The story is told from the point of view of Jeremy Garnet, an author and an old friend of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge. Upon meeting Ukridge for the first time in years, Garnet finds himself dragged along on holiday to Ukridge's newly-started chicken farm. From then on the novel intertwines Garnet's difficult wooing of a girl living the estate with the struggles of the farm, and the neighbourhood, to cope with Ukridge's bizarre business methods. "Buck up, old horse," said Ukridge. He had a painful habit of addressing all and sundry by that title. In his school-master days he had made use of it while interviewing the parents of new pupils, and the latter had gone away, as a rule, with a feeling that this must be either the easy manner of genius or spirits, and hoping for the best. Later, he had used it to perfect strangers in the streets. On one occasion he had been heard to address a bishop by that title. "Surprised to find me married, what? Garny, old boy"--sinking his voice to what was intended to be a whisper--"take my tip. You go and do the same. You feel another man. Give up this bachelor business. It's a mug's game. Go and get married, my boy, go and get married. By gad, I've forgotten to pay the cabby. Half a moment."