Short Stories of Saki (H. H. Munro)
Short Stories of Saki (H. H. Munro) |
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Beasts and Super BeastsPublished: 1914 The best known collection of Monro's short stories is also a bit uneven. Most are fine, but one or two feel as though he were just going through the motions. The savagery of Sredni Vashtar is missing, but the best stories here (The Story-Teller and The Lumber Room) are also about child psychology and adult incomprehension of childhood. It is probably the attention-grabbing, Nietszchian title which has ensured the survival of this collection, though it would at least serve as a good introduction to Saki's writing. THE SHE-WOLFLEONARD BILSITER was one of those people who have failed to find this world attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an "unseen world" of their own experience or imagination - or invention. Children do that sort of thing successfully, but children are content to convince themselves, and do not vulgarize their beliefs by trying to convince other people. Leonard Bilsiter's beliefs were for "the few," that is to say, anyone who would listen to him.
LAURA"YOU are not really dying, are you?" asked Amanda. "I have the doctor's permission to live till Tuesday," said Laura. "But to-day is Saturday; this is serious!" gasped Amanda. "I don't know about it being serious; it is certainly Saturday," said Laura.
THE BOAR-PIG"THERE is a back way on to the lawn," said Mrs. Philidore Stossen to her daughter, "through a small grass paddock and then through a walled fruit garden full of gooseberry bushes. I went all over the place last year when the family were away. There is a door that opens from the fruit garden into a shrubbery, and once we emerge from there we can mingle with the guests as if we had come in by the ordinary way. It's much safer than going in by the front entrance and running the risk of coming bang up against the hostess; that would be so awkward when she doesn't happen to have invited us."
THE BROGUETHE hunting season had come to an end, and the
Mullets had not succeeded in selling the Brogue. There
had been a kind of tradition in the family for the past
three or four years, a sort of fatalistic hope, that the
Brogue would find a purchaser before the hunting was
over; but seasons came and went without anything
happening to justify such ill-founded optimism.
THE HEN"DORA BITTHOLZ is coming on Thursday," said Mrs. Sangrail. "This next Thursday? " asked Clovis His mother nodded. "You've rather done it, haven't you?" he chuckled;
"Jane Martlet has only been here five days, and she never
stays less than a fortnight, even when she's asked
definitely for a week. You'll never get her out of the
house by Thursday."
THE OPEN WINDOW"MY aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."
THE TREASURE SHIPTHE great galleon lay in semi-retirement under the
sand and weed and water of the northern bay where the
fortune of war and weather had long ago ensconced it.
Three and a quarter centuries had passed since the day
when it had taken the high seas as an important unit of a
fighting squadron - precisely which squadron the learned
were not agreed. The galleon had brought nothing into
the world, but it had, according to tradition and report,
taken much out of it. But how much?
THE COBWEBTHE farmhouse kitchen probably stood where it did as
a matter of accident or haphazard choice; yet its
situation might have been planned by a master-strategist
in farmhouse architecture. Dairy and poultry-yard, and
herb garden, and all the busy places of the farm seemed
to lead by easy access into its wide flagged haven, where
there was room for everything and where muddy boots left
traces that were easily swept away.
THE LULLI'VE asked Latimer Springfield to spend Sunday with us and stop the night," announced Mrs. Durmot at the breakfast-table. "I thought he was in the throes of an election," remarked her husband. "Exactly; the poll is on Wednesday, and the poor man
will have worked himself to a shadow by that time.
Imagine what electioneering must be like in this awful
soaking rain, going along slushy country roads and
speaking to damp audiences in draughty schoolrooms, day
after day for a fortnight.
THE UNKINDEST BLOWTHE season of strikes seemed to have run itself to a
standstill. Almost every trade and industry and calling
in which a dislocation could possibly be engineered had
indulged in that luxury. The last and least successful
convulsion had been the strike of the World's Union of
Zoological Garden attendants, who, pending the settlement
of certain demands, refused to minister further to the
wants of the animals committed to their charge or to
allow any other keepers to take their place. In this
case the threat of the Zoological Gardens authorities
that if the men "came out" the animals should come out
also had intensified and precipitated the crisis.
