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Oracle Essentials
Oracle Database 11g
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 FOURTH EDITION

Oracle Essentials
Oracle Database 11g

Rick Greenwald, Robert Stackowiak, and

Jonathan Stern

Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Paris • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo

Oracle Essentials: Oracle Database 11g, Fourth Edition
by Rick Greenwald, Robert Stackowiak, and Jonathan Stern

Copyright © 2008 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions
are also available for most titles (safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our
corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or [email protected].

Editors: Colleen Gorman and Deborah Russell Interior Designer: David Futato
Production Editor: Sumita Mukherji Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery
Production Services: Tolman Creek Design Illustrator: Robert Romano

Printing History:
October 1999: First Edition. Originally published under the title
Oracle Essentials: Oracle8 and Oracle8i
June 2001: Second Edition. Originally published under the title
Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8
February 2004: Third Edition. Originally published under the title
Oracle Essentials: Oracle Database 10g
November 2007: Fourth Edition.

Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of
O’Reilly Media, Inc. Oracle Essentials: Oracle Database 11g, the image of cicadas, and related trade
dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Oracle® and all Oracle-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle
Corporation, Inc. in the United States and other countries. O’Reilly Media, Inc. is independent of
Oracle Corporation. Java™ and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. O’Reilly Media, Inc. is
independent of Sun Microsystems. .NET is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc. was aware of a
trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors
assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the
information contained herein.

This book uses RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding.

ISBN-10: 0-596-51454-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-596-51454-9
[M]
In memory of Jonathan
 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

1. Introducing Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Evolution of the Relational Database 2
The Oracle Database Family 7
Summary of Oracle Database Features 9
Database Application Development Features 9
Database Connection Features 13
Distributed Database Features 17
Data Movement Features 18
Database Performance Features 20
Database Management Features 23
Database Security Features 27
Oracle Development Tools 28
Embedded Databases 31

2. Oracle Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Databases and Instances 33
Deploying Physical Components 38
Instance Memory and Processes 48
The Data Dictionary 54

3. Installing and Running Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Installing Oracle 56
Creating a Database 59
Configuring Oracle Net 63

vii
 Starting Up the Database 68
Shutting Down the Database 69
Accessing a Database 70
Oracle at Work 77

4. Oracle Data Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Datatypes 82
Basic Data Structures 90
Additional Data Structures 98
Extended Logic for Data 100
Data Design 102
Constraints 104
Triggers 107
Query Optimization 108
Understanding the Execution Plan 118
SQL Advisors 120
Data Dictionary Tables 120

5. Managing Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Manageability Features 124
Oracle Enterprise Manager 126
Fragmentation and Reorganization 132
Backup and Recovery 133
Working with Oracle Support 137

6. Oracle Security, Auditing, and Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Security 139
Auditing 150
Compliance 151

7. Oracle Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Performance Tuning Basics 154
Oracle and Disk I/O Resources 160
Oracle and Parallelism 169
Oracle and Memory Resources 176
Oracle and CPU Resources 182
Database Resource Manager 184

viii | Table of Contents

 8. Oracle Multiuser Concurrency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Basics of Concurrent Access 187
Oracle and Concurrent User Access 190
Oracle’s Isolation Levels 191
Oracle Concurrency Features 192
How Oracle Handles Locking 194
Concurrent Access and Performance 197
Workspaces 198

9. Oracle and Transaction Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

OLTP Basics 201
Oracle’s OLTP Heritage 205
Architectures for OLTP 206
Oracle Features for OLTP 211
High Availability 217
Oracle Streams and Advanced Queuing 218
Object Technologies and Distributed Components 221

10. Oracle Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Business Intelligence Basics 223
Data Warehouse Design 227
Query Optimization 230
Analytics, OLAP, and Data Mining in the Database 233
Managing the Data Warehouse 236
Other Software for the Data Warehouse 236
The Metadata Challenge 248
Best Practices 249

11. Oracle and High Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

What Is High Availability? 254
System Failure 257
Protecting Against System Failure 262
Recovering from Failures 275
Complete Site Failure 281
Data Redundancy Solutions 285
Rolling Upgrades 289

Table of Contents | ix
 12. Oracle and Hardware Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
System Basics 290
Uniprocessor Systems 292
Symmetric Multiprocessing Systems 293
Clusters 295
Non-Uniform Memory Access Systems 298
Grid Computing 299
Disk and Storage Technology 300
Which Platform Deployment Solution? 302

