[Illustration: Things were not going very well on our model chicken
farm.]
It was on the morning after this that I heard him calling me in a
voice in which I detected agitation. I was strolling about the
paddock, as was my habit after breakfast, thinking about Phyllis and
my wretched novel. I had just framed a more than usually murky scene
for use in the earlier part of the book, when Ukridge shouted to me
from the fowl run.