THE ROMANCERSIT was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness of winter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buys bulbs and sees to the registration of one's vote, believing perpetually in spring and a change of Government.
THE SCHARTZ-METTERKLUME METHODLADY CARLOTTA stepped out on to the platform of the
small wayside station and took a turn or two up and down
its uninteresting length, to kill time till the train
should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then, in the
roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more
than ample load, and a carter of the sort that seems to
bear a sullen hatred against the animal that helps him to
earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly betook her to the
roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the
struggle.
THE SEVENTH PULLET"IT'S not the daily grind that I complain of," said Blenkinthrope resentfully; "it's the dull grey sameness of my life outside of office hours. Nothing of interest comes my way, nothing remarkable or out of the common. Even the little things that I do try to find some interest in don't seem to interest other people. Things in my garden, for instance."
THE BLIND SPOT"YOU'VE just come back from Adelaide's funeral, haven't you?" said Sir Lulworth to his nephew; "I suppose it was very like most other funerals?" "I'll tell you all about it at lunch," said Egbert.
DUSKNORMAN GORTSBY sat on a bench in the Park, with his
back to a strip of bush-planted sward, fenced by the park
railings, and the Row fronting him across a wide stretch
of carriage drive. Hyde Park Corner, with its rattle and
hoot of traffic, lay immediately to his right. It was
some thirty minutes past six on an early March evening,
and dusk had fallen heavily over the scene, dusk
mitigated by some faint moonlight and many street lamps.
A TOUCH OF REALISM"I HOPE you've come full of suggestions for Christmas," said Lady Blonze to her latest arrived guest; "the old-fashioned Christmas and the up-to-date Christmas are both so played out. I want to have something really original this year."
COUSIN TERESABASSET HARROWCLUFF returned to the home of his
fathers, after an absence of four years, distinctly well
pleased with himself. He was only thirty-one, but he had
put in some useful service in an out-of-the-way, though
not unimportant, corner of the world.
THE YARKAND MANNERSIR LULWORTH QUAYNE was making a leisurely progress through the Zoological Society's Gardens in company with his nephew, recently returned from Mexico. The latter was interested in comparing and contrasting allied types of animals occurring in the North American and Old World fauna.
THE BYZANTINE OMELETTESOPHIE CHATTEL-MONKHEIM was a Socialist by
conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage. The
particular member of that wealthy family whom she had
married was rich, even as his relatives counted riches.
Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to the
distribution of money: it was a pleasing and fortunate
circumstance that she also had the money.
THE FEAST OF NEMESIS"IT'S a good thing that Saint Valentine's Day has
dropped out of vogue," said Mrs. Thackenbury; "what with
Christmas and New Year and Easter, not to speak of
birthdays, there are quite enough remembrance days as it
is. I tried to save myself trouble at Christmas by just
sending flowers to all my friends, but it wouldn't work;
Gertrude has eleven hot-houses and about thirty
gardeners, so it would have been ridiculous to send
flowers to her, and Milly has just started a florist's
shop, so it was equally out of the question there.
THE DREAMERIT was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis and Nettlepink had lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession to trade observances, much as an Arch-duchess might protestingly contract an attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory reason that influenza was locally prevalent. Adela Chemping, who considered herself in some measure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a point of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and Nettlepink's.
THE QUINCE TREE"I'VE just been to see old Betsy Mullen," announced Vera to her aunt, Mrs. Bebberly Cumble; "she seems in rather a bad way about her rent. She owes about fifteen weeks of it, and says she doesn't know where any of it is to come from."
THE FORBIDDEN BUZZARDS"IS matchmaking at all in your line?" Hugo Peterby asked the question with a certain amount of personal interest. "I don't specialise in it," said Clovis; "it's all
right while you're doing it, but the after-effects are
sometimes so disconcerting - the mute reproachful looks
of the people you've aided and abetted in matrimonial
experiments. It's as bad as selling a man a horse with
half a dozen latent vices and watching him discover them
piecemeal in the course of the hunting season.
THE STAKE"RONNIE is a great trial to me," said Mrs. Attray
plaintively. "Only eighteen years old last February and
already a confirmed gambler. I am sure I don't know
where he inherits it from; his father never touched
cards, and you know how little I play - a game of bridge
on Wednesday afternoons in the winter, for three-pence a
hundred, and even that I shouldn't do if it wasn't that
Edith always wants a fourth and would be certain to ask
that detestable Jenkinham woman if she couldn't get me.
