break walking records unnecessarily.
He halted, relieved, and mopped his spacious brow with a handkerchief which I recognised as having once been my property.
“Thank goodness we’ve shaken him off,” he said. “Not a bad chap in his way, I believe—a good husband and father, I’m told, and sings in the church choir. But no vision. That’s what he lacks, old horse—vision. He can’t understand that all vast industrial enterprises have been built up on a system of liberal and cheerful credit. Won’t realise that credit is the lifeblood of commerce. Without credit commerce has no elasticity. And if commerce has no elasticity what dam’ good is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor does anybody else. Well, now that he’s gone, you can give me that money. Did old Tuppy cough up cheerfully?”
“Blithely.”
“I knew it,” said Ukridge, deeply moved, “I knew it. A good fellow. One of the best. I’ve always liked Tuppy. A man you can rely on. Some day, when I get going on a big scale, he shall have this back a thousandfold. I’m glad you brought small notes.”
“Why?”
“I want to scatter ’em about on the table in front of this Nickerson blighter.”
“Is this where he lives?”
We had come to a red-roofed house, set back from the road amidst trees. Ukridge wielded the knocker forcefully.
“Tell Mr. Nickerson,” he said to the maid, “that Mr. Ukridge has called and would like a word.”
About the demeanour of the man who presently entered the room into which we had been shown there was that subtle but well-marked something which stamps your creditor all the world over. Mr. Nickerson was a man of medium height, almost completely surrounded by whiskers, and through the shrubbery he gazed at Ukridge with frozen eyes, shooting out waves of deleterious animal magnetism. You could see at a glance that he was not fond of Ukridge. Take him for all in all, Mr. Nickerson looked like one of the less amiable prophets of the Old Testament about to interview the captive monarch of the Amalekites.
“Well?” he said, and I have never heard the word spoken in a more forbidding manner.
“I’ve come about the rent.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Nickerson, guardedly.
“To pay it,” said Ukridge.
“To pay it!” ejaculated Mr. Nickerson, incredulously.
“Here!” said Ukridge, and with a superb gesture flung money on the table.
I understood now why the massive-minded man had wanted small notes. They made a brave display. There was a light breeze blowing in through the open window, and so musical a rustling did it set up as it played about the heaped-up wealth that Mr. Nickerson’s austerity seemed to vanish like breath off a razor-blade. For a moment a dazed look came into his eyes and he swayed slightly; then, as he started to gather up the money, he took on the benevolent air of a bishop blessing pilgrims. As far as Mr. Nickerson was concerned, the sun was up.
“Why, thank you, Mr. Ukridge, I’m sure,” he said. “Thank you very much. No hard feelings, I trust?”
“Not on my side, old horse,” responded Ukridge, affably. “Business is business.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I may as well take those dogs now,” said Ukridge, helping himself to a cigar from a box which he had just discovered on the mantelpiece and putting a couple more in his pocket in the friendliest way. “The sooner they’re back with me, the better. They’ve lost a day’s education as it is.”
“Why, certainly, Mr. Ukridge; certainly. They are in the shed at the bottom of the garden. I will get them for you at once.”
He retreated through the door, babbling ingratiatingly.
“Amazing how fond these blokes are of money,” sighed Ukridge. “It’s a thing I don’t like to see. Sordid, I call it. That blighter’s eyes were gleaming, positively gleaming, laddie, as he scooped up the stuff. Good cigars these,” he added, pocketing three more.
There was a faltering footstep outside, and Mr. Nickerson re-entered the room. The man appeared to have something on his mind. A glassy look was in his whisker-bordered eyes, and his mouth, though it was not easy to see it through the jungle, seemed to me to be sagging mournfully. He resembled a minor prophet who has been hit behind the ear with a stuffed eel-skin.
“Mr. Ukridge!”
“Hallo?”
“The—the little dogs!”
“Well?”
“The little dogs!”
“What about them?”
“They have gone!”
“Gone?”
“Run away!”
“Run away? How the devil could they run away?”
“There seems to have been a loose board at the back of the shed. The little dogs must have wriggled through. There is no trace of them to be found.”
Ukridge flung up his arms despairingly. He swelled like a captive balloon. His pince-nez rocked on his nose, his mackintosh flapped menacingly, and his collar sprang off its stud. He brought his fist down with a crash on the table.
“Upon my Sam!”
“I am extremely sorry—”
“Upon my Sam!” cried Ukridge. “It’s hard. It’s pretty hard. I come down here to inaugurate a great business, which would eventually have brought trade and prosperity to the whole neighbourhood, and I have hardly had time to turn round and attend to the preliminary details of the enterprise when this man comes and sneaks my dogs. And now he tells me with a light laugh—”
“Mr. Ukridge, I assure you—”
“Tells me with a light laugh that they’ve gone. Gone! Gone where? Why,
