 Starring Chatter and Oak Hill have both dropped back in the bedding, said Bertie Van Tan, throwing the morning paper across the breakfast table. That leaves nursery tea practically favourite, said Odo Finsbury. Nursery tea and pipe-clair at the top of the bedding at present, said Bertie. But that French horse, the five o'clock, seems to be fancied as much as anything. Then there is Whitebait, and the Polish horse with a name like someone trying to stifle a sneeze in church. They both seem to have a lot of support. It's the most open derby there's been for years, said Odo. It's simply no good trying to pick the winner on form, said Bertie. One must just trust to luck and inspiration. The question is whether to trust to one's own inspiration or somebody else's. Sporting swank gives Count Palatine to win, and the five o'clock for a place. Count Palatine? That adds another to our list of perplexities. Good morning, Sir Lullworth. Have you a fancy for the derby by any chance? I don't usually take much interest in turf matters, said Sir Lullworth, who had just made his appearance. But I always like to have a bet on the guineas and the derby. This year I confess it's rather difficult to pick out anything that seems markedly better than anything else. What do you think of snow-bunting? Snow-bunting, said Odo with a groan. There's another of them. Surely snow-bunting has no earthly chance. My housekeeper's nephew, who is a showing-smith in the mounted section of the church lads' brigade, and an authority on horse-flesh, expects him to be among the first three. The nephews of housekeepers are invariably optimists, said Bertie. It's a kind of natural reaction against the professional pessimism of their arms. We don't seem to get much further in our search for the probable winner, said Mrs DeClo. The more I listen to you experts, the more hopelessly befogged I get. It's all very well to blame us, said Bertie to his hostess. You haven't produced anything in the way of an inspiration. My inspiration consisted in asking you, Dan, for derpy week, retorted Mrs DeClo. I thought you and Odo between you might throw some light on the question of the moment. Further recriminations were cut short by the arrival of Lola Pevonsy, who floated into the room with an air of gracious apology. So sorry to be so late, she observed, making a rapid tour of inspection of the breakfast dishes. Did you have a good night? asked her hostess with perfunctory solicitude. Quite, thank you, said Lola. I dreamt a most remarkable dream. A flutter indicative of general boredom went round the table. Other people's dreams are about as universally interesting as accounts of other people's gardens, or chickens, or children. I dreamt about the winner of the derpy, said Lola. A swift reaction of attentive interest set in. Do tell us what you dreamt, came in a chorus. The really remarkable thing about it is that I dreamt two nights running, said Lola, finally deciding between the allurements of sausages and kegery. That is why I thought it worth mentioning. You know, when I dreamt things two or three nights in succession, it always means something. I have special powers in that way. For instance, I once dreamed three times that a winged lion was flying through the sky and one of his wings dropped off, and he came to the ground with a crash. Just afterwards the Campanile Venice fell down. The winged lion is the symbol of Venice, you know, she added for the enlightenment of those who might not be versed in Italian heraldry. Then she continued, just before the murder of the king and queen of Serbia, I had a vivid dream of two crowned figures walking into a slaughterhouse by the banks of the big river, which I took to be the Danube and only the other day. Do tell us what you dreamt about the Derby, interrupted Odo impatiently. Well, I saw the finish of the race as clearly as anything, and one horse won easily, almost in a canter, and everybody cried out, bread and butter wins, good old bread and butter. I hide the name distinctly, and I've had the same dream, two nights running. Bread and butter, said Mrs DeClo, now whatever horse can that point to? Why, of course, nursery tea! She looked round with the triumphant smile of a successful unraveler of mystery. How about the five o'clock, interposed Sir Lullworth? It would fit either of them equally well, said Odo. Can you remember any details about the jockeys' colours? That might help us. I seem to remember a glimpse of lemon sleeves or cap, but I can't be sure, said Lola after due reflection. There isn't a lemon jacket or cap in the race, said Bertie, referring to a list of starters and jockeys. Can't you remember anything about the appearance of the horse? If it were a thick, set animal, this bread and butter would typify nursery tea, and if it were thin, of course, it would mean the five o'clock. That seems sound enough, said Mrs DeClo. Do think, Lola dear, whether the horse in your dream was thin nor stoutly built. I can't remember that it was one or the other, said Lola. No one would notice such a detail in the excitement of a finish. But this was a symbolic animal, said Sir Lullworth. If it were to typify thick or thin bread and butter, surely it ought to have been either as bulky and tubby as a char-cart horse, or as thin as a heraldic leopard. I'm afraid you are a rather careless dreamer, said Bertie resentfully. Of course, at the moment of dreaming, I thought I was witnessing a real race, not the portent of one, said Lola. Otherwise I should have particularly noticed all helpful details. The derby isn't run till to-morrow, said Mrs DeClo. Do you think you are likely to have the same dream again tonight? If so, you can fix your attention on the important detail of the animal's appearance. I'm afraid I shan't sleep at all tonight, said Lola, pathetically. Every fifth night I suffer from insomnia, and it's due to-night. It's most provoking, said Bertie. Of course we can back both horses, but it would be much more satisfactory to have all our money on the winner. Can't you take a sleeping draught or something? Oak leaves soaked in warm water and put under the bed recommended by some, said Mrs DeClo. A glass of Benedictine with a drop of odor cologne, said Sir Lullworth. I have tried every known remedy, said Lola with dignity. I've been a martyr to insomnia for years. But now we're being martyrs to it, said Odo Salkaly. I particularly want to land a big coup over this race. I don't have insomnia for my own amusement, snapped Lola. Let us hope for the best, said Mrs DeClo soothingly. Tonight to make proof an exception to the fifth night rule. But when breakfast time came round again, Lola reported a blank night as far as visions were concerned. I don't suppose I had as much as ten minutes sleep, and certainly no dreams. I'm so sorry for your sake in the first place and ours as well, said her hostess. Do you think you could induce a short nap after breakfast? It would be so good for you, and you might dream something. There would still be time for us to get our bets on. I'll try if you like, said Lola. It sounds rather like a small child being sent to bed in disgrace. I'll come and read the Encyclopedia Britannica to you if you think it will make you sleep any sooner, said Bertie obligingly. Rain was falling too steadily to permit of outdoor amusement, and the party suffered considerably during the next two hours from the absolute quiet that was enforced all over the house in order to give Lola every chance of achieving slumber. Even the click of billiard balls was considered a possible factor of disturbance, and the canaries were carried down to the gardener's lodge while the cuckoo clock in the hall was muffled under several layers of rugs. A notice, please do not knock or ring, was posted on the front door at Bertie's suggestion, and guests and servants spoke in tragic whispers as though the dread presence of death or sickness had invaded the house. The precautions proved of no avail. But Lola added a sleepless morning to a wakeful night, and the bets of the party had to be impartially divided between nursery tea and the French coat. So provoking to have to split our bets, said Mrs DeClo, as her guests gathered in the hall later in the day, waiting for the result of the race. I did my best for you, said Lola, feeling that she was not getting her due share of gratitude. I told you what I had seen in my dreams. A brown horse called bread and butter, winning easily from all the rest. What! screamed Bertie, jumping up from his seat. A brown horse? Miserable woman! You never said a word about it being a brown horse. Didn't I? faltered Lola. I thought I told you it was a brown horse. It was certainly brown in both dreams. But I don't see what the colour has got to do with it. Nursery tea and Lafay the clock are both chestnuts. Merciful heaven! Doesn't brown bread and butter with a sprinkling of lemon in the colours suggest anything to you? Raged Bertie. A slow cumulative groan broke from the assembly as the meaning of his words gradually dawned on his hearers. For the second time that day Lola retired to the seclusion of her room. She could not face the universal looks of reproach directed at her when white bait was announced winner at the comfortable price of fourteen to one. End of a bread and butter miss. Story number eleven. Of the Toys of Peace. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bill Mosley. The Toys of Peace. Short stories by Saki. Bertie's Christmas Eve. It was Christmas Eve and the family circle of Luke Steffink Esquire was a glow with the amyability and random mirth which the occasion demanded. A long and lavish dinner had been partaken of. Wates had been round and sung carols. The house party had regaled itself with more caroling on its own account. And there had been romping, which even in a pulpit reference could not have been condemned as ragging. In the midst of the general glow, however, there was one black, unkindled cinder. Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early in life adopted the profession of nair-do-well. His father had been something of the kind before him. At the age of eighteen Bertie had commenced that round of visits to our colonial possessions so seemingly and desirable in the case of a Prince of the Blood, so suggestive of insincerity in a young man of the middle class. He had gone to grow tea in Ceylon and fruit in British Columbia and to help sheep to grow wool in Australia. At the age of twenty he had just returned from some similar errand in Canada, from which it may be gathered that the trial he gave to these various experiments was of the summery drum-head nature. Luke Steffink, who fulfilled the troubled role of guardian and deputy parent to Bertie, deplored the persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on his nephew's part. And his solemn thanks earlier in the day for the blessing of reporting a united family had no reference to Bertie's return. Arrangements had been promptly made for packing the youth off to a distant corner of Rhodesia. When its return would be a difficult matter, the journey to this uninviting destination was eminent. In fact, a more careful and willing traveler would have already begun to think about his packing. Hence Bertie was in no mood to share in the festive spirit, which displayed itself around him, and resentment smoldered within him at the eager, self-absorbed discussion of social plans for the coming months, which he heard on all sides. Beyond depressing his uncle and the family circled generally by singing Say-Are-Wa and Not-Goodbye, he had taken no part in the process which they called retiring for the night. Come, Teddy, it's time you were in your little bed, you know," said Luke Steffink, to his thirteen-year-old son. That's where we all ought to be, said Mrs. Steffink. He had taken no part in the evening's conviviality. Eleven o'clock had struck some half-hour ago, and the elder Steffinks began to throw out suggestions leading up to that process, and all ought to be, said Mrs. Steffink. There wouldn't be room, said Bertie. The remark was considered to border on the scandalous. Everybody ate raisins and almonds with the nervous industry of sheep feeding during threatening weather. In Russia, said Horace Bordenby, who was staying in the house as a Christmas guest, I've read that the peasants believed that if you go into a cowhouse with a table at midnight on Christmas Eve, you will hear the animals talk. They are supposed to have the gift of speech at that one moment of the year. Oh, do, let's all go down to the cowhouse and listen to what they've got to say, exclaimed Barrel, to whom anything was thrilling and amusing if you did it in a troop. Mrs. Steffink made a laughing protest, but gave a virtual consent by saying, We must all wrap up well, then. The idea seemed a scatterbrained one to her and almost heathenish, but it afforded an opportunity for throwing the young people together, and as such she welcomed it. Mr. Horace Bordenby was a young man with quite substantial prospects, and he had danced with Barrel at a local subscription ball a sufficient number of times to warrant the authorized inquiry on the part of the neighbors whether there was anything in it. Though Mrs. Steffink would not have put it in so many words, she shared the idea of the Russian peasantry that on this night the beasts might speak. The cowhouse stood at the junction of the garden with a small paddock, an isolated survival in a suburban neighborhood of what had once been a small farm. Luke Steffink was complacently proud of his cowhouse and his two cows. He felt that they gave him a stamp of solidity which no number of lion-dots or orpingtons could impart. They even seemed to link him in a sort of inconsequent way with those patriarchs who derived importance from their floating capital of flocks and herbs he asses and she asses. It had been an anxious and momentous occasion when he had had to decide, definitely between the buyer and the ranch for the naming of his villa residence. A December midnight was hardly the moment he would have chosen for showing his farm building to visitors, but since it was a fine night and the young people were anxious for an excuse for a mild frolic, Luke consented to chaperone the expedition. The servants had long since gone to bed, so the house was left in charge of Bertie, who scornfully declined to stir out on the pretext of listening to bovine conversation. We must go quietly, said Luke, as he headed the procession of giggling young folk brought up in the rear by the shawl and hooded figure of Mrs. Steffink. I have always laid stress on keeping this a quiet and orderly neighborhood. It was a few minutes to midnight when the party reached the cowhouse and made its way in by the light of Luke's stable lantern. For a moment every one stood in silence almost with a feeling of being in church. Daisy, the one lying down, is by a short horned bull out of a Guernsey cow, announced Luke in a hushed voice which was in keeping with the foregoing impression. Is she, said Bordenby, rather as if he had expected her to be by Rembrandt? Myrtle is... Myrtle's family history was cut short by little scream from the women of the party. The cowhouse door had closed noiselessly behind them and the key had turned gratingly in the lock. Then they heard Bertie's voice pleasantly wishing them good night and his footsteps retreating along the garden path. Luke Steffink strode to the window. It was a small square opening of the old-fashioned sort of iron bars let into the stonework. Unlock the door this instant, he shouted, with as much air of menacing authority as a hen might assume when screaming through the bars of a coop at a marauding hawk. In reply to his summons the hall door closed with a defiant bang. A neighboring clock struck the hour of midnight. If the cows had received the gift of human speech at that moment they would not have been able to hear. Seven or eight other voices were engaged in describing Bertie's present conduct and his general character at a high pressure of excitement and indignation. In the course of half an hour or so everything that it was permissible to say about Bertie had been said some dozens of times and other topics began to come to the front. The extreme mustiness of the cowhouse, the possibility of it catching fire and the probability of it being a rotten house for the vagrant rats of the neighborhood and still no sign of deliverance came to the unwilling vigil keepers. Towards one o'clock the sound of rather boisterous and undisciplined carol singing approached rapidly and came to a sudden anchorage apparently just outside the garden gate. A motorload of youthful bloods in a high state of conviviality made a temporary halt for repairs. The stoppage however did not extend to the vocal efforts of the party and the watchers in the cow shed were treated to a highly unauthorized rendering of Good King Wenceslas in which the adjective good appeared to be very carelessly applied. The noise had the effect of bringing Bertie out into the garden but he utterly ignored the pale angry faces delivering out at the cow-house window and concentrated his attention on the revelers outside the gate. Wassol, you chaps, he shouted. Wassol, old sport, they shouted back. We jolly well drink your health only we have nothing to drink it in. Come and Wassol inside said Bertie hospitably. I'm all alone and there's heaps of wet. They were total strangers and his touch of kindness made them instantly his kin. In another moment the unauthorized version of King Wenceslas which like many other scandals drew worse on repetition went echoing up the garden path. Two of the revelers gave an impromptu performance on the way by executing the staircase-walls of these terraces of what Luke Steffink hitherto with some justification for his rock garden. The rock part of it was still there when the walls had been accorded its third encore. Luke, more than ever like a coup ten behind the cow-house bars was in a position to realize the feelings of concert-goers unable to counterman the call for an encore which they neither desire nor deserve. The hall door closed with a bang on Bertie's guests and the sounds of merriment became faint and muffled to the weary watchers at the other end of the garden. Presently two ominous pops in quick succession made themselves distinctly heard. They've got at the champagne! exclaimed Mrs. Steffink. Perhaps it's the sparkling Moselle, said Luke, hopefully. Three or four more pops were heard. The champagne and the sparkling Moselle, said Mrs. Steffink. Luke uncorked an expletive which, like Brandy in a temperate household, was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace Bordenby had been making use of similar expressions under his breath for a considerable time past. The experiment of throwing the young people together had been prolonged beyond a point when it was likely to produce any result. Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a crowd that had thrown off any restraint of shyness that might have influenced its earlier actions. Its vocal efforts in the direction of carol singing were now supplemented by instrumental music. A Christmas tree that had been prepared for the children of the gardener and other household retainers had yielded a rich spoil with its rattles and drums. The life story of King Wenceslas had been dropped. Luke was thankful to notice, but it was intensely irritating for the chilled prisoners in the cowhouse to be told that it was a hot time in the old town tonight together with some accurate but entirely superfluous information as to the eminence of Christmas morning. Judging by the protests which began to be shouted from the upper windows of neighboring houses, the sentiments prevailing in the cowhouse were hardly echoed in other quarters. The revelers found their car and, what was more remarkable, managed to drive off in it with a parting fanfare of tin trumpets. The lively beat of a drum disclosed the fact that the master of the rebels remained on the scene. Bertie became an angry, imploring chorus of shouts and screams from the cowhouse window. Hello! cried the owner of the name turning his rather errant steps in the direction of the summons. Are you people still there? Most have heard everything cows got to say by this time. If you haven't, no use waiting. After all, it's a Russian legend. And Russian Grishmojiv not do for another fortnight. Better come out. After one or two ineffectual attempts he managed to pitch the key of the cowhouse door in through the window. Then this thing his voice in the strains of I'm afraid to go home in the dark with a lusty drum accompaniment he led the way back to the house. The hurried procession of the release that followed in his steps came in for a good deal of the adverse comment that his exuberant display had evoked. It was the happiest Christmas eve he had ever spent. To quote his own words he had a rotten Christmas. End of Bertie's Christmas Eve. Recording by Bill Mosley, Bernardo, Texas, USA. Story 12 Of The Toys of Peace This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Natalie Gray. The Toys of Peace Short Stories by Saki. Four Warned Alathea Debchance sat in the corner of an otherwise empty railway carriage more or less at ease as regarded body but in some trepidation as to mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of no little magnitude as compared with the accustomed seclusion and stagnation of her past life. At the age of 28 she could look back on nothing more eventful than the daily round of her existence in her aunt's house at Webelhinton, a hamlet four and a half miles distant from a country town and about a quarter of a century removed from