CLOVIS ON PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIESMARION EGGELBY sat talking to Clovis on the only
subject that she ever willingly talked about - her
offspring and their varied perfections and
accomplishments. Clovis was not in what could be called a
receptive mood; the younger generation of Eggelby,
depicted in the glowing improbable colours of parent
impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm. Mrs.
Eggelby, on the other hand, was furnished with enthusiasm
enough for two.
A HOLIDAY TASKKENELM JERTON entered the dining-hall of the Golden
Galleon Hotel in the full crush of the luncheon hour.
Nearly every seat was occupied, and small additional
tables had been brought in, where floor space permitted,
to accommodate latecomers, with the result that many of
the tables were almost touching each other. Jerton was
beckoned by a waiter to the only vacant table that was
discernible, and took his seat with the uncomfortable and
wholly groundless idea that nearly every one in the room
was staring at him.
THE STALLED OXTHEOPHIL ESHLEY was an artist by profession, a
cattle painter by force of environment. It is not to be
supposed that he lived on a ranche or a dairy farm, in an
atmosphere pervaded with horn and hoof, milking-stool,
and branding-iron. His home was in a park-like, villa-
dotted district that only just escaped the reproach of
being suburban.
THE STORY-TELLERIT was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was
correspondingly sultry, and the next stop was at
Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. The occupants of the
carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and a
small boy. An aunt belonging to the children occupied
one corner seat, and the further corner seat on the
opposite side was occupied by a bachelor who was a
stranger to their party, but the small girls and the
small boy emphatically occupied the compartment.
A DEFENSIVE DIAMONDTREDDLEFORD sat in an easeful arm-chair in front of
a slumberous fire, with a volume of verse in his hand and
the comfortable consciousness that outside the club
windows the rain was dripping and pattering with
persistent purpose. A chill, wet October afternoon was
merging into a bleak, wet October evening, and the club
smoking-room seemed warmer and cosier by contrast.
THE ELKTERESA, Mrs. Thropplestance, was the richest and
most intractable old woman in the county of Woldshire.
In her dealings with the world in general her manner
suggested a blend between a Mistress of the Robes and a
Master of Foxhounds, with the vocabulary of both.
"DOWN PENS""HAVE you written to thank the Froplinsons for what they sent us?" asked Egbert. "No," said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in
her voice; "I've written eleven letters to-day expressing
surprise and gratitude for sundry unmerited gifts, but I
haven't written to the Froplinsons."
THE NAME-DAYADVENTURES, according to the proverb, are to the
adventurous. Quite as often they are to the non-
adventurous, to the retiring, to the constitutionally
timid. John James Abbleway had been endowed by Nature
with the sort of disposition that instinctively avoids
Carlist intrigues, slum crusades, the tracking of wounded
wild beasts, and the moving of hostile amendments at
political meetings.
THE LUMBER ROOMTHE children were to be driven, as a special treat,
to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of
the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had
refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk on the
seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it.
FUR"YOU look worried, dear," said Eleanor. "I am worried," admitted Suzanne; "not worried exactly, but anxious. You see, my birthday happens next week - " "You lucky person," interrupted Eleanor; "my
birthday doesn't come till the end of March."
THE PHILANTHROPIST AND THE HAPPY CATJOCANTHA BESSBURY was in the mood to be serenely and
graciously happy. Her world was a pleasant place, and it
was wearing one of its pleasantest aspects. Gregory had
managed to get home for a hurried lunch and a smoke
afterwards in the little snuggery; the lunch had been a
good one, and there was just time to do justice to the
coffee and cigarettes.
ON APPROVALOF all the genuine Bohemians who strayed from time
to time into the would-be Bohemian circle of the
Restaurant Nuremberg, Owl Street, Soho, none was more
interesting and more elusive than Gebhard Knopfschrank.
He had no friends, and though he treated all the
restaurant frequenters as acquaintances he never seemed
to wish to carry the acquaintanceship beyond the door
that led into Owl Street and the outer world.
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Map started on Nov. 5, 2009