13. Oracle Distributed Databases and Distributed Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Accessing Multiple Databases As a Single Entity 305
Moving Data Between Distributed Systems 310

14. Oracle Extended Datatypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Object-Oriented Development 318
Extensibility Features and Options 324
Using the Extensibility Framework in Oracle 329

15. Beyond the Oracle Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Application Express 331
Oracle Fusion Middleware 332
Oracle SOA Suite 345

A. What’s New in This Book for Oracle Database 11g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

B. Additional Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

x | Table of Contents
-

Preface 1

We dedicate this book to the memory of one of our original coauthors, Jonathan
Stern. Jonathan unexpectedly passed away in March of 2007. Yet his memory lives
on for those of us who knew him and, in many ways, for those who will read this
book. Let us explain.
The original outline for this book was first assembled at the ubiquitous coffee shop
located in the Sears Tower in Chicago. It was 1998 and the authors had gathered
there with a common goal. We were all Oracle employees working in technical sales
roles and had visited many organizations and companies. We found that many IT
managers, Oracle database administrators (DBAs), and Oracle developers were quite
adept at reading Oracle’s documentation, but seemed to be missing an understand-
ing of the overall Oracle footprint and how to practically apply what they were
reading. It was as if they had a recipe book, but were unclear on how to gather the
right ingredients and mix them together successfully. This bothered all of us, but it
particularly frustrated Jonathan.
Jonathan was the kind of person who sought to understand how things worked.
Nothing delighted Jonathan more than gaining such an understanding, then spend-
ing hours thinking of ways to translate his understanding into something that would
be more meaningful to others. He believed that a key role for himself while at Oracle
was the transfer of such knowledge to others. He continued to perform similar roles
later at other companies at which he worked.
Writing the first edition of Oracle Essentials was a lengthy process. Jonathan wrote
several of the original chapters, and he also reviewed some of the other original work
and was quick to identify where he thought something was wrong. For Jonathan,
“wrong” meant that the text could be misinterpreted and that further clarity was
needed to make sure the right conclusion was drawn. The first edition became much
more useful through Jonathan’s efforts. He was always quite proud of that effort.
Even as the book changed with succeeding editions and Jonathan moved on to other
companies, he continued to feel that this book remained an important accomplish-
ment in his life.

xi
Some explanations of how Oracle works are fundamental to the database and have
not changed in subsequent editions of the book, so some of Jonathan’s original work
remains here, although much of the surrounding text is now considerably different.
Of course, some entire sections describing the complex steps that were once needed
to manage and deploy older releases of the database are no longer relevant and thus
are no longer included. Jonathan would probably view Oracle’s self-managing and
self-tuning improvements as incredible achievements, but would also wonder
whether it is a good thing that people can know even less today about how the data-
base works but still deploy it.
So, we introduce you to the fourth edition of Oracle Essentials. We have made many
changes in this edition. Some, of course, result from changes in features in Oracle
Database 11g and the ways that you can now use and deploy the latest release of the
database. But we have also made a considerable effort to go back and rewrite parts of
the book that we did not believe possessed the clarity needed by our readers—clarity
that Jonathan would want in such a book. So, he influences us still.

Goals of This Book

Our main goal is to give you a foundation for using the Oracle database effectively
and efficiently. Therefore, we wrote with these principles in mind:
Focus
We’ve tried to concentrate on the most important Oracle issues. Every topic pro-
vides a comprehensive but concise discussion of how Oracle handles an issue
and the repercussions of that action.
Brevity
One of the first decisions we made was to concentrate on principles rather than
syntax. There simply isn’t room for myriad syntax diagrams and examples in this
book.
Uniqueness
We’ve tried to make this an ideal first Oracle book for a wide spectrum of Oracle
users—but not the last! You will very likely have to refer to Oracle documenta-
tion or other, more specific books for more details about using Oracle. However,
we hope this book will act as an accelerator for you. Using the foundation you
get from this book, you can take detailed information from other sources and
put it to the best use.
This book is the result of more than 45 combined years of experience with Oracle
and other databases. We hope you’ll benefit from that experience.