modern times. Their neighbors had been elderly and few, not much given to social intercourse but helpful or politely sympathetic in times of illness. Newspapers of the ordinary kind were a rarity. Stories that Alathea saw regularly were devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry and the world of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her ideas on life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular respectable novel writers and modified or emphasized by such knowledge as her aunt the vicar and her aunt's housekeeper had put at her disposal. And now in her 29th year her aunt's death had left her well provided for as regards income but somewhat isolated in the matter of kith and kin and human companionship. She had some cousins who were on terms of friendly though infrequent correspondence with her but as they lived permanently in Ceylon a locality about which she knew little beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the human element there was vile they were not of much immediate use to her. Other cousins she also possessed more distant as regards relationship but not quite so geographically remote seeing that they live somewhere in the Midlands. She could hardly remember ever having met them but once or twice in the course of the last three or four years they had expressed a polite wish that she should pay them a visit. They had probably not been unduly depressed by the fact that her aunt's feeling health had prevented her from accepting their invitation. The note of condolence that had arrived on the occasion of her aunt's death had included a vague hope that Aletheia would find time in the near future to spend a few days with her cousins and after much deliberation and many hesitations she had written to propose herself as a guest for a definite date some weeks ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not a large one. The two daughters were married and away and there was only old Mrs. Bloodward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bloodward was something of an invalid and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and was going into Parliament. Further than that Aletheia's information did not go. Her imagination founded on her extensive knowledge that the people one met in novels had to supply the gaps. The mother was not difficult to place. She would either be an ultra-amiable old lady bearing her feeble health with uncomplaining fortitude and having a kind word for the gardener's boy and a sunny smile for the chance visitor or else she would be cold and peevish with eyes that pierced you like a gimlet and an unreasoning idolatry of her son. Aletheia's imagination rather inclined her to the latter view. Robert was more of a problem. There were three dominant types of manhood to be taken into consideration in working out his classification. There was Hugo who was strong, good and beautiful, a rare type and not very often met with. There was Sir Jasper who was utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous. And there was Neville who was not really bad at heart but had a weak mouth and usually required the lifework of two good women to keep him from ultimate disaster. It was probable, Aletheia considered, that Robert came into the last category in which case she was certain to enjoy the companionship of one or two excellent women and might possibly catch glimpses or come face to face with the reckless, admiration seeking married women. It was altogether an exciting prospect, this sudden venture into an unexplored world of unknown human beings. And Aletheia rather wished that she could have taken the vicar with her. She was not, however, rich or important enough to travel with a chaplain, as the Marquess of Moistenclu always did in the novel she had been reading, so she recognized that such a proceeding was out of the question. The train which carried Aletheia towards her destination was a local one with the wayside station habits strongly developed. At most of the stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave it but at one there were several market folk on the platform and two men of the farmer or small cattle dealer class entered Aletheia's carriage. Apparently they had just foregathered after a day's business and their conversation consisted of a rapid exchange of short friendly inquiries as to health, family, stock, and so forth and some grumbling remarks on the weather. Suddenly, however, their talk took a dramatically interesting turn and Aletheia listened with wide-eyed attention. What do you think of Mr. Robert Bloodworth, eh? A certain scornful ring in his question. Robert Bloodworth, an out-and-out rotter, that's what he is, ought to be ashamed to look any decent man in the face, send him to Parliament to represent us, huh, not much. He'd rob a poor man of his last shilling, he would. Ah, that he would tells a pack of lies to get our votes, that's all that he's after, damn him. Did you see the way the August showed him up this week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell you. And so on they ran in their withering indictment. There could be no doubt that it was Aletheia's cousin and prospective host to whom they were referring. The allusion to a parliamentary candidature settled that. What could Robert Bloodworth have done? What manner of man could he be that people should speak of him with such obvious reprobation? He was hissed down at Shulford yesterday, said one of the speakers. Hissed? Had it come to that? There was something dramatically biblical in the idea of Robert Bloodworth's neighbours and acquaintances hissing him for very scorn. Lord Horowitz Strangliffe had been hissed. Now Aletheia came to think of it in the eighth chapter of Matterby Towers while in the act of opening a Wesleyan bazaar, because he was suspected unjustly as it turned out afterwards of having beaten the German governess to death. And, in tainted guineas, Roper Squenderbee had been deservedly hissed on the steps of the Jockey Club for having handed a rival owner a forged telegram containing false news of his mother's death just before the start for an important race thereby ensuring the withdrawal of his rival's horse. In placid Saxon-blooded England people did not demonstrate their feelings lightly and without some strong compelling cause. What manner of evildoer was Robert Bloodworth? The train stopped at another small station and the two men got out. One of them left behind him a copy of the Argus the local paper to which he had made reference. Aletheia pounced on it in the expectation of finding a cultured literary endorsement of the censure which these rough farming men had expressed in their homely honest way. She had not far to look. Mr. Robert Bloodworth, swanker, was the title of one of the principal articles in the paper. She did not exactly know what a swanker was. Probably it referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty. But she read enough in the first few sentences of the article to discover that her cousin Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was an unscrupulous, unprincipled character of a low order of intelligence yet cunning with all, and that he and his associates were responsible for most of the misery, disease, poverty and ignorance with which the country was afflicted. Never except in one or two of the denunciatory psalms, which she had always supposed to have been written in a spirit of exaggerated oriental imagery, had she read such an indictment of a human being. And this monster was going to meet her at Darrelton Station in a few short minutes. She would know him at once. He would have the dark beatling brows, the quick furtive glance, the sneering, unsavory detail that always characterized the surjaspers of this world. It was too late to escape. She must force herself to meet him with outward calm. It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, with a snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. A serpent in duckling's plumage was her private comment. Merciful chance had revealed him to her in his true colors. As they drove away from the station, a dissipated-looking man of the laboring class waved his hat in friendly salute. Good luck to you, Mr. Bloodwood! He shouted, You'll come out on top. We'll break old Chabham's neck for him. Who was that man? Asked Alathea quickly. Oh! one of my supporters laughed Robert. A bit of a poacher and a bit of a loafer, but he's on the right side. So these were the sorts of associates that Robert Bloodwood consorted with, thought Alathea. Who is the person he referred to as old Chabham? She asked. Sir John Chabham, the man who is opposing me, answered Robert. That is his house away there among the trees on the right. So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in character, who was thwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career, and there was a dastardly plot afoot to break his neck. Possibly the attempt would be made within the next few hours. He must certainly be warned. Alathea remembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in nightshade court, had pretended to be bolted with by her horse up to the front door of a threatened county magnate and had whispered a warning in his ear which saved him from being the victim of foul murder. She wondered if there was a quiet pony in the stables on which she would be allowed to ride out alone. The chances were that she would be watched. Robert would come spurring after her and seize her bridle just as she was turning in at Sir John's gates. A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them no very friendly looks, and Alathea thought she heard a furtive hiss. A moment later they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle. He had the frank, open countenance, neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes that betoken a clear conscience and a good mother. He stared straight at the occupants of the car and after he had passed them sang in his clear boyish voice We'll hang Bobby Bloodward on the sour apple tree! Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn and condemnation of his fellow men. He had goaded them to desperation with his shameless depravity till they spoke openly of putting him to a violent death, and he laughed. Mrs. Bloodward proved to be of the type that Alathea had suspected, thin-lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son. From her no help was to be expected. Alathea locked her door that night and placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the maid had great difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the morning. After breakfast, Alathea, on the pretext of going to look at an outlying rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they had passed on the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had pointed out to her a public reading-room and here she considered it possible that she might meet Sir John Chabham, or someone who knew him well and would carry a message to him. The room was empty when she entered it. A graphic, twelve days old, a yet older copy of Punch and one or two local papers lay upon the central table. The other tables were stacked for the most part with chess and draughts-boards and wooden boxes of chessmen and dominoes. Suddenly she picked up one of the papers, the sentinel, and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started and began to read with breathless attention a prominently printed article headed a little limelight on Sir John Chabham. The colour ebbed away from her face. A look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never in any novel that she had read had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a situation like this. Sir John, the hugo of her imagination, was, if anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bloodward. He was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country's interests. A cheat, a man who habitually broke his word and who was responsible with his associates for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national degradation with which the country was afflicted. He was also a candidate for parliament, it seemed, and as there was only one seat in this particular locality it was obvious that the success of either Robert or Sir John would mean a check to the ambitions of the other, hence, no doubt, the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindred souls. One was seeking to have his enemy done to death, the other was apparently trying to stir up his supporters to an act of lynch law, all this in order that there might be an unopposed election that one or other of the candidates might go into parliament with honeyed eloquence on his lips and blood in his heart. Were men really so vile? I must go back to Webberhinton at once, Alathea informed her astonished hostess at lunchtime. I have had a telegram. A friend is very seriously ill and I have been sent for. It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more dreadful to have to spend another night under that roof. Alathea reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. She has been herself in the world outside Webberhinton. The world where the great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had come unscathed through it. But what might have happened if she had gone unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chabem and warn him of his danger? What indeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness of the local press. End of Four Warned Recording by Natalie Gray www.voicebynatalie.com Chapter 13 of The Toys of Peace This is a LibriVox recording while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Toys of Peace by Saki In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Carpathians a man stood one winter night watching and listening as though wood to come within the range of his vision and later of his rifle. But the game for whose presence he kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman's calendar as lawful and proper for the chase. Paul Rick von Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy. The forest lands of Gradwitz of wide extent and well stocked with game. The narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game at Harvard or the shooting it afforded but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorial possessions. A famous lawsuit in the days of his grandfather had rested it from the illegal possession of a neighboring family of petty landowners. The dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgment of the courts and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandals had embittered the relationships between the families for three generations. The neighbor feud had grown into a personal one since Paul Rick had come to be head of his family. If there was a man in the world whom he detested and wished ill too, it was George's Niamm. The inheritor of the quarrel and the tireless game snatcher and raider of the disputed border forest. The feud might perhaps have died down or been compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in the way. As boys they had thirsted for one another's blood. As men each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other. And this winged scourge, wintered night, Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the dark forest not inquest a forefooted quarry but to keep a lookout for the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being a foot from across the land boundary. A row-buck which usually kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm wind were running like driven things tonight and there was movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleep through the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing element in the forest and Ulrich could guess the quarry from once it came. He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed an ambush on the crest of the hill and wandered farer down the deep slopes amid the wild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listening through the whistling and scurling of the trees and the restless beating of the branches for sight and sound of the marauders. If only on this night in this dark-lone spot he might come across George's niam man to man with none to witness. That was the wish that was uppermost in his thoughts he stepped around the trunk of a huge beach. He came face to face with the man he sought. The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to the passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the coat of a restraining civilization cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his neighbor in cold blood and without words spoken except for an offense against his hearth and honor. And before the moment of hesitation had given way to action a deed of nature's own violence overwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by a splitting crash over their heads and ere they could leap aside a mass of falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich John Grodwitz found himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and the other held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces but if his fractures were not as serious as they might have been at least it was evident that he could not move from his present position till someone came to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of his face and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashes before he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side so near that under ordinary circumstance he could almost have touched him like George Snayam alive and struggling but obviously as helplessly pinioned down as himself. All around them lay a thick strewn wreckage of splintered branches and broken twigs. Relief at being alive in exasperation at his captive plight brought a strange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp curses to Ulrich's lips. George who was nearly blinded with the blood which trickled across his eyes stopped his struggling for a moment to listen and then gave a short snarling laugh. So you're not killed as you ought to be but you're caught anyway. He cried caught fast. Not a jest. Ulrich von Graudwitz snared in his own stolen forest. There's a real justice for you. And he laughed again mockingly and savagely. I'm caught in my own forest land retorted Ulrich. When my men come to release us you will wish perhaps that you were in a better plight than caught poaching on the neighbor's land. Shame on you. George was silent for a moment and answered quietly. Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men too in the forest tonight close behind me and they will be here first and do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these damn branches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll this massive trunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find you dead under a fallen beech tree. For form's sake I shall send my condolences to your family. It is a useful hint," said Ulrich fiercely. My men had orders to follow in ten minutes' time, seven of which must have gone by already, and when they get me out I will remember that hint. Only as you will have met your death poaching on my lands I don't think I can decently send any message of condolence to your family. Good, snarled George Good, we fight this quarrel out to the death you and I and our foresters with no cursed interlopers to come between us. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Grodwitz. The same to you, George Sniam, Forrest Thief Game Snatcher. Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them for each new that it might be long before his men would seek him out or find him. It was a bare matter of chance which party would arrive first on the scene. Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from the massive wood that held them down. Ulrich glimpsed his endeavors to an effort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his outer coat pocket to draw out his wine flask. Even when he had accomplished that operation it was long before he could manage the unscrewing of the stopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. But what a heaven-sent trot it seemed. It was an open winter and little things yet. Hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have been the case at all that season of the year. Nevertheless the wine was warming and reviving to the wounded man and he looked across with something like a throp of pity to where his enemy lay. Just keeping the groans of pain and weariness from crossing his lips. Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you? Ask Ulrich suddenly. And one may as well be as comfortable as one can. Let us drink even if tonight one of us dies. No, I could scarcely see anything. There's so much blood caked around my eyes said George. In any case I don't think I could drink wine with an enemy. Ulrich was silent for a few minutes and lay listening to the weary screeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in his brain. An idea that gained strength every time that he looked across at the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In the pain and langer that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred seemed to be dying down. Neighbor, he said presently, do as you please if your men come first. It was a fair compact. But as for me I've changed my mind. If my men are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped as though you were my guest. We have quarreled like devils all of our lives over the stupid strip of forest where the trees can't even stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying here tonight thinking I've come to think we've been rather fools. There are better things in life than getting the better of a boundary dispute. Neighbor, if you will help me to bury the old quarrel I will ask you to be my friend. George Sniam was silent for so long that Ulrich thought perhaps he had fainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and in jerks. How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market square together. No one living can remember seeing us Sniam and a Von Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there would be among the forest or folk if we ended our feud tonight. And if we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to interfere no interlopers from outside. You would come and keep the Sylvester night beneath my roof and I would come and feast on some high day at your castle. I would never fire a shot on your land save when you invited me as a guest and you should come and shoot with me down in the marshes where the wildfowl are. In all the countryside there are none that could hinder if we will to make peace. I never thought to have wanted to do you all my life but I think I have changed my mind about things too this last half hour and you offered me your wine flask. Ulrich Von Gradwitz I will be your friend. For a space both men were silent turning over in their minds the wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about. In the cold gloomy forest with the wind tearing and fitful gusts through the naked branches and whistling around the tree trunks they lay and waited for the help that would now bring release and sucker to both parties. And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be the first to arrive so that he might be the first to show honorable intention to the enemy that had become a friend. Presently as the wind dropped for a moment Ulrich broke silence. Let's shout for help he said. He said in this lull our voices may carry a little way. They won't carry far through the trees and undergrowth said George but we can try. Together then the two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call. Together again said Ulrich a few minutes later after listening in vain for an answering hello I heard nothing but the pesitantential wind said George hoarsely. There was silence again for some minutes and then Ulrich gave a joyful cry. I can see figures coming through the woods. They are following in the way I came down the hillside. Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could muster. They hear us they've stopped. Now they see us they're running down the hill towards us cried Ulrich. How many of them are there asked George. I can't see distinctly said Ulrich nine or ten. Then they are yours said George. I only had seven out with me. They are making all the speed they can brave lad said Ulrich gladly. Are they your men? Asked George are they your men? He repeated impatiently as Ulrich did not answer. No said Ulrich with a laugh the idiotic chattering laugh of a man unstrugged with hideous fear. Who are they? Asked George quickly straining his eyes to see what the other would gladly not have seen. Wolves and of the interlopers. Story number 14 of The Toys of Peace This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Toys of Peace short stories by Saki Quail Seed The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller businesses said Mr. Scarik to the artist and his sister who had taken rooms over his suburban grocery store. These big concerns are offering all sorts of attractions to the shopping public which we couldn't afford to imitate even on a small scale reading rooms and play rooms and gramophones and heaven knows what. People don't care to buy half a pound of sugar nowadays unless they can listen to Harry Lauder and have the latest Australian cricket scores ticked off before their eyes. With the big Christmas stock we've got in we ought to keep half a dozen assistants hard at work but as it is my nephew Jimmy and myself can pretty well tend to it ourselves. It's a nice stock of goods too if only I could run it off in a few weeks time but there's no chance of that not unless the London line was to get snowed up for a fort night before Christmas. I did have a sort of idea of engaging Miss Lufgolm to give recitations during afternoons. She made a great hit at the post office entertainment with her reading of Little Beatrice's Resolve. Anything less likely to make your shop a fashionable shopping center I can't imagine said the artist with a very genuine shutter. If I were trying to decide between the merits of Carlsbad plums and confected figs as a winter dessert it would infuriate me to have my train of thought entangled with Little Beatrice's Resolve or a girl's scout. No, he continued. The desire to get something thrown in for nothing is a ruling passion with the feminine shopper but you can't afford to pander effectively to it. Why not appeal to another instinct which dominates not only the woman shopper but the male shopper in fact the entire human race. What is that instinct sir? said the grocer. It was not a train until 312 they thought they might as well make their grocery purchases at Scarex. It would not be sensational they agreed but it would still be shopping. For some minutes they had the shop almost to themselves as far as customers were concerned but while they were debating the virtues and blemishes of two competing brands of anchovy paste they were startled by an order given across the counter for six pomegranates and a packet of quail seed. Neither commodity was in general demand in that neighborhood. Equally unusual was the style and appearance of the customer about sixteen years old with dark olive skin and thick low growing blue black hair he might have made his living as an artist's model. As a matter of fact he did. The bowl of beaten brass that he produced for the reception of his purchases was distinctly the most astonishing variation on the string bag or marketing basket of suburban civilization that his fellow shoppers had ever seen. He threw a gold piece apparently of some exotic currency across the counter and did not seem disposed to wait for any change that might be forthcoming. The wine and figs were not paid for yesterday, he said. Keep what is over of the money for our future purchases. A very strange looking boy said Mrs. Greys interrogatively to the grocer as soon as his customer had left. A foreigner, I believe, said Mr. Scarik with a shortness that was entirely out of keeping with his usually communicative manner. I wish for a pound and a half of the best coffee you have, said an authoritative voice a moment or two later. The speaker was a tall authoritative looking man of rather outlandish aspect remarkable among other things for a full black beard worn in a style more in vogue in earlier Syria than in a London suburb of the present day. Has a dark-faced boy been here buying pomegranates? He asked suddenly as the coffee was being weighed out to him. The two ladies almost jumped on hearing the grocer reply with an unblushing negative. We have a few pomegranates in stock, he continued, but there has been no demand for them. My servant will fetch the coffee as usual, said the purchaser, producing a coin from a wonderful metalwork purse. As an apparent afterthought he fired out the question have you perhaps any quail seed? No, said the grocer without hesitation, we don't stock it. What will he deny next? asked Mrs. Graeus under her breath. What made it seem so much worse was the fact that Mr. Scarrick had quite recently presided at a lecture on Savanna Rola. Turning up the deep astrakhan collar of his long coat, the stranger swept out of the shop with the air misfritten afterwards described it of a satrap prorugging a sandhrime. Whether such a pleasant function ever fell to a satrap's lot, she was not quite certain, but the simile faithfully conveyed her meaning to a large circle of acquaintances. Don't let's bother about the three twelve, said Mrs. Graeus. Let's go and talk this over at Laura Lippings. It's her day. When the dark-faced boy arrived at the shop the next day with his brass marketing bowl, there was quite a fair gathering of customers, most of whom seemed to be spinning out their purchasing operations with the air of people who had very little to do with their time. In a voice that was heard all over the shop, perhaps because everybody was intently listening, he asked for a pound of honey and a packet of quail seed. More quail seed, said Miss Fritten. Those quails must be voracious or else it isn't quail seed at all. I believe it's opium and the bearded man is a detective, said Mrs. Graeus brilliantly. I don't, said Laura Lippings. I'm sure it's something to do with the Portuguese throne. More likely to be a Persian intrigue on behalf of the ex-sha, said Mrs. Fritten. The bearded man belongs to the government party. The quail seed is a counter-sign, of course. Persia is almost next door to Palestine and quails come into the Old Testament, you know. Only as a miracle, said her well-informed younger sister, I've thought all along it was part of a love intrigue. The boy who had so much interest and speculation centered on him was on the point of departing on purchases when he was way-laid by Jimmy, the nephew of Prentice, who, from his post at the cheese and bake encounter, commanded a good view of the street. We have some very fine jaffa oranges, he said hurriedly, pointing to a corner where they were stored behind a high rampart of biscuit tents. There was evidently more in the remark than met the ear. The boy flew at the oranges with the enthusiasm of a ferret, finding a rabbit family at home after a long day of fruitless, subterranean research. Almost at the same moment the bearded stranger walked into the shop and flung in order for a pound of dates and a tin of the best smirnin' halva across the counter. The most adventurous housewife in the locality had never heard of halva, but Mr. Skerrick was apparently able to produce the best smirna' variety of it without a moment's hesitation. We might be living in the Arabian nights, said Miss Fritten excitedly. Hush, listen, beseeched Mrs. Grace. Has the dark-faced boy, of whom I spoke yesterday, been here today? asked the stranger. We've had rather more people than usual in the shop today, said Mr. Skerrick, but I can't recall a boy such as you described. Mrs. Grace and Miss Fritten looked round triumphantly at their friends. It was, of course, deplorable that anyone should treat the truth as an article temporarily and exclusively out of stock, but they felt gratified that the vivid accounts they had given of Mr. Skerrick's traffic in falsehoods should receive confirmation at first hand. I shall never be able to believe what he tells me about the absence of colouring matter in the jam, whispered an ant of Mrs. Grace tragically. The mysterious stranger took his departure. Laura Lipping distinctly saw