He also used it to perfect strangers in the streets, and on one occasion had been heard to address a bishop by that title, rendering that dignitary, as Mr. Baboo Jaberjee would put it, (sotto voce) with gratification. “Surprised to find me married, what? Garny, old boy,”—sinking his voice to a whisper almost inaudible on the other side of the street—”take my tip. Go and jump off the dock yourself. You’ll feel another man. Give up this bachelor business. It’s a mug’s game. I look on you bachelors as excrescences on the social system. I regard you, old man, purely and simply as a wart. Go and get married, laddie, go and get married. By gad, I’ve forgotten to pay the cabby. Lend me a couple of bob, Garny old chap.”

He was out of the door and on his way downstairs before the echoes of his last remark had ceased to shake the window. I was left to entertain Mrs. Ukridge.

So far her share in the conversation had been confined to the pleasant smile which was apparently her chief form of expression. Nobody talked very much when Ukridge was present. She sat on the edge of the armchair, looking very small and quiet. I was conscious of feeling a benevolent pity for her. If I had been a girl, I would have preferred to marry a volcano. A little of Ukridge, as his former head master had once said in a moody, reflective voice, went a very long way. “You and Stanley have known each other a long time, haven’t you?” said the object of my commiseration, breaking the silence.

“Yes. Oh, yes. Several years. We were masters at the same school.”

Mrs. Ukridge leaned forward with round, shining eyes.

“Really? Oh, how nice!” she said ecstatically.

Not yet, to judge from her expression and the tone of her voice, had she found any disadvantages attached to the arduous position of being Mrs. Stanley Ukridge.