xii | Preface
Audience for This Book
We wrote this book for people possessing all levels of Oracle expertise. Our target
audiences include DBAs who spend most of their workday managing Oracle, appli-
cation developers who build their systems on the data available in an Oracle
database, and system administrators who are concerned with how Oracle will affect
their computing environments. Of course, IT managers and business users interact
more peripherally with the actual Oracle product. On the one hand, anticipating the
appropriate technical level of all our potential readers presented difficulties; on the
other hand, we’ve tried to build a solid foundation from the ground up and believe
that some introductory material benefits everyone. We’ve also tried to ensure that
every reader receives all the fundamental information necessary to truly understand
the topics presented.
If you’re an experienced Oracle user, you may be tempted to skip over material in
this book with which you are already familiar. But experience has shown that some
of the most basic Oracle principles can be overlooked, even by experts. We’ve also
seen how the same small “gotchas” trip up even the most experienced Oracle practi-
tioners and cause immense damage if they go unnoticed. After all, an ounce of
prevention, tempered by understanding, is worth a pound of cure, especially when
you are trying to keep your systems running optimally. So we hope that even experi-
enced Oracle users will find valuable information in every chapter of this book—
information that will save hours in their busy professional lives.
Our guiding principle has been to present this information compactly without mak-
ing it overly tutorial. We think that the most important ratio in a book like this is the
amount of useful information you get balanced against the time it takes you to get it.
We sincerely hope this volume provides a terrific bang for the buck.

About the Fourth Edition (Oracle Database 11g)

The first three editions of this book, covering the Oracle database up to the Oracle
Database 10g version, have been well received, and we were pleased that O’Reilly
Media agreed to publish this fourth edition. In this update to the book, we have
added information describing the latest release of Oracle, Oracle Database 11g.
For the most part, the task of preparing this fourth edition was fairly clear-cut,
because the Oracle Database 11g release is primarily incremental—the new features
in the release extend existing features of the database. We’ve added the information
about these extensions to each of the chapters, wherever this information was most
relevant and appropriate. However, manageability has greatly changed over the
release, and is reflected in many of the most significant changes to content.

Preface | xiii
Of course, this fourth edition cannot possibly cover everything that is new in Oracle
Database 11g. In general, we have followed the same guidelines for this edition that
we did for the first three editions. If a new feature does not seem to be broadly
important, we have not necessarily delved into it. As with earlier editions we have
not tried to produce a laundry list of every characteristic of the Oracle database. In
addition, if a feature falls into an area outside the scope of the earlier editions, we
have not attempted to cover it in this edition unless it has assumed new importance.

Structure of This Book

This book is divided into 15 chapters and 2 appendixes, as follows:
Chapter 1, Introducing Oracle, describes the range of Oracle products and features
and provides a brief history of Oracle and relational databases.
Chapter 2, Oracle Architecture, describes the core concepts and structures (e.g., files,
processes, and so on) that are the architectural basis of Oracle.
Chapter 3, Installing and Running Oracle, briefly describes how to install Oracle and
how to configure, start up, and shut down the database and Oracle Net.
Chapter 4, Oracle Data Structures, summarizes the various datatypes supported by
Oracle and introduces the Oracle objects (e.g., tables, views, indexes). This chapter
also covers query optimization.
Chapter 5, Managing Oracle, provides an overview of managing an Oracle system,
including the advisors available as part of Oracle Database 11g, using Oracle Enter-
prise Manager (EM), dealing with database fragmentation and reorganization using
current database releases, information lifecycle management, and working with Ora-
cle Support.
Chapter 6, Oracle Security, Auditing, and Compliance, provides an overview of basic
Oracle security, Oracle’s security options, basic auditing capabilities, and ways you
can leverage the Oracle Database Vault Option and the Audit Vault Server to meet
compliance needs.
Chapter 7, Oracle Performance, describes the main issues relevant to Oracle perfor-
mance—especially the major performance characteristics of disk, memory, and CPU
tuning. It describes how Oracle Enterprise Manager, the Automatic Workload Repos-
itory, and the Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor are used for performance
monitoring and management, as well as parallelism and memory management in
Oracle.
Chapter 8, Oracle Multiuser Concurrency, describes the basic principles of multiuser
concurrency (e.g., transactions, locks, integrity problems) and explains how Oracle
handles concurrency.

xiv | Preface
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ukridge
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Ukridge

Author: P. G. Wodehouse

Release date: February 25, 2020 [eBook #61507]

Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UKRIDGE ***

 UKRIDGE

WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT

“Do not count your chickens before they are hatched” is a

classic saying that might well have been remembered by
Ukridge. Ukridge is always on the verge of making a fortune and
counting his thousands before they are made. But Dame
Fortune is a fickle jade. She eludes him in his great scheme
about the dog college, wherein he was to turn out a world
supply of trained dogs, and likewise in his backing of Battling
Billson, the tender-hearted pugilist. But hope and George
Tupper keep Ukridge going. He is ever ready for the next
assault.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 2s. 6d. net.
THE COMING OF BILL 3s. 6d. net.
THE GIRL ON THE BOAT 2s. 6d. net.
THE CLICKING OF CUTHBERT 3s. 6d. net.
JILL THE RECKLESS 2s. 6d. net.
INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE 2s. 6d. net.
PICCADILLY JIM 2s. 6d. net.
LOVE AMONG THE CHICKENS 2s. 6d. net.
A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE 2s. 6d. net.
THE ADVENTURES OF SALLY 7s. 6d. net.
THE INIMITABLE JEEVES 3s. 6d. net.
MY MAN JEEVES 2s. 6d. net.
LEAVE IT TO PSMITH 7s. 6d. net.

UKRIDGE
BY

P. G. WODEHOUSE

HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED

3 YORK STREET ST. JAMES’S
 LONDON S.W.1 * MCMXXIV

A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

dedicated

with

esteem and gratitude

to

OLD BILL TOWNEND

my friend from boyhood’s days
 who

first introduced me

to

stanley featherstonehaugh ukridge

 CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. Ukridge’s Dog College

II. Ukridge’s Accident Syndicate

III. The Début of Battling Billson

IV. First Aid for Dora

V. The Return of Battling Billson

VI. Ukridge Sees her Through

VII. No Wedding Bells for him

VIII. The Long Arm of Looney Coote

IX. The Exit of Battling Billson

X. Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner

UKRIDGE
 CHAPTER I
UKRIDGE'S DOG COLLEGE

“Laddie,” said Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, that much-

enduring man, helping himself to my tobacco and slipping the pouch
absently into his pocket, “listen to me, you son of Belial.”

“What?” I said, retrieving the pouch.

“Do you want to make an enormous fortune?”

“I do.”

“Then write my biography. Bung it down on paper, and we’ll split

the proceeds. I’ve been making a pretty close study of your stuff
lately, old horse, and it’s all wrong. The trouble with you is that you
don’t plumb the well-springs of human nature and all that. You just
think up some rotten yarn about some-dam-thing-or-other and
shove it down. Now, if you tackled my life, you’d have something
worth writing about. Pots of money in it, my boy—English serial
rights and American serial rights and book rights, and dramatic
rights and movie rights—well, you can take it from me that, at a
conservative estimate, we should clean up at least fifty thousand
pounds apiece.”

“As much as that?”

 “Fully that. And listen, laddie, I’ll tell you what. You’re a good chap
and we’ve been pals for years, so I’ll let you have my share of the
English serial rights for a hundred pounds down.”

“What makes you think I’ve got a hundred pounds?”

“Well, then, I’ll make it my share of the English and American

serial rights for fifty.”

“Your collar’s come off its stud.”

“How about my complete share of the whole dashed outfit for

twenty-five?”

“Not for me, thanks.”

“Then I’ll tell you what, old horse,” said Ukridge, inspired. “Just
lend me half a crown to be going on with.”

* * * * *

If the leading incidents of S. F. Ukridge’s disreputable career are to

be given to the public—and not, as some might suggest, decently
hushed up—I suppose I am the man to write them. Ukridge and I
have been intimate since the days of school. Together we sported on
the green, and when he was expelled no one missed him more than
I. An unfortunate business, this expulsion. Ukridge’s generous spirit,
ever ill-attuned to school rules, caused him eventually to break the
solemnest of them all by sneaking out at night to try his skill at the
coco-nut-shies of the local village fair; and his foresight in putting on
scarlet whiskers and a false nose for the expedition was completely
neutralised by the fact that he absent-mindedly wore his school cap
throughout the entire proceedings. He left the next morning,
regretted by all.