a snarl of baffled rage reveal itself behind his heavy moustache and upturned a strack in colour. After a cautious interval the seeker after oranges emerged from behind the biscuit tins, having apparently failed to find any individual orange that satisfied his requirements. He too took his departure and the shop was slowly emptied of its parcel and gossip laden customers. It was Emily Yorling's day and most of the shoppers made their way to her drawing room. To go directly from a shopping exposition to a tea party was what was known locally as living in a world. Two extra assistants had been engaged for the following afternoon and their services were in brisk demand. The shop was crowded. People bought and bought and never seemed to get to the end of their lists. Mr. Scarrick had never had so little difficulty in persuading customers to embark on new experiences in grocery wares. Even those women whose purchases were of modest proportions dawdled over them as though they had brutal drunken husbands to go home to. The afternoon had dragged uneventfully on and there was a distinct buzz of un-pent excitement when a dark-eyed boy carrying a brass bowl entered the shop. The excitement seemed to have communicated itself to Mr. Scarrick, abruptly deserting a lady who was making insincere inquiries about the home life of the Bombay duck. He intercepted the newcomer on his way to the accustomed counter and informed him amid a death-like hush that he had run out of quail seed. The boy looked nervously round the shop and turned hesitatingly to go. He was again intercepted this time by the nephew who darted out from behind his counter and said something about a better line of oranges. The boy's hesitation vanished. He almost scuttled into the obscurity of the orange corner. There was an expectant turn of public attention towards the door and the tall, bearded stranger made a really effective entrance. Maria's declared afterwards that she found herself subconsciously repeating. The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold under her breath, and she was generally believed. The newcomer too was stopped before he reached the counter, but not by Mr. Scarrick or his assistant. A heavily veiled lady whom no one had hitherto noticed rose languidly from a seat and greeted him in a clear penetrating voice. Your Excellency does his shopping himself? She said. I order things myself, he explained. I find it difficult to make my servants understand. In a lower but still perfectly audible voice the veiled lady gave him a piece of casual information. Some excellent jaffa oranges here. Then with a tinkling laugh she passed out of the shop. The man glared all around the shop, and then fixing his eyes instinctively on the barrier of biscuit tens demanded loudly of the grocers. Have you perhaps some good jaffa oranges? Everyone expected an instant denial on the part of Mr. Scarrick of any such possession. Before he could answer, however, the boy had broken forth from his sanctuary. Holding his empty brass bowl before him, he passed out into the street. His face was variously described afterwards as masked with studied indifference, overspread with ghastly pallor and blazing with defiance. Some said that his teeth chattered, others that he went out whistling the Persian national hymn. There was no mistaking, however, the effect produced by the encounter on the man who had seemed to force it. If a rabid dog or a rattlesnake had suddenly thrust its companionship on him, he could scarcely have displayed a greater excess of terror. His air of authority and assertiveness had gone. His masterful stride had given way to a furtive pacing to and fro as of an animal seeking an outlet for escape. In a dazed, perfunctory manner always with his eyes turning to watch the shop entrance he gave a few random orders which the grocer made a show of entering in his book. Now and then he walked out into the street, look anxiously in all directions, and hurried back to keep up his pretense of shopping. From one of these sorties he did not return. He had dashed away into the dusk and neither he, nor the dark-faced boy, nor the veiled lady were seen again by the expected crowds that continued to throng the scaric establishment for days to come. I can never thank you and your sister sufficiently said the grocer. We enjoyed the fun of it, said the artist modestly, and as for the model, it was a welcome variation on posing for hours for the lost healers. At any rate, said the grocer, I insist on paying for the hire of the black beard. End of Quail Seed. 15 of the Toys of Peace. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information are to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recorded by Jenny The Toys of Peace Short Stories by Saki Kenosa The Mastanus Platterbath, the eminent unrest and doosers stood on his trial for a serious offence and the eyes of the political world were focused on the jury. The offence, it should be stated, was serious for the government rather than for the prisoner. He had blown up the Albert Hall on the eve of the great liberal Federation tango tea. The occasion on which the chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to propound his new theory, do partridges spread infectious diseases. Platterbath had chosen his time well. The tango tea had been harriedly postponed, but there were other political fixtures which could not be put off under any circumstances. The day after the trial, there was to be a by-election at Nemesis on hand. And it had been openly announced in the division that if Platterbath were languishing in Gale on polling day, the candidate would be outed to a certain tea. Unfortunately, there could be no doubt or misconception as to Platterbath's guilt. He had not only pleaded guilty, but had expressed his intention of repeating his escapade in other directions as soon as circumstances permitted. Throughout the trial, he was busy examining a small model of the free trade hall in Manchester. The jury could not possibly find that the prisoner had not deliberately and intentionally blown up the Albert Hall. The question was, could they find any extenuating circumstances which would permit of an acquittal? Of course, any sentence which the law might feel compelled to inflict would be followed by an immediate pardon. But it was highly desirable from the government's point of view that the necessity for such an exercise of clemency should not arise. A headlong pardon, and the eve of a by-election with threats of a heavy voting defection if it were withheld or even delayed, would not necessarily be a surrender, but it would look like one. Opponents would be only too ready to contribute ungenerous motives. Hence, the anxiety in the crowded court and in the little groups gathered round the tape machines on Doning Street and other affected centres. The jury returned from considering their verdict. There was a flutter, an excited murmur, a death-like hush. The foreman delivered his message. The jury found the prisoner guilty of blowing up the Albert Hall. The jury wished to add a writer, drawing attention to the fact that a by-election was pending in the Parliamentary Division of Nemesis on hand. That, of course, said the government prosecutors, bringing to his feet, is equivalent to an acquittal. I hardly think so, said the judge coldly. I feel obliged to sentence the prisoner to a week's imprisonment. And may the Lord have mercy on the pole. A junior consul exclaimed irreverently. It was a scandalous sentence, but then the judge was not on the ministerial side in politics. The verdict and sentence were made known to the public at 20 minutes past five in the afternoon. At half past five, a dense crowd was massed outside the Prime Minister's residence, last-dayly singing to the air of Trelawney. And should our hero rot in gale, for in a single day, there's 1500 voting men will vote the other way. 1500 said the Prime Minister with a shudder. It's too horrible to think of. Our majority last time was only a thousand and seven. The poll opens at eight tomorrow morning, said the Chief Organizer. We must have him out at 7 a.m. 7 30 amended the Prime Minister. We must avoid any appearance of precipitancy. Not later than 7 30 then, said the Chief Organizer. I have promised the agent down there that he shall be able to display posters announcing Platterbath is out before the poll opens. He said it was our only chance of getting a telegram. Red Rapids in, tonight. At half past 7 the next morning, the Prime Minister and the Chief Organizer sat at breakfast making a perfunctory meal and awaiting the return of the Home Secretary, who had gone to person to super intend the releasing of Platterbath. Despite the earlyness of the hour, a small crowd had gathered in the street outside and the horrible menacing, tree-lawn refrain of the 1500 voting men came in a steady, monotonous chant. They will cheer presently when they hear the news, said the Prime Minister, hopefully. Hark! They are booing someone now. They must be McKenna. The Home Secretary entered the room a moment later, disaster written on his face. He won't go. He exclaimed, won't go. Won't leave the gale. He won't go unless he has a brass band. He says he never has left prison without a brass band to play him out. And he's not going to go without one now. But surely that sort of thing is provided by his supporters said the Prime Minister. We can hardly be supposed to supply a released prisoner with a brass band. How on earth could we defend it on the estimates? His supporters say it is up to us to provide the music, said the Home Secretary. They say we put him in prison and it's our affair to see that he lives in a respectable manner. Anyway, he won't go unless he has a band. The telephone squealed shrilly. It was a trunk call from Nemesis. Paul opens in five minutes. Is Platterbuff out yet? In Heaven's name, why? The chief organizer rang off. This is not a moment for standing on dignity. He observed bluntly. Musicians must be supplied at once. Platterbuff must have his band. Where are you going to find musicians, as the Home Secretary really? We can't employ a military band. In fact, I don't think he'd have one if we offered it. And there ain't any others. There's a musician strike on, I suppose you know. Can't you get a strike permit, as the organizer? I'll try, said the Home Secretary and went to the telephone. Eight o'clock struck. The crowd outside chanted with an increasing volume of sound. We'll vote the other way. A telegram was brought in. It was from the Central Committee rooms at Nemesis. Losing 20 votes per minute was its brief message. Ten o'clock struck. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the chief organizer and several earnest, helpful friends were gathered in the inner gateway of the prison, talking volubly to the mustanus Platterbuff. Who stood with folded arms in squarely planted feet silent in their midst. Golden Tongue legislators whose eloquence had swayed the Marcony Inquiry Committee or at any rate, the greater part of it expended their arts of oratory in vain on this stubborn and yielding man. Without a band, he would not go. And they had no band. A quarter passed ten. Half passed. A constant stream of telegraph boys poured in through the prison gates. This factory, hence, just voted. You can guess how. Ran a despairing message. And the others were all of the same tenure. Nemesis was going the way of reading. Have you any band instruments of an easy nature to play? Demanded the chief organizer of the prison governor. Drums, symbols, those sort of things. The warders have a private band of their own, said the governor. But, of course, I couldn't allow them and themselves. Lendus the instruments, said the chief organizer. One of the earnest helpful friends was a skilled performer on the corny. The cabinet ministers were able to clash symbols more or less in tune. And the chief organizer has some knowledge of the drum. What tune would you prefer? He asked Platterbath. The popular song of the moment, replied the agitator after a moment's reflection. It was a tune they had all heard hundreds of times. So, there was no difficulty in turning out a passable imitation of it. To the improvised trains of I didn't want to do it, the prisoners strode forth to freedom. The word of the song had reference. It was understood. To the incarcerating government and not to the destroyer of the Albert Hall. The seat was lost after all by a narrow majority. The local trade unionists took offense at the fact of cabinet ministers having personally acted as strike breakers and even the release of Platterbath failed to pacify them. The seat was lost but ministers had scored a moral victory. They had shown that they knew when and how to yield. End of Canosa, recording by Jenny. The Toys of Peace This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Toys of Peace Short Stories by Saki The Threat Sir Lull with Quain sat in the lounge of his favorite restaurant, the Gullus Bankiva discussing the weaknesses of the world with his nephew who had lately returned from a much enlivened exile in the wilds of Mexico. It was that blessed season of the year when the asparagus and the plover's egg are abroad in the land and the oyster has not yet withdrawn into its summer entrenchments and Sir Lull with and his nephew were in that enlightened after-dinner mood when politics are seen in their right perspective, even the politics of Mexico. Most of the revolutions that take place in this country nowadays, said Mr. Lullworth, are the products of moments of legislative panic. Take, for instance, one of the most dramatic reforms that has been carried through Parliament in the lifetime of this generation. The great of unblessed memory to you who had then plunged up to the neck in events of a more tangled and tumbled description the things I am going to tell you of may seem of secondary interest but after all we had to live in the midst of them. Sir Lullworth interrupted himself for a moment to say a few kind words to the liqueur brandy he had just tasted whether one sympathizes with the agitation of female suffrage or not one has to admit that its promoters showed tireless energy and considerable enterprise in devising and putting into action new methods for accomplishing their ends. As a rule there were a nuisance and a weariness to the flesh but there were times when they verged on the picturesque. There was the famous occasion when they alivened and diversified the customary pageantry of the royal progress to open parliament by letting loose thousands of parrots which had been carefully trained to scream voices for women and which circled round his majesty's coach in a clamorous cloud of green and gray and scarlet. It was really rather a striking episode from the particular point of view. Unfortunately, however, for its divisors the secret of their intentions had not been well kept and their opponents let loose at the same moment a rival swarm of parrots which screeched I don't think and other hostile cries thereby robbing the demonstration of the unanimity which alone could have made it politically impressive. In the process of recapture the birds formed a quantity of additional language which unfitted them for further service in the suffragette cause. Some of the green ones were secured by ardent home rule propagandists and trained to disturb the serenity of orange meetings by pessimistic reflections on Sir Edward Carson's destination in the life to come. In fact, the bird in politics is a factor that seems to be quite recently at a political gathering held in a dimly lighted place of worship. The congregation gave a respectful hearing for nearly ten minutes to a jack-daw from whopping under the impression that they were listening to the Chancellor of the Exchequer who was late in arriving. But the suffragettes interrupted the nephew. What did they do next? After the bird fiasco said Sir Lallworth the militant section made a demonstration of a more aggressive nature. They assembled in force on the opening day of the Royal Academy Exhibition and destroyed some three or four hundred of the pictures. This proved an even worse failure than the Perth business. Everyone agreed that there were always far too many pictures in the Academy Exhibition and the drastic weeding out of a few hundred canvases was regarded as a positive improvement. Moreover, from the artist's point of view it was realized that the outrage constituted a sort of compensation for those whose works were persistently skied since out of sight meant also out of reach. All together it was one of the most successful and popular exhibitions that the Academy had held for many years. Then the fair agitators fell back on some of their earlier works. They wrote sweetly argumentative plays to prove that they ought to have the vote. They smashed windows to show that they must have the vote and they kicked cabinet ministers to demonstrate that they'd better have the vote and still the coldly reasoned or unreasoned reply was that they'd better not. Their plight might have been summed up in a perversion of Gilbert's lines. Twenty voteless all against our will. Twenty years hence we shall be twenty voteless millions still. And of course the great idea for their master stroke of strategy came from a masculine source. Lena Dubari who was the captain general of their thinking department met Waldo Orpington in the mall one afternoon just at a time when the fortunes of the cause were at their lowest ebb. Waldo Orpington is a frivolous little fool who cheerips at drawing room concerts and can recognize bits from different composers without referring to the program but all the same he occasionally has ideas. He didn't care a too penny fiddle string about the cause but he rather enjoyed the idea of having his finger in the political pie. Also it is possible though I should think highly improbable that he admired Lena Dubari. Anyhow when Lena gave a rather gloomy account of the existing state of things in the suffragette world Waldo was not merely sympathetic but ready with a practical suggestion. Turning his gaze westward along the mall towards the setting sun and bucking him palace he was silent for a moment and then said significantly you have expended your energies and enterprise on labors of destruction why has it never occurred to you to attempt something far more terrific what do you mean she asked him eagerly create do you mean create disturbances we've been doing nothing else for months she said Waldo shook his head and continued to look westward along the mall he's rather good at acting in an amateur sort of fashion Lena followed his gaze and then turned to him with a puzzled look of inquiry exactly said Waldo an answer to her look but how can we create she asked it's been done already do it again said Waldo and again and again before he could finish the sentence she had kissed him she declared afterwards that he was the first man she had ever kissed and he declared that she was the first woman who had ever kissed him in the mall so they both secured a record of a kind within the next day or two a new departure was noticeable in suffragette tactics they gave up worrying ministers and parliament and took to worrying their own sympathizers and supporters for funds the ballot box was temporarily forgotten in the cult of the collecting box the daughters of the horse leech were not more persistent in their demands the financiers of the tottering ancient regime were not more desperate in their expedience for raising money than the suffragist workers of all sections at this juncture and in one way or another by fair means or normal they really got together a very useful sum what they were going to do with it no one seemed to know not even those who were most active in collecting work the secret on this occasion had been well kept certain transactions that leaked out from time to time only added to the mystery of the situation don't you long to know what we are going to do with our treasure hoard? Lena asked the prime minister one day when she happened to sit next to him at a wist drive at the Chinese embassy I was hoping you were going to try a little personal bribery he responded banteringly but some genuine anxiety and curiosity lay behind the lightness of his chaff of course I know he added that you have been buying up building sites in commanding situations in and around the metropolis two or three I'm told are on the road to Brighton and another near Ascot you don't mean to fortify them do you? something more insidious than that she said you could prevent us from building forts you can't prevent us from erecting an exact replica of the Victoria Memorial on each of those sites they're all private property with no building restrictions attached which memorial he asked not the one in front of Buckingham Palace surely not that one that one she said my dear lady he cried you can't be serious it's a beautiful and imposing work of art at any rate one is getting accustomed to it and even if one doesn't happen to admire it one can always look in another direction but imagine what life would be like if one saw that erection confronting one wherever one went imagine the effect on people with tired harassed nerves who saw it three times on the way to Brighton and three times on the way back imagine seeing it dominate the landscape at Ascot and trying to keep your eye off it on the sandwich golf links what have your countrymen done to deserve such a thing they have refused us the vote said Lena bitterly the prime minister always declared himself an opponent of anything savoring of panic legislation but he brought a bill into parliament forthwith and successfully appealed to both houses to pass