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153 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1906
"We are most of us wise after the event. When the wind has blown, we can generally discover a multitude of straws which should have shown us which way it was blowing."To whom would I turn, in the days leading up to the defense of my PhD thesis, but P. G. Wodehouse? Love Among the Chickens is the first of the Ukridge novels. It's a riot, even if it doesn't quite reach the purest heights of the best of Wodehouse's work; neither the plot nor the characters are sufficiently developed for this.
"A chicken farm."
"I've thought it all over, laddie, it's clear as mud. No expenses, large profits, quick returns. Chickens, eggs, and the money streaming in faster than you can bank it. Winter and summer underclothing, my bonny boy, lined with crackling Bradbury's. It's the idea of a lifetime. Now listen to me for a moment. You get your hen--"
"One hen?"
"Call it one for the sake of argument. It makes my calculations clearer. Harriet the hen--you get her. Do you follow me so far?"
"Yes. You get a hen."
"I told you Garnet was a dashed bright fellow," said Ukridge approvingly to his attentive wife. "Notice the way he keeps right up after one's ideas? Like a bloodhound. Well, where was I?"
"You'd just got a hen."
"Exactly. The hen. Pricilla the pullet. Well, it lays an egg every day of the week. You sell the eggs, six for half a crown. Keep of hen costs nothing. Profit--at least a couple of bob on every dozen eggs. What do you think of that?"
"I think I'd like to overhaul the figures in case of error."
"Error!" shouted Ukridge, pounding the table till it groaned. "'Error?' Not a bit of it. Can't you follow a simple calculation like that? Oh, I forgot to say that you get -- and here is the nub of the thing -- you get your first hen on tick. Anybody will be glad to let you have the first hen on tick. Well, then, you let this hen -- this first, original hen, this on-tick hen -- you let it set and hatch chickens. Now follow me closely. Suppose you have a dozen hens. Very well, then. When each of the dozen has a dozen chickens, you send the old hens back to the chappies you borrowed them from, with thanks for kind loan; and there you are, starting business with a hundred and forty-four free chickens to your name. And after a bit, when the chickens grow up and begin to lay, all you have to do is sit back in your chair and endorse the big cheques."