“Hullo, Garny.”

“Hullo, old man.”  I murmured in a death-bedside voice.

He came towards me, Bob trotting at his heels:  and, as he came, I saw with astonishment that his mien was calm, even cheerful.  I should have known my Ukridge better than to be astonished.  You cannot keep a good man down, and already Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge was himself again.  His eyes sparkled buoyantly behind their pince-nez.

“Garny, old horse, I’ve been thinking, laddie!  I’ve got an idea!  The idea of a lifetime.  The best ever, ’pon my Sam!  I’m going to start a duck farm!”

“A duck farm?”

“A duck farm, laddie!  And run it without water.  My theory is, you see, that ducks get thin by taking exercise and swimming about all over the place, so that, if you kept them always on land, they’d get jolly fat in about half the time—­and no trouble and expense.  See?  What?  Not a flaw in it, old horse!  I’ve thought the whole thing out.”  He took my arm affectionately.  “Now, listen.  We’ll say that the profits of the first year at a conservative estimate . . .”

THE END