After this there was a hiatus of some years in our friendship. I was
at Cambridge, absorbing culture, and Ukridge, as far as I could
gather from his rare letters and the reports of mutual acquaintances,
flitting about the world like a snipe. Somebody met him in New York,
just off a cattle-ship. Somebody else saw him in Buenos Ayres.
Somebody, again, spoke sadly of having been pounced on by him at
Monte Carlo and touched for a fiver. It was not until I settled down
in London that he came back into my life. We met in Piccadilly one
day, and resumed our relations where they had been broken off. Old
associations are strong, and the fact that he was about my build and
so could wear my socks and shirts drew us very close together.

Then he disappeared again, and it was a month or more before I

got news of him.

It was George Tupper who brought the news. George was head of
the school in my last year, and he has fulfilled exactly the impeccable
promise of those early days. He is in the Foreign Office, doing well
and much respected. He has an earnest, pulpy heart and takes other
people’s troubles very seriously. Often he had mourned to me like a
father over Ukridge’s erratic progress through life, and now, as he
spoke, he seemed to be filled with a solemn joy, as over a reformed
prodigal.

“Have you heard about Ukridge?” said George Tupper. “He has
settled down at last. Gone to live with an aunt of his who owns one
of those big houses on Wimbledon Common. A very rich woman. I
am delighted. It will be the making of the old chap.”

I suppose he was right in a way, but to me this tame subsidence

into companionship with a rich aunt in Wimbledon seemed somehow
an indecent, almost a tragic, end to a colourful career like that of S.
F. Ukridge. And when I met the man a week later my heart grew
heavier still.

It was in Oxford Street at the hour when women come up from

the suburbs to shop; and he was standing among the dogs and
commissionaires outside Selfridge’s. His arms were full of parcels, his
face was set in a mask of wan discomfort, and he was so beautifully
dressed that for an instant I did not recognise him. Everything which
the Correct Man wears was assembled on his person, from the silk
hat to the patent-leather boots; and, as he confided to me in the
first minute, he was suffering the tortures of the damned. The boots
pinched him, the hat hurt his forehead, and the collar was worse
than the hat and boots combined.

“She makes me wear them,” he said, moodily, jerking his head

towards the interior of the store and uttering a sharp howl as the
movement caused the collar to gouge his neck.

“Still,” I said, trying to turn his mind to happier things, “you must
be having a great time. George Tupper tells me that your aunt is
rich. I suppose you’re living off the fat of the land.”

“The browsing and sluicing are good,” admitted Ukridge. “But it’s a
wearing life, laddie. A wearing life, old horse.”

“Why don’t you come and see me sometimes?”

“I’m not allowed out at night.”

“Well, shall I come and see you?”

A look of poignant alarm shot out from under the silk hat.

“Don’t dream of it, laddie,” said Ukridge, earnestly. “Don’t dream

of it. You’re a good chap—my best pal and all that sort of thing—but
the fact is, my standing in the home’s none too solid even now, and
one sight of you would knock my prestige into hash. Aunt Julia
would think you worldly.”

“I’m not worldly.”

“Well, you look worldly. You wear a squash hat and a soft collar. If
you don’t mind my suggesting it, old horse, I think, if I were you, I’d
pop off now before she comes out. Good-bye, laddie.”

“Ichabod!” I murmured sadly to myself as I passed on down

Oxford Street. “Ichabod!”

I should have had more faith. I should have known my Ukridge

better. I should have realised that a London suburb could no more
imprison that great man permanently than Elba did Napoleon.

One afternoon, as I let myself into the house in Ebury Street of

which I rented at that time the bedroom and sitting-room on the
first floor, I came upon Bowles, my landlord, standing in listening
attitude at the foot of the stairs.

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Bowles. “A gentleman is waiting to see

you. I fancy I heard him calling me a moment ago.”

“Who is he?”

“A Mr. Ukridge, sir. He——”

A vast voice boomed out from above.

“Bowles, old horse!”

Bowles, like all other proprietors of furnished apartments in the

south-western district of London, was an ex-butler, and about him,
as about all ex-butlers, there clung like a garment an aura of
dignified superiority which had never failed to crush my spirit. He
was a man of portly aspect, with a bald head and prominent eyes of
a lightish green—eyes that seemed to weigh me dispassionately and
find me wanting. “H’m!” they seemed to say. “Young—very young.
And not at all what I have been accustomed to in the best places.”
To hear this dignitary addressed—and in a shout at that—as “old
horse” affected me with much the same sense of imminent chaos as
would afflict a devout young curate if he saw his bishop slapped on
the back. The shock, therefore, when he responded not merely
mildly but with what almost amounted to camaraderie was numbing.