it through all its stages within the week and that is how we got one of the most glorious measures of the century a measure conferring the vote on women asked the nephew oh dear no an act which made it a penal offence to erect commemorative statuary anywhere within three miles of a public highway end of the threat story number 17 of the toys of peace this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by Martin Geeson the toys of peace short stories by Sackie except in Mrs. Pencerby it was Reggie Bruttle's own idea for converting what had threatened to be an albino elephant into a beast of burden that should help him along the stony road of his finances the limes which had come to him by inheritance without any accompanying provision for its upkeep was one of those pretentious unaccommodating mansions which numbered a man of wealth could afford to live in and which not one wealthy man in a hundred would choose on its merits it might easily languish in the estate market for years set round with notice boards proclaiming it in the eyes of a skeptical world to be an evidently desirable residence Reggie's scheme was to turn it into the headquarters of a prolonged country house party in session during the months from October till the end of March a party consisting of young or youngish people of both sexes too poor to be able to do much hunting or shooting on a serious scale but keen on getting their fill of goph, bridge, dancing and occasional theatre going no one was to be on the footing of a paying guest but everyone was to rank as a paying host a committee would look after the catering and expenditure an informal subcommittee would make itself useful in helping forward the amusement side of the scheme as it was only an experiment there was to be a general agreement on the part of those involved in it to be as lenient and mutually helpful to one another as possible already a promising nucleus including one or two young married couples had been got together and the thing seemed to be fairly launched with good management and little unobtrusive hard work I think the thing ought to be a success said Reggie and Reggie was one of those people who are painstaking first and optimistic afterwards there is one rock on which you will unfailingly come to grief manage you never so wisely said Major Dagbury cheerfully the women will quarrel mind you continued this profit of disaster I don't say that some of the men won't quarrel too probably they will but the women are bound to you can't prevent it it's in the nature of the sex the hand that locks the cradle locks the world in a volcanic sense a woman will endure discomfort and make sacrifices and go without things to an heroic extent but the one luxury she will not go without is her quarrels no matter where she may be or how transient her appearance on the scene she will install her feminine feuds as assuredly as a Frenchman concoct soup in the waste of the Arctic regions at the commencement of a sea voyage before the male traveller knows half a dozen of his fellow passengers by sight the average woman will have started a couple of enmities and laid in material for one or two more provided of course that there are sufficient women aboard to permit quarrelling in the plural if there's no one else she will quarrel with a stewartess this experiment of yours is to run for six months in less than five weeks there will be war to the knife declaring itself in half a dozen different directions oh come there are only eight women in the party they won't pick quarrels quite so soon as that protested Reggie they won't all originate quarrels perhaps conceded the major but they will all take sides and just as Christmas is upon you with its conventions of peace and goodwill you will find yourself in for a glacial epoch of cold unforgiving hostility with an occasional etna flair of open warfare you can't help it old boy but at any rate you can't say you are not warned the first five weeks of the venture falsified major dagburys prediction and justified Reggie's optimism there were of course occasional small bickering and the existence of certain jealousies might be detected below the surface of everyday intercourse but on the whole the women folk got on remarkably well together there was however a notable exception it had not taken five weeks for mrs. Penthobee to get herself cordially disliked by the members of her own sex five days had been amply sufficient most of the women declared that they had detested her the moment they set eyes on her but that was probably an afterthought with the men folk she got on well enough without being of the type of woman who can only bask in male society neither was she lacking in the general qualities which make an individual useful and desirable as a member of a cooperative community she did not try to get the better of her fellow hosts by snatching little advantages or cleverly evading her just contributions she was not inclined to be boring or snobbish in the way of personal reminiscence she played a fair game of bridge and her card or manners were irreproachable but wherever she came in contact the light of battle kindled at once her talent of arousing animosity seemed to bore her on positive genius whether the object of her attentions was thick-skinned or sensitive quick-tempered or good-natured mrs. Penthaby managed to achieve the same effect she exposed little weaknesses she prodded sore places she snubbed enthusiasm she was generally right in a matter of argument or if wrong she somehow contrived to make her adversary appear foolish and opinionated she did and said horrible things in a matter of fact innocent way in short the unanimous feminine verdict on her was that she was objectionable there was no question of taking sides as the major had anticipated in fact dislike of mrs. Penthaby was almost a bond of union between the other women and more than one threatening disagreement with her was her successful assumption of unruffled composure at moments when the tempers of her adversaries where with difficulty kept under control she made her most scathing remarks in the tone of a tube of her own her own her own her own remarks in the tone of a tube conductor announcing that the next station is Brumpton Road the measured listless tone of one who knows he is right but is utterly indifferent to the fact that he proclaims on one occasion mrs. Val Guepton who was not blessed with the most repose full of temperaments fairly let herself go and gave mrs. Penthaby a vivid and truthful resume of her opinion of her the object of this unpent storm of accumulated animosity waited patiently for a lull and then remarked quietly to the angry little woman and now my dear mrs. Guepton let me tell you something that I've been wanting to say for the last two or three minutes I knew you wouldn't give me a chance you've got a hairpin dropping out on the left side you thin-haired women always find it difficult to keep your hairpins in what can one do with a woman like that mrs. Val demanded afterwards of a sympathizing audience of course Reggie received numerous hints as to the unpopularity of this personality. His sister-in-law openly tackled him on the subject of her many enormities Reggie listened with the attenuated regret that one bestows on an earthquake disaster in Bolivia or a crop failure in eastern Turkistan events which seem so distant that one can almost persuade oneself they haven't happened that woman has got some hold over him opined his sister-in-law darkly either she is helping him to finance the show and presumes on the fact or else which heaven forbid he's got some queer infatuation for her men do take the most extraordinary offences matters never came exactly to a crisis mrs. Penserby as a source of personal offence spread herself over so wide an area that no one woman of the party felt impelled to rise up and declare that she absolutely refused to stay another week in the same house with her what is everybody's tragedy is nobody's tragedy there was ever a certain consolation in comparing notes as to specific acts of offence Reggie's sister-in-law had the added interest of trying to discover the secret bond which blunted his condemnation of mrs. Penserby's long catalogue of misdeeds there was little to go on from his manner towards her in public but he remained obstinately unimpressed by anything that was said against her in private with the one exception of mrs. Penserby's unpopularity the house party scheme was a success on its first trial and there was no difficulty about reconstructing it on the same lines for another winter session it so happened that most of the women of the party and two or three of the men would not be available on this occasion but Reggie had laid his plans well ahead and booked a party of fresh blood for the departure it would be if anything rather a larger party than before I'm so sorry I can't join this winter said Reggie's sister-in-law but we must go to our cousins in Ireland we've put them off so often what a shame you'll have none of the same women this time except in mrs. Penserby said Reggie demurely mrs. Penserby surely Reggie you're not going to be so idiotic as to have that woman again she'll set all the women's backs up just as she did this time what is this mysterious hold she's got over you she's invaluable said Reggie she's my official quarreler you're what did you say gasped his sister-in-law I introduced her into the house party for the express purpose of concentrating the feuds and quarreling that would otherwise have broken out in all directions among the women kind I didn't need the advice and warning of sundry friends to foresee that we shouldn't get through six months close companionship without a certain amount of pecking and sparring so I thought the best thing was to localize and sterilize it in one process of course I made it well worth the lady's while and as she didn't know any of you from Adam and you don't even know her real name she didn't mind getting herself disliked in a useful cause you mean to say she was in the know all the time of course she was and so were one or two of the men so she was able to have a good laugh with us behind the scenes when she'd done anything particularly outrageous and she really enjoyed herself you see she's in the position of a poor relation in a rather pugnacious family and her life has been largely spent in smoothing over other people's quarrels you can imagine the welcome relief of being able to go about saying and doing perfectly exasperating things to a whole house full of women and all in the cause of peace I think you are the most odious person in the whole world said Reggie's sister-in-law which was not strictly true more than anybody more than ever she disliked Mrs. Pencerby it was impossible to calculate how many quarrels that woman had done her out of end of accepting Mrs. Pencerby