We were finishing breakfast on the second morning after my visit to the Derricks. I had related my adventures to the staff of the farm on my return, laying stress on the merits of our neighbors and their interest in our doings, and the hired retainer had been sent off next morning with a note from Mrs. Ukridge, inviting them to look over the farm and stay to dinner.
"O Stanley!" said Mrs. Ukridge plaintively. "He's not. He's such a dear, Mr. Garnet. A beautiful, pure-bred Persian. He has taken prizes."
"He's always taking something--generally food. That's why he didn't come down with us."
"A great, horrid _beast_ of a dog bit him, Mr. Garnet." Mrs. Ukridge's eyes became round and shining. "And poor Edwin had to go to a cats' hospital."
"And I hope," said Ukridge, "the experience will do him good. Sneaked a dog's bone, Garnet, under his very nose, if you please. Naturally, the dog lodged a protest."
"I'm so afraid that he will be frightened of Bob. He will be very timid, and Bob's so exceedingly boisterous. Isn't he, Mr. Garnet?"
I owned that Bob's manner was not that of a Vere de Vere.
"That's all right," said Ukridge; "Bob won't hurt him, unless he tries to steal his bone. In that case we will have Edwin made into a rug."
"Stanley doesn't like Edwin," said Mrs. Ukridge plaintively.
Edwin arrived early in the afternoon, and was shut into the kitchen. He struck me as a handsome cat, but nervous. He had an excited eye.
The Derricks followed two hours later. Mr. Chase was not of the party.
"Tom had to go to London," explained the professor, "or he would have been delighted to come. It was a disappointment to the boy, for he wanted to see the farm."
"He must come some other time," said Ukridge. "We invite inspection. Look here," he broke off suddenly--we were nearing the fowl run now, Mrs. Ukridge walking in front with Phyllis Derrick--"were you ever at Bristol?"
"Because I knew just such another fat little buffer there a few years ago. Gay old bird, he was. He--"
"This is the fowl run, professor," I broke in, with a moist, tingling feeling across my forehead and up my spine. I saw the professor stiffen as he walked, while his face deepened in color. Ukridge's breezy way of expressing himself is apt to electrify the stranger.