“Sir?” cooed Bowles.

“Bring me six bones and a corkscrew.”

“Very good, sir.”

Bowles retired, and I bounded upstairs and flung open the door of
my sitting-room.

“Great Scott!” I said, blankly.

The place was a sea of Pekingese dogs. Later investigation

reduced their numbers to six, but in that first moment there seemed
to be hundreds. Goggling eyes met mine wherever I looked. The
room was a forest of waving tails. With his back against the
mantelpiece, smoking placidly, stood Ukridge.

“Hallo, laddie!” he said, with a genial wave of the hand, as if to

make me free of the place. “You’re just in time. I’ve got to dash off
and catch a train in a quarter of an hour. Stop it, you mutts!” he
bellowed, and the six Pekingese, who had been barking steadily
since my arrival, stopped in mid-yap, and were still. Ukridge’s
personality seemed to exercise a magnetism over the animal
kingdom, from ex-butlers to Pekes, which bordered on the uncanny.
“I’m off to Sheep’s Cray, in Kent. Taken a cottage there.”

“Are you going to live there?”

“Yes.”

“But what about your aunt?”

“Oh, I’ve left her. Life is stern and life is earnest, and if I mean to
make a fortune I’ve got to bustle about and not stay cooped up in a
place like Wimbledon.”

“Something in that.”

“Besides which, she told me the very sight of me made her sick
and she never wanted to see me again.”

I might have guessed, directly I saw him, that some upheaval had
taken place. The sumptuous raiment which had made him such a
treat to the eye at our last meeting was gone, and he was back in
his pre-Wimbledon costume, which was, as the advertisements say,
distinctively individual. Over grey flannel trousers, a golf coat, and a
brown sweater he wore like a royal robe a bright yellow mackintosh.
His collar had broken free from its stud and showed a couple of
inches of bare neck. His hair was disordered, and his masterful nose
was topped by a pair of steel-rimmed pince-nez cunningly attached
to his flapping ears with ginger-beer wire. His whole appearance
spelled revolt.

Bowles manifested himself with a plateful of bones.

“That’s right. Chuck ’em down on the floor.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I like that fellow,” said Ukridge, as the door closed. “We had a
dashed interesting talk before you came in. Did you know he had a
cousin on the music-halls?”

“He hasn’t confided in me much.”

“He’s promised me an introduction to him later on. May be useful

to be in touch with a man who knows the ropes. You see, laddie,
I’ve hit on the most amazing scheme.” He swept his arm round
dramatically, overturning a plaster cast of the Infant Samuel at
Prayer. “All right, all right, you can mend it with glue or something,
and, anyway, you’re probably better without it. Yessir, I’ve hit on a
great scheme. The idea of a thousand years.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to train dogs.”

“Train dogs?”

“For the music-hall stage. Dog acts, you know. Performing dogs.
Pots of money in it. I start in a modest way with these six. When
I’ve taught ’em a few tricks, I sell them to a fellow in the profession
for a large sum and buy twelve more. I train those, sell ’em for a
large sum, and with the money buy twenty-four more. I train those
——”

“Here, wait a minute.” My head was beginning to swim. I had a

vision of England paved with Pekingese dogs, all doing tricks. “How
do you know you’ll be able to sell them?”

“Of course I shall. The demand’s enormous. Supply can’t cope

with it. At a conservative estimate I should think I ought to scoop in
four or five thousand pounds the first year. That, of course, is before
the business really starts to expand.”

“I see.”

“When I get going properly, with a dozen assistants under me and

an organised establishment, I shall begin to touch the big money.
What I’m aiming at is a sort of Dogs’ College out in the country
somewhere. Big place with a lot of ground. Regular classes and a set
curriculum. Large staff, each member of it with so many dogs under
his care, me looking on and superintending. Why, once the thing
starts moving it’ll run itself, and all I shall have to do will be to sit
back and endorse the cheques. It isn’t as if I would have to confine
my operations to England. The demand for performing dogs is
universal throughout the civilised world. America wants performing
dogs. Australia wants performing dogs. Africa could do with a few,
I’ve no doubt. My aim, laddie, is gradually to get a monopoly of the
trade. I want everybody who needs a performing dog of any
description to come automatically to me. And I’ll tell you what,
laddie. If you like to put up a bit of capital, I’ll let you in on the
ground floor.”

