"The fact is," said Ukridge, "if things go on as they are now, my lad,we shall be in the cart. This business wants bucking up. We don't seemto be making headway. Why it is, I don't know, but we are /not/ makingheadway. Of course, what we want is time. If only these scoundrels oftradesmen would leave us alone for a spell we could get things goingproperly. But we're hampered and rattled and worried all the time.
Aren't we, Millie?""Yes, dear.""You don't let me see the financial side of the thing enough," Icomplained. "Why don't you keep me thoroughly posted? I didn't know wewere in such a bad way. The fowls look fit enough, and Edwin hasn'thad one for a week.""Edwin knows as well as possible when he's done wrong, Mr. Garnet,"said Mrs. Ukridge. "He was so sorry after he had killed those othertwo.""Yes," said Ukridge, "I saw to that.""As far as I can see," I continued, "we're going strong. Chicken forbreakfast, lunch, and dinner is a shade monotonous, perhaps, but lookat the business we're doing. We sold a whole heap of eggs last week.""But not enough, Garny old man. We aren't making our presence felt.
England isn't ringing with our name. We sell a dozen eggs where we oughtto be selling them by the hundred, carting them off in trucks for theLondon market and congesting the traffic. Harrod's and Whiteley's andthe rest of them are beginning to get on their hind legs and talk.
That's what they're doing. Devilish unpleasant they're makingthemselves. You see, laddie, there's no denying it--we /did/ touchthem for the deuce of a lot of things on account, and they agreed totake it out in eggs. All they've done so far is to take it out inapologetic letters from Millie. Now, I don't suppose there's a womanalive who can write a better apologetic letter than her nibs, but, ifyou're broad-minded and can face facts, you can't help seeing that thejuiciest apologetic letter is not an egg. I meant to say, look at itfrom their point of view. Harrod--or Whiteley--comes into his store inthe morning, rubbing his hands expectantly. 'Well,' he says, 'how manyeggs from Combe Regis to-day?' And instead of leading him off to acorner piled up with bursting crates, they show him a four-page lettertelling him it'll all come right in the future. I've never run a storemyself, but I should think that would jar a chap. Anyhow, theblighters seem to be getting tired of waiting.""The last letter from Harrod's was quite pathetic," said Mrs. Ukridgesadly.
I had a vision of an eggless London. I seemed to see homes rendereddesolate and lives embittered by the slump, and millionaires biddingagainst one another for the few rare specimens which Ukridge hadactually managed to despatch to Brompton and Bayswater.
Ukridge, having induced himself to be broad-minded for five minutes,now began to slip back to his own personal point of view and becameonce more the man with a grievance. His fleeting sympathy with thewrongs of Mr. Harrod and Mr. Whiteley disappeared.
"What it all amounts to," he said complainingly, "is that they'reinfernally unreasonable. I've done everything possible to meet them.
Nothing could have been more manly and straightforward than myattitude. I told them in my last letter but three that I proposed tolet them have the eggs on the /Times/ instalment system, and they saidI was frivolous. They said that to send thirteen eggs as payment forgoods supplied to the value of 25 pounds 1s. 8 1/2 d. was mere trifling.
Trifling, I'll trouble you! That's the spirit in which they meet mysuggestions. It was Harrod who did that. I've never met Harrodpersonally, but I'd like to, just to ask him if that's his idea ofcementing amiable business relations. He knows just as well as anyoneelse that without credit commerce has no elasticity. It's anelementary rule. I'll bet he'd have been sick if chappies had refusedto let him have tick when he was starting his store. Do you supposeHarrod, when he started in business, paid cash down on the nail foreverything? Not a bit of it. He went about taking people by the coat-button and asking them to be good chaps and wait till Wednesday week.
Trifling! Why, those thirteen eggs were absolutely all we had overafter Mrs. Beale had taken what she wanted for the kitchen. As amatter of fact, if it's anybody's fault, it's Mrs. Beale's. That womanliterally eats eggs.""The habit is not confined to her," I said.
"Well, what I mean to say is, she seems to bathe in them.""She says she needs so many for puddings, dear," said Mrs. Ukridge. "Ispoke to her about it yesterday. And of course, we often haveomelettes.""She can't make omelettes without breaking eggs," I urged.
"She can't make them without breaking us, dammit," said Ukridge. "Oneor two more omelettes, and we're done for. No fortune on earth couldstand it. We mustn't have any more omelettes, Millie. We musteconomise. Millions of people get on all right without omelettes. Isuppose there are families where, if you suddenly produced anomelette, the whole strength of the company would get up and cheer,led by father. Cancel the omelettes, old girl, from now onward.""Yes, dear. But--""Well?""I don't /think/ Mrs. Beale would like that very much, dear. She hasbeen complaining a good deal about chicken at every meal. She saysthat the omelettes are the only things that give her a chance. Shesays there are always possibilities in an omelette.""In short," I said, "what you propose to do is deliberately to removefrom this excellent lady's life the one remaining element of poetry.
You mustn't do it. Give Mrs. Beale her omelettes, and let's hope for alarger supply of eggs.""Another thing," said Ukridge. "It isn't only that there's a shortageof eggs. That wouldn't matter so much if only we kept hatching outfresh squads of chickens. I'm not saying the hens aren't doing theirbest. I take off my hat to the hens. As nice a hard-working lot as Iever want to meet, full of vigour and earnestness. It's that damnedincubator that's letting us down all the time. The rotten thing won'twork. /I/ don't know what's the matter with it. The long and the shortof it is that it simply declines to incubate.""Perhaps it's your dodge of letting down the temperature. Youremember, you were telling me? I forget the details.""My dear old boy," he said earnestly, "there's nothing wrong with myfigures. It's a mathematical certainty. What's the good of mathematicsif not to help you work out that sort of thing? No, there's somethingdeuced wrong with the machine itself, and I shall probably make acomplaint to the people I got it from. Where did we get the incubator,old girl?""Harrod's, I think, dear,--yes, it was Harrod's. It came down with thefirst lot of things.""Then," said Ukridge, banging the table with his fist, while hisglasses flashed triumph, "we've got 'em. The Lord has deliveredHarrod's into our hand. Write and answer that letter of theirs to-night, Millie. Sit on them.""Yes, dear.""Tell 'em that we'd have sent them their confounded eggs long ago, ifonly their rotten, twopenny-ha'penny incubator had worked with anyapproach to decency." He paused. "Or would you be sarcastic, Garny,old horse? No, better put it so that they'll understand. Say that Iconsider that the manufacturer of the thing ought to be in ColneyHatch--if he isn't there already--and that they are scoundrels forpalming off a groggy machine of that sort on me.""The ceremony of opening the morning's letters at Harrod's ought to befull of interest and excitement to-morrow," I said.
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