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 bicycle, an enlarging camera, a Kodak, and a magic lantern? What?" His reasoning was too subtle for the uneducated mind. The man retired, puzzled and unpaid, and Ukridge kept the clockwork toy.

A remarkable financier, Ukridge. I sometimes think that he would have done well in the city.

I did not go to bed till late that night. There was something so peaceful in the silence that brooded over everything that I stayed on, enjoying it. Perhaps it struck me as all the more peaceful because I could not help thinking of the troublous times that were to come. Already I seemed to hear the horrid roar of a herd of infuriated creditors. I seemed to see fierce brawlings and sackings in progress in this very garden.

"It will be a coarse, brutal spectacle, Robert," I said.

Bob uttered a little whine, as if he, too, were endowed with powers of prophecy.