“No, thanks.”

“All right. Have it your own way. Only don’t forget that there was a
fellow who put nine hundred dollars into the Ford Car business when
it was starting and he collected a cool forty million. I say, is that
clock right? Great Scott! I’ll be missing my train. Help me mobilise
these dashed animals.”

Five minutes later, accompanied by the six Pekingese and bearing

about him a pound of my tobacco, three pairs of my socks, and the
remains of a bottle of whisky, Ukridge departed in a taxi-cab for
Charing Cross Station to begin his life-work.

Perhaps six weeks passed, six quiet Ukridgeless weeks, and then
one morning I received an agitated telegram. Indeed, it was not so
much a telegram as a cry of anguish. In every word of it there
breathed the tortured spirit of a great man who has battled in vain
against overwhelming odds. It was the sort of telegram which Job
might have sent off after a lengthy session with Bildad the Shuhite:
—

“Come here immediately, laddie. Life and death matter, old horse.
Desperate situation. Don’t fail me.”

It stirred me like a bugle, I caught the next train.

The White Cottage, Sheep’s Cray—destined, presumably, to

become in future years an historic spot and a Mecca for dog-loving
pilgrims—was a small and battered building standing near the main
road to London at some distance from the village. I found it without
difficulty, for Ukridge seemed to have achieved a certain celebrity in
the neighbourhood; but to effect an entry was a harder task. I
rapped for a full minute without result, then shouted; and I was
about to conclude that Ukridge was not at home when the door
suddenly opened. As I was just giving a final bang at the moment, I
entered the house in a manner reminiscent of one of the Ballet
Russe practising a new and difficult step.

“Sorry, old horse,” said Ukridge. “Wouldn’t have kept you waiting if
I’d known who it was. Thought you were Gooch, the grocer—goods
supplied to the value of six pounds three and a penny.”

“I see.”

“He keeps hounding me for his beastly money,” said Ukridge,

bitterly, as he led the way into the sitting-room. “It’s a little hard.
Upon my Sam it’s a little hard. I come down here to inaugurate a
vast business and do the natives a bit of good by establishing a
growing industry in their midst, and the first thing you know they
turn round and bite the hand that was going to feed them. I’ve been
hampered and rattled by these blood-suckers ever since I got here.
A little trust, a little sympathy, a little of the good old give-and-take
spirit—that was all I asked. And what happened? They wanted a bit
on account! Kept bothering me for a bit on account, I’ll trouble you,
just when I needed all my thoughts and all my energy and every
ounce of concentration at my command for my extraordinarily
difficult and delicate work. I couldn’t give them a bit on account.
Later on, if they had only exercised reasonable patience, I would no
doubt have been in a position to settle their infernal bills fifty times
over. But the time was not ripe. I reasoned with the men. I said,
‘Here am I, a busy man, trying hard to educate six Pekingese dogs
for the music-hall stage, and you come distracting my attention and
impairing my efficiency by babbling about a bit on account. It isn’t
the pull-together spirit,’ I said. ‘It isn’t the spirit that wins to wealth.
These narrow petty-cash ideas can never make for success.’ But no,
they couldn’t see it. They started calling here at all hours and
waylaying me in the public highways till life became an absolute
curse. And now what do you think has happened?”

“What?”

“The dogs.”

“Got distemper?”

“No. Worse. My landlord’s pinched them as security for his infernal

rent! Sneaked the stock. Tied up the assets. Crippled the business at
the very outset. Have you ever in your life heard of anything so
dastardly? I know I agreed to pay the damned rent weekly and I’m
about six weeks behind, but, my gosh! surely a man with a huge
enterprise on his hands isn’t supposed to have to worry about these
trifles when he’s occupied with the most delicate——Well, I put all
that to old Nickerson, but a fat lot of good it did. So then I wired to
you.”

“Ah!” I said, and there was a brief and pregnant pause.

“I thought,” said Ukridge, meditatively, “that you might be able to

suggest somebody I could touch.”

He spoke in a detached and almost casual way, but his eye was
gleaming at me significantly, and I avoided it with a sense of guilt.
My finances at the moment were in their customary unsettled
condition—rather more so, in fact, than usual, owing to
unsatisfactory speculations at Kempton Park on the previous
Saturday; and it seemed to me that, if ever there was a time for
passing the buck, this was it. I mused tensely. It was an occasion for
quick thinking.

“George Tupper!” I cried, on the crest of a brain-wave.

“George Tupper?” echoed Ukridge, radiantly, his gloom melting like

fog before the sun. “The very man, by Gad! It’s a most amazing
thing, but I never thought of him. George Tupper, of course! Big-
hearted George, the old school-chum. He’ll do it like a shot and
won’t miss the money. These Foreign Office blokes have always got
a spare tenner or two tucked away in the old sock. They pinch it out
of the public funds. Rush back to town, laddie, with all speed, get
hold of Tuppy, lush him up, and bite his ear for twenty quid. Now is
the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.”

I had been convinced that George Tupper would not fail us, nor
did he. He parted without a murmur—even with enthusiasm. The
consignment was one that might have been made to order for him.
As a boy, George used to write sentimental poetry for the school
magazine, and now he is the sort of man who is always starting
subscription lists and getting up memorials and presentations. He
listened to my story with the serious official air which these Foreign
Office fellows put on when they are deciding whether to declare war
on Switzerland or send a firm note to San Marino, and was reaching
for his cheque-book before I had been speaking two minutes.
Ukridge’s sad case seemed to move him deeply.

“Too bad,” said George. “So he is training dogs, is he? Well, it

seems very unfair that, if he has at last settled down to real work,
he should be hampered by financial difficulties at the outset. We
ought to do something practical for him. After all, a loan of twenty
pounds cannot relieve the situation permanently.”

“I think you’re a bit optimistic if you’re looking on it as a loan.”

“What Ukridge needs is capital.”

“He thinks that, too. So does Gooch, the grocer.”

“Capital,” repeated George Tupper, firmly, as if he were reasoning

with the plenipotentiary of some Great Power. “Every venture
requires capital at first.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Where can we
obtain capital for Ukridge?”
 “Rob a bank.”

George Tupper’s face cleared.

“I have it!” he said. “I will go straight over to Wimbledon to-night

and approach his aunt.”

“Aren’t you forgetting that Ukridge is about as popular with her as

a cold welsh rabbit?”

“There may be a temporary estrangement, but if I tell her the

facts and impress upon her that Ukridge is really making a genuine
effort to earn a living——”

“Well, try it if you like. But she will probably set the parrot on to
you.”

“It will have to be done diplomatically, of course. It might be as

well if you did not tell Ukridge what I propose to do. I do not wish to
arouse hopes which may not be fulfilled.”

A blaze of yellow on the platform of Sheep’s Cray Station next

morning informed me that Ukridge had come to meet my train. The
sun poured down from a cloudless sky, but it took more than
sunshine to make Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge discard his
mackintosh. He looked like an animated blob of mustard.

When the train rolled in, he was standing in solitary grandeur

trying to light his pipe, but as I got out I perceived that he had been
joined by a sad-looking man, who, from the rapid and earnest
manner in which he talked and the vehemence of his gesticulations,
appeared to be ventilating some theme on which he felt deeply.
Ukridge was looking warm and harassed, and, as I approached, I
could hear his voice booming in reply.

“My dear sir, my dear old horse, do be reasonable, do try to

cultivate the big, broad flexible outlook——”
 He saw me and broke away—not unwillingly; and, gripping my
arm, drew me off along the platform. The sad-looking man followed
irresolutely.

“Have you got the stuff, laddie?” enquired Ukridge, in a tense

whisper. “Have you got it?”

“Yes, here it is.”

“Put it back, put it back!” moaned Ukridge in agony, as I felt in my

pocket. “Do you know who that was I was talking to? Gooch, the
grocer!”

“Goods supplied to the value of six pounds three and a penny?”

“Absolutely!”

“Well, now’s your chance. Fling him a purse of gold. That’ll make
him look silly.”

“My dear old horse, I can’t afford to go about the place

squandering my cash simply in order to make grocers look silly. That
money is earmarked for Nickerson, my landlord.”

“Oh! I say, I think the six pounds three and a penny bird is
following us.”

“Then for goodness’ sake, laddie, let’s get a move on! If that man
knew we had twenty quid on us, our lives wouldn’t be safe. He’d
make one spring.”

He hurried me out of the station and led the way up a shady lane
that wound off through the fields, slinking furtively “like one that on
a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread, and having once
looked back walks on and turns no more his head, because he
knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.” As a matter of
fact, the frightful fiend had given up the pursuit